The last time I was driving up I-75 toward Dayton I noticed a cool-looking pile of rubble just off the highway that all but begged to be explored. So last weekend I spent some time goofing around in that mound of destruction - an abandoned, half-destroyed textile plant.
It is important to note that I have been immersing myself in the LSD bath that is Call of Duty 4. The game is appallingly crisp with a nearly inescapable gravity that all but sinks digital meat hooks into your brain stem and yanks you into another reality. (Kind of like that crazy evil hole in Poltergeist, but without the slime. And with guns).I mistakenly started the game on the 'Veteran' settings and have been getting the shit shot out of me like in no game I have ever played. And the game is freakin' hard - as in, it is FUCKING hard. So, it takes an even stronger focus and degree of mental and imaginational (new word) dedication to succeed. I've been seeing trails in my sleep.
Anyone that played any kind of first-person shooters is familiar with the 'destroyed city' map. Uh. Look familiar? When I jumped the fence and made it over the first crumbling brick wall, I was all but zapped into Call of Duty 4. I don't know if it was the coffee or a few stray mescaline molecules that got jarred loose, but things got really silent and far too, sharp.
I haven't really been doing a lot of trespassing lately so I had my guard up to begin with. Not so much for the 'breaking the law' part, of course, but just the likelihood of an encounter with a bored local cop that feels like giving someone a hard time wrapped in Red Tape and Bureaucratic Ribbon.
Overall, the place was pretty, uh, ruined. Much of the infrastructure was torn down and things were actually in decent piles. Bricks on one side, lumber on the other. But it was still cool to see the guts of what was once the heart of a Company Town. They build things to last back then - the place was built in the late 1800's. The brick walls were three-brick deep and support pillars were wooden and actually hand-made.
When I wasn't taking artsy photos
I let my mind wander and wonder. More than a few times I snapped briefly into COD4 game play and became all but certain that I saw a sniper in some musty, dark corner or was going to turn a corner into an ambush. Laughing at myself, I even played a bit - acted as if I were really wielding an M5. What was that noise? I'd duck behind a crumbled wall and let a scene play out in my head. I was really hoping someone wasn't watching.
Sadly, my camera battery died and I had to split. I only explored half of the place and plan on returning sometime soon. The next batch of buildings are still intact - and dark. Night-vision goggles, baby.
Flash-bang, spray the room, take photos, move on.
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