Dear Thurman Poe

Dear Thurman Poe,

You are desolate.

The sky above you is grey, and you belong to the wintery midwest.

You reside off the highway of a town just outside of a city that is two hours away from an even bigger city and that city being about three hours away from a city even bigger.

You are nowhere and nobody and nothing.

But, who do you answer to?

One god? A king and a queen? A holy trinity?Or is it the four horsemen of the apocalypse?

I can’t leave you. That opportunity ended just as I pulled in. A traffic jam blocked your exit as I entered.

A semi-truck trailer full of mirrors over turned a mile head on the highway. There is no way of knowing if it will ever be cleaned up.

You answer to the four horsemen.

War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death.

I stop at the first of your entities down your street for my first delivery.

It’s an old factory. I usually don’t deliver to this area so I don’t know much about it besides that it’s old and dirty.

I walk up the ramp next to the dock area. It smells like diesel fuel and cigarettes.

I swing the rusted industrial door open and pass through. Now, it smells like grinded metal and oil. Fading yellow safety lines pass by on the floor as random hanging ropes and chains scrape against my shoulders as I walk.

No one is around. The only thing present is the constant scrapping and crashing of the machine in the building.

Although I don’t wish for human contact in a place like this, I need a signature for this box.

A menacing Red button stands on the wall looking at me. The print underneath indicates that I should push it, if needing service.

The low humming of the factory gets louder as I stare at the button, deciding its fate. To be pushed or not pushed. Finally, I slap it. **REEEAAAPPP** The whole factor erupted with the sound created by the lone button. I wait a few seconds for something to happen.

Down at the end of the long dark corridor was a yellowish, less dim opening that was an opening to a perpendicular hallway.
Out came a large, fast walking man. He walked crooked, had long grey hair, and looked like a clump. A clump of arms and hair.

I stood my ground and didn’t run like my instincts told me too. I stood my ground to deliver the box and receive the signature from this clump.

I handed the box over and asked for a signature. His long grey hair covered his eyes, and his teeth ly touching on a crooked Jaw. He only said words I didn’t understand.

I walked back out into the fresh air of the out doors although, the air wasn’t as fresh as I remembered, and the sun was a little bit lower in the sky. I got into my delivery truck to go to the next stop.

The next building was a big blue… something.

I couldn’t tell if it was an office building or a warehouse, but there were a lot of things that made me think that this place didn’t know what it was, either.

The parking lot was full of junky cars that were parked terribly and the dumpster was over loaded. Random things like broken plastic chairs and large air tanks laid in the parking lot.

I walked up to the black tinted glass doors, opened them and passed through. The front room I walked into was dark and no one was in it.

Unlike the factory this place was a little bit calming.

It was dark and cluttered with things. Things I recognized like kitchen supplies and furniture. But the longer I stayed, the more unsettled I felt. The room was dark and blue, except there was a light on down the hallway. I heard talking, but I could understand anything because there was also buzzing, and the buzzing was getting a little bit louder and louder with every minute I stayed. Right next to the door was a pile of boxes. I set mine with them. I needed a signature, but the room was getting louder and darker. The dark corners grew, the talking turned to shouting and laughter, and the buzzing was starting to get unbearable. I fled. I forged the signature.

I made my way to my third stop. It was a big cube shaped building made of grey bricks.

I already had weird feeling about this place. There were no windows at eye level, rather they were up closer to the high ceiling. I could see the florescent lights from the outside looking up at the building.

I’m delivering a bundle of shovels here. I swing the door open and get my first real look of the inside. The ceiling was high, but you don’t get the sense that any natural light was coming in from the outside by how yellow it was in there. I couldn’t tell if the walls were yellow or if the lighting was just that bad. The high walls were over baringly bare besides the grainy, pixilated looking painting of agriculture on the wall that sucked all the life out of the room. Every speck of that painting just felt like an eye staring at me. The front desk was one of many as other desks were lined up next to it and behind it. All the desks had other agricultural painting infront of them too. Even though the paintings were of farms and tractors, I couldn’t help the feeling that I was under the supervision of something more powerful and menacing like an authoritarian dictator. The woman at the front desk was kind. It seemed out of place. She seemed like a hostage to this place. Like everything down this street, the aura doesn’t match the vibe and that’s what fucks me up. I look over to more door ways. I don’t dare wonder down them. I’m not invited to anyway. I’m just the delivery guy. Three more doors were in this room that led further into the building. Two of them were on the same wall, with brighter lights shining out of them with big talking voices coming out of them. I couldn’t understand the words, but they seemed like the bosses of this place. The authoritarian dictators. And if they happened to come out of their offices, I feel like they may have talked me into staying. The hostage woman gave me her signature, and I left her their.
I moved on to the last business.

It was an animal shelter. It was kind of confusing. It was at the end of a cul-de-sac. The parking lot was more like just a mud drive way that took up the length of the small building.

Metal screens and bars covered the windows and the small building a multiple mismatch doors with different add-ons and enclosures. They had bug lamps that zapped moths outside. I was delivering a heavy box of dog food that I barley hoisted up on my shoulder. I was drawn to the far left door with a sun bleached sign with rabbits and flowers on it that read; “open”. So I pressed the button on the plastic screen door handle and pulled it opened. I could tell I went in the correct door because there was a front counter in front of me but no one was there. For all the vehicles parked outside, I couldn’t see or hear any people to account for them. All I heard was barking. Animals.

This place didn’t have much lighting. It wasn’t too dark or anything, but they didn’t have any lights on in the front office, which is acceptable due to natural light coming through the shades, but it wasn’t very good natural light. Like I had mentioned before, it was a cloudy day, and as I had finished each delivery, the light kept diminishing. As I waited for someone to come find me, as I thought someone would since a bell rang when I entered, I looked over at a mural on the was drawn by a child in the room against the hall. It must have been an area that they kept cats or dogs as I could tell the room was covered by a sheet of glass. It was a rainbow with some clouds beside it.

The light in between the thin cracks of the shades got less bright as I waited, and the nightlight on the wall next to the counter got brighter. Barking continued. I couldn’t even tell how many animals were making noise, but I knew it was many. A scruff of hair had become visible from behind the glass across the hallway. It was the back of someone’s head… maybe… it was at this moment I realized that this place smelled awful. And muddy scratches and paw prints covered the mural and the floor. Pet hair infested the corners. The scruff of greasy hair started to shake, and barking off in the distance got louder.

Thurman Poe, how dare you trap me here. What did I ever do to deserve this sensory de-establishment. Everything I have gathered throughout my life has been turned on its head. What is the world?

I then see a placard on the wall, and I start to read. I already skipped getting a signature from one of the businesses, and I didn’t want to be at 50%. So, I tried to distract myself and wait for a friendly face to show itself.

The wood frame and the black engraved slat of metal read; “Thurman Poe. True patriot and brother’s keeper. The champion of the american dream for it is indeed obtainable. It’s just not preservable. Failure and success can not be measured on a grand scale but your own linear path and by the standards of your own means. The concrete mental structures of society prevent the mind from doing what it must to strive on with ease and happenstance. Our brother, who aren’t in heaven, forever lost in liminal space… underneath his own scrutiny.”

~Tator~