Charting a path through the western reaches, Lowell Freeman made methodical entries in his notebook. Of course, the watchband did it for you, but he’d devised a system for charting his route that was both useful and highly enjoyable: describe three things about a place or thing as objectively as one could and make it real. It would help people see forgotten things, he’d tell anybody who would listen. Once he got to the city, he’d sell his notebooks so they could make a travelogue of all his wanderings and he might finally make something of himself.
The watchband beeped to indicate he’d neared a local village. Cracked asphalt under coiled rusted wires, ten foot piled timber and broken pylons, shrapnel steel in the burnt sand. He scaled the tarnished coastline nearer the sea. Chalky light brown cliffs, scraggy grey and turquoise brush, the flat horizon of the sky and the blue ocean. The watchband beeped again.
The house appeared a shuttered thing upon the hill. The backdrop setting sun obscured its shape and it was a polygonal void against the sky. It was too far from the village for residents or squatters, but some aura leaked from it. He began his observations. The watchband beeped twice just as he finished scribbling. He made headway for town.
They doled out his rations at the hostel. The two day supply was standard for vagabonds in the outskirts. But just you wait, he thought. When the mapmakers in the city got a hold of his journal, tourists would flock to the dead places of the world. He flicked through his notes in the common area where the scant host of other migrants bothered about the stove. He opened to his last entry describing the shuttered house.
No words, but a cloaked figure stood under a curved arch, its face blotted out, sketched in crude charcoal, smeared to the backside of the previous page in squiggled lines. Lowell nearly fell off the wooden stool. The other migrants eyed him suspiciously while he gathered his things about the table. He looked the drawing over, hunching his shoulders. There was no memory of making the sketch, not in his head or his hand, and he had little experience as an artist. He checked it was his notebook. The others were busy with their suppers now. The watchband beeped indicating lockdown. He gathered his things and found his allotted bed.
In the morning after rations, he walked the hillside again and located the shuttered house. He confirmed the coordinates on his watchband. The house loomed as before, but its edges blurred in the brighter sun of the day. He got to work in his journal, this time careful to watch each word across the page. Claptrap shutter panes, boxy four wall modular design, a single entrance facing away from the sea. Satisfied, he left the lonely house to backtrack his course around the sector.
Returned to the hostel in the evening, he sorted the days observations. Another brilliant and bold collection that proved the truth of the world. He turned the page to where the lonely house would be. There it was again. The hideous figure draped in a charcoal cloak, its face smeared by a thumb. He searched the pages, but there was no trace of any other description. He sat to think a moment but could not fetch the old phrases from his mind. The damn drawing had washed his mind clean somehow, left some gap in his thoughts. The watchband chimed and he closed the book decisively.
He spent the following day wandering the decimated bowl that had once been forest. The curving earth along the path made for vivid descriptions in his travelogue, with its blasted stones and dried and hollowed tree stumps. It was probably the best work he’d ever done. But there was some blindspot near the edge of each page that he could not fill. The more he wandered, and the more he scribbled, the wider it became. By the time he’d returned to the village, it was almost time for rations. He made a detour at the local hotel instead.
The hotel served a kind of basement ale and blackened turkey steak. He’d seen the birds in a cage around the back, bumpy heads and godawful skin that swung under their beaks when they walked. The host arrived with an ale.
“You know anything about a house on a hill?” Lowell asked the man. “It would appear shuttered, boarded up even.”
“There are plenty of shelled homes in this region.” The man scratched a bald spot on his head.
“You would remember this one,” he stopped himself. “It would leave an impression on you.”
“You vagrants get too close to that beach for comfort.” He eyed Lowell’s watchband.
“We get plenty of warning.” Lowell gripped the mug. “I just need some information about that house.”
The man’s friendly face darkened. “We can only take you vagabonds for two days. Then it’s on the road for you.”
“I know the rules.” The man wasn’t hearing him. He pulled out the notes. “Here, let me show you.” He flipped through the pages looking for the sketch.
“Are you a journalist?” The man eyed the scribbled notes.
“No,” Lowell found the page and pressed it flat against the bar. “Please tell me about this. Does it look familiar to you?”
The man backed away. “Do yourself a favor and get on the road before nightfall. You’ll make it to the next town over if you keep that watchband charged.” He moved off to serve another straggler at the bar.
Lowell took up the sketch. The smudges had grown longer and more swirled in the ends. He wondered if the man had even seen what he himself saw now. The lacuna in his mind opened wider the more attention he paid the impossible drawing. Who, if not me, drew this? he asked himself. It lacked all sense in terms of his simplified system of observation. Perhaps this was why so many vagabonds were hospitalized upon return, or why they went missing so often. Or maybe it was simply the final hurdle before that absolute truth that was in fact the end of his process. He left his ale untouched and made for the hills.
The sun was down when he arrived. His watchband beeped three times every interval, but he couldn’t deactivate it in the wild. The house was there, but only a shadow. More like a shadow against the shadow of the night. A good description. It was working, he told himself. He moved closer. The darkness took shape, as though it were an archway in an old church. He moved even closer. There it was now, what he’d been missing, upon his skin and in his nose. Something tugged at his clothing. The shutters came into view. Up close there were handles. A secondary entrance perhaps? But there was the door. He needed to write this down. He reached for his pen and the spiral bound notebook but dropped it. His watch beeped in quadruple intervals. Up close the thing wasn’t shuttered at all. In fact, there was somebody there to let you in. All it took was getting up close and really getting a sense of the thing. It was the only way the people would understand, those gatekeepers who printed the travelogues and distributed them to the people.
The watchband beeped five more times before it was silent.