Snap. My camera shuttered, capturing a picture of the old, abandoned park in front of me. I'd been on a road trip to a friend's house and I'd been taking so many pictures along the way. I'm from Texas and he lives in Florida, so at the moment I was passing through Louisiana. I'd always admired this state. I was satisfied with the amount of pictures I'd taken, so I turned around and got back in my car- a yellow Volkswagen beetle with daisies on the wheels.
Playing Untrust Us by Crystal Castles on my radio, I headed off down the road.
I've always loved nature and taking pictures of the world, especially with my favorite aesthetic being dreamcore/ weirdcore, nostalgiacore, and liminal spaces. I love taking pictures of locations. When I go out, I'm always taking pictures. Especially on my older cameras. Something about looking at a picture taken on an older, grainier camera makes it feel even more nostalgic. It's beautiful; making memories.
I loudly sang along to the song and turned up the volume. Even though Crystal Castles lyrics are strange and computery and hard to sing to, I still sang along.
"La cocaina is not good for you!" I sang. The topic of cocaine reminded me of my friend Frank, who I'd just recently had a dream about. In the dream, someone gave me cocaine. I don't do any drugs at all, in fact I don't even drink energy drinks (it's bad for people with POTS), so I gave it to Frank. He'd snorted it while I headed off, and then after some time, I got a call from his girlfriend Mia (also one of my closest friends) saying they were in the hospital and he'd overdosed.
I'd texted him about the dream the moment I woke up. He does shrooms but he doesn't do cocaine, so I don't know why that dream caused me to associate it with him now.
The next song came on as I slowed down to pass a dirt road leading into the woods. Oddly, my GPS told me that that was the way to go, so I backed up and turned down the dirt road. Of course, with my luck, I heard a loud bang and felt my car become harder to control.
"Damn it, my tire popped." I groaned, stopping my car and getting out. My GPS had been trying to drag me into the woods, so I figured to just see what was up here.
I reached in the car and grabbed my little backpack and camera before heading on. As I started to press on, I became aware of a disgusting smell- something rotting.
I immediately started recording.
"This may be a bad idea, so I decided I'd document it just in case, but I popped a tire and now I'm walking through the woods to get to the nearest town." I explained to the camera, still heading on. "I started smelling something rotting, so I decided to check it out."
I walked deeper into the woods, following the smell. Me being clumsy and easily distracted, I didn't notice I was walking directly towards a huge drop off until I was sliding down it. Thankfully I managed to stop sliding right before landing in a large pile of animal corpses, and my camera was attached to my wrist because of the strap, so I didn't lose anything.
Catching my balance, I pointed the camera at the pile of dead animals.
"Jesus, that's what was smelling so bad." I covered my nose with my hand, almost gagging. Someone started driving up to the pile, so I stopped recording.
He backed up his truck so the back was facing the pile, and I noticed he had a dead deer in the bed of the truck. I watched as he got out and picked up the deer by its legs, tossing it onto the pile. Then we made eye contact.
"Oh, hey." He said. He had a southern accent, and he was dressed similarly to that. He had a pretty smile. "You lost?"
"Yeah, sorta." I responded. Being from Texas, I have a slight southern accent myself, but it's definitely not as noticeable as his was. "I got a flat tire so I was looking for a town or something."
