Discovery II, cont.
“You too, huh,” he yelled to the sign in between breaths and bursts of laughter, “Stuck out here in the middle of a scrapyard. Can’t say I disagree with your vandals, though. You have been one hell of a headache since I started looking into you for your audit. But, let’s not bring work into this. No, this is just you and me.”
He walked towards the base of the heap, looking for something to throw. Once he found something, he took a step back and lobbed it at the sign.
“Where to start? How about the fact that your shit is overpriced,” he threw something else, “Your products are cheaply made,” he threw another piece of trash, “And you have still managed to be on the verge of bankruptcy!”
He threw a final object—a wrench bent a full ninety degrees—and watched as the sign slid from its position before coming to a stop halfway down the pile. Sam took a few steps back from the mound, wary of anything else falling. As he regained his breath from the shock of the sign unexpectedly falling, he felt his laughter return to him.
“Take that you pompous, asshole of a company! You sleep-ruining pile of… well, garbage.”
As he laughed and yelled at the sign, he felt his euphoria gradually wearing off. In its wake, he felt a melancholy wash over him. He had hoped moving forward through the scrapyard would help him forget his realizations, but as a dark sadness crept over him once more, he realized he couldn’t run from it.
Sam was empty.
The thought rang in his mind like a loud drone—ever-present, inescapable, and oppressive. It called out like an alarm, and it required his attention.
Sam was empty.
He collapsed on the ground once more, his head held in his hands, tears freely running down his face. He hit his head with his good hand, trying to snap himself out of it.
Sam was empty.
He rocked back and forth, his head buried in his knees. He had officially broken.
Sam was empty.
Suddenly, he heard the loud sound of metal falling behind him. He turned swiftly while still crouched, looking at his surroundings. He felt his heart beating heavier in his chest and heard his own ragged breaths. Then…silence. There wasn’t a sound to be heard, yet the initial crash had been enough to force Sam back to his feet. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. In his present state, there was not much else he could do. He was in the middle of a long-abandoned junkyard. The last thing he was going to do was fix his life in his current state, he reasoned. He wasn’t about to get a therapist while knee-deep in rusting metal. He could, however, finish his foolish fantasy while he was here. He could rip off the band-aid and get help after he returned home. With his plan decided—a newfound, if somewhat wavering, certainty in his heart—Sam continued forward through the scrapyard without distraction.
This time, Sam was quick in his traversal of the yard’s grounds. A determination began to take root, a thick sap of anger seeping from its bulbous growth. He ignored the various aspects of the surroundings he had once admired. Now, he was blinded by his goal and his hatred of the situation. The occasionally throbbing pain in his right hand didn’t help his predicament. As he rounded the first mound towards the large, flat area, he noticed that the paths became more cluttered with rubble. While earlier in the scrapyard there had been the occasional path that had been filled with bits of occasional scrap that had fallen from the surrounding heaps, this was different. Large swaths of the path had been filled with scrap, yet they didn’t appear to have fallen. Rather, the way they were sitting made it look like they had been placed deliberately. Somewhat ignoring this fact, Sam tried to focus on surmounting the debris. The further forward he went, however, the more he noticed the obstructions—and the more they became a problem. When he was finally able to see the scrapyard’s plain, he also came upon his greatest obstacle yet. Before him was a large section of debris that extended around ten feet forward, all of which reached up to Sam’s knees.
“Of course,” he said, his hands on his waist as he stared down his surroundings, “Perfect. Just,” he turned and began to pace back and forth, “Great…”
He stopped in front of the roadblock, trying to straighten his focus.
“Okay, I’ve got this. It’s fine. Let’s just look for footholds, that ought to work.”
After a few minutes, he lifted his foot and tested his weight on a piece of metal roofing held up by something out of Sam’s vision. Lifting himself up once he felt secure, he looked around for a second foothold. He continued this way, gradually making progress as he slowly made his way over the path-blocking rubble. While he passed over, he couldn’t shake the feeling of the placement of the debris being deliberate. Ignoring this thought (largely out of the fear that it might cause his mind to wander back onto topics he only wanted to leave behind himself), he eventually found himself standing once more upon the dirt path looking out onto a vast section of land.
Like the paths through the scrapyard, the flat area was also made of the same barren earth. However, whereas the paths up until this point had had various bits of scrap littering them and providing ample hazards for Sam, Sam failed to notice any signs of litter. Upon turning his head, though, he did notice his objective—and it was not quite what he imagined it would be.
Standing before him was a sizeable shed—perhaps as large if not larger than Sam’s apartment—with a bright-yellow roof and dark, green walls. Surrounding it was various sculptures made from welded scrap taking various forms, both familiar and outlandish. As Sam walked towards the structure, he noticed more of the artworks. The largest one sat squarely in the center of the rest. It depicted a faceless man whose hands extended out before him, upturned and pointed towards the sky. Its hands, arms, head, and a part of its upper-torso were clearly detailed and well resembled a traditional statue. Its lower half, however, revealed its scrap-based construction. From a base of square cement, two legs made of thick steal rebar stood, one forward and in movement, the other stood still. It was while standing in the midst of this Medusa’s garden—eyes widened and curiosity met tenfold—that Sam heard another sound of commotion behind him.
Sam turned to discover another person standing in the distance before him. It was another man, perhaps the same age as Sam, who had just climbed their way through the debris Sam had passed through. Their face was obscured by a white surgical mask; their eyes concealed by long, curly bangs. They wore a light-brown sweater jacket, a thick blue work shirt, a pair of ripped-and-patched blue jeans, and a pair of khaki work boots. As their eyes looked up and upon Sam, they removed from their ear an earbud Sam hadn’t noticed along with their mask.
“Who are you,” the man asked, walking towards Sam, “What are you doing here?”
Sam stammered, not sure how to answer the question, “Well, I- I don’t know, I…”
“You don’t know?”
“Well, I mean…”
“You do realize where you are, right,” the man asked, stopping a few feet before Sam. He came about eye-level to Sam, if not slightly below. This close, Sam noticed the man’s pale-blue eyes looking at him incredulously, “How did you manage to get all the way out here, anyway? It’s one hell of a hike to take—”
“I- I always saw this place from the train,” Sam said, cutting the man off. He pointed up towards the tracks as he explained himself, avoiding the man’s gaze, “I guess I got curious about what was here, so I came.”
“Well, now you know,” the man said before something else seemed to draw his attention. Sam looked up at him and noticed his formerly scolding gaze had turned to one of concern, “What happened to your hand?”
Sam looked down and noticed that his makeshift bandage had begun to give way—a few droplets of blood already having dripped onto the ground, “Oh, this,” he clasped his hands together, trying to hide his mistake. He wasn’t sure why, but felt himself begin to blush, “I accidentally cut myself during the trek.”
The man frowned, his gaze shifting between Sam and his wounded hand. Eventually, he sighed, saying, “Here, why don’t you come inside,” he pointed to the shed, “I’ve got a first-aid kit in there which should have something to help clean and patch-up your cut.”
“Sure,” Sam said, following as the man walked past him towards the shed, “Thank you.”
The man simply nodded in reply, his focus elsewhere.
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