FtA: The Island

TW: Animal Death/Morbidity

The town I grew up in has the distinction of being on a slope on the side of the mountain. If you go North, it's all uphill until you reach the top, where the roads flatten out only to start upwards again towards the peaks of the mountain range. If you go south, you're only a few blocks from the river that separates the town from the vast forest across from it.

On the west end of that river is a very large dam, and right near that dam is a small island. If you drove down past the main gas station in town (there were only two), and down past the small motel, and a few houses, you would be stopped by a bridge that was meant for cars, but could only take foot traffic nowadays.

While it had an official name, it was only known locally as "The Island". I loved going here. It always was where I suggested to go when my friend group wanted to hang out. When you crossed the bridge you were greeted by a sign that said:

WARNING
IF ALARM SOUNDS
EVACUATE ISLAND
WATER WILL RISE

The sign was rusted over, but the words were still fully visible. When I first went to The Island at the age of 7 or 8, I was so scared of this sign and the possibility of the alarm sounding that I broke down instantly, screaming and crying until I was able to cross the bridge back to town, and I was unable to cross again. I didn't start going back until I was in High School, which is where the majority of my memories of the island take place.

The bridge drops you right at the North point of the island, and right away you are given three options: take the path to the right, to the left, or turn around and sit on the picnic table near the bridge overlooking the river.

If you took the road to the left, you would travel past some trees on a small dirt road. Towards the center of the island would be a small body of water, covered in lilly pads and grime. On this pond was a rock tower - it wasn't really a hill, had a cliff on all sides- that had another tower on top of it. The tower was made of fully rusted metal and had a single door on it visible. There were bars on a window at the top. I was never able to climb up to that tower, so I could never tell you why it was there. There were never any power lines going to it, nor any signage. Sometimes, as we walked down this path to the East side of the island, my friends and I would make up stories of it being a jail cell, or something worse, but that's probably just our morbid imagination.

At the end of that path you'd find a cliff (with fence) overlooking the lower half of the dam. This is where my friend group would often congregate, staring out over the valley below, listening to the rushing water as it flowed into the river below. Just off to the side of this lookout was a small path that would lead along the cliff's edge. This was a very thin path, and more often than not, I will admit I was fully frozen in fear of falling while walking along it. All it would take is a little slip, a misstep, and then you would fall.

That almost happened to me once, we all had a good laugh about it. Well, my friends did.

Whenever I was alone, I would take the right path. This one was much longer. If you were to follow it, the path would wind toward the south/back end of the island. The dirt path was a bit longer, and would pass a makeshift campground, as well as some railroad tracks that led to an old wooden shed. Eventually, though, you would reach what was, to me, the landmark of the island.

The island used to have 2 connecting points: one at the north end, and one at the south. The north end was still open, and connected to town. The south bridge, however, had been broken and shut down for years. It used to connect to a road that led further into the mountains; a road I lived on. There was a longer way down the mountain that eventually led into town, but that added easily 20mins onto your trip.

No one talked about how the bridge broke, or why it was never fixed. I assumed the latter reason was due to the town slowly wasting away, and never having enough money to repair something that already had a solution anyway. Even if you repaired the bridge, the island couldn't easily handle vehicle traffic; it all made sense. As a safety measure, though, the bridge had a fence on either side of the break, keeping you about 20 feet away from the actual drop-off point. Though, it was easy to get around if you were willing to stand up on the side of the bridge.

The broken south bridge was my go-to place as tensions with my parents got worse, at least in the beginning of that downward spiral. I would usually head out there during the day, but after a particularly bad fight at night, nearly around 10PM, I left the house in an angry, crying hurry and drove towards The Island. When I finally got there around 1030, I made my way to the broken bridge, and for reasons I can't explain, I hopped up onto the side of the bridge, and moved to the other side of the fence.

Maybe I was just angry and wanted to rebel against any sort of authority, or maybe I was just experiencing Teenage Stupidity, but I was now on the other side of that fence.

Slowly, I remember edging closer to the edge break in the bridge. I was immensely worried that the already fragile concrete was just going to drop beneath me. Still, though, I walked closer, until was able to look over the drop: down to the ground below.

The bridge crossed over a fairly wide river, but the break itself was over land. If you were to fall at this point, rocks and foliage awaited you. Hanging on the underside of the bridge was a rope that I had been told was used to actually swing into the river, though I'd never seen it used. When I looked over the edge on this night, though, I saw something that has stuck with me: deer corpses.

At the bottom of this drop laid at least 10 deer skeletons and corpses in various states of decay. It was difficult to fully make out, it being nearly 11PM at this point, but from what I could make out, it was a pile of them. This alone didn't cause me to recoil; I'd grown up in this town, and one of it's main attractions was hunting. I'd seen dead animals all around since I was able to form memories, my physics teacher boiled deer skulls in the hallway of my high school. In fact, I remember being overcome by a weird sense of morbidity that had me just...staring down at this visceral scene. I remember wondering how many times this had happened, and also, why did it keep happening? Clearly and repeatedly many deer had hopped this fence, from either side, and jumped to their demise. The placement of this pile was so well set up that it really wasn't visible from any sort of distance, and the river and surrounding forest eliminated any sort of smell of decay. Maybe that was enough to keep up the illusion that this was a safe path, and that's why so many deer fell, time after time.

As with many of my memories about this place, I can't say for sure how long I looked down at this scene. The only sound around being the river nearby rushing out of the dam and away from here. Some part of me kept waiting for something loud to happen. Was this the time the Dam Alarms would go off? Was someone going to find me here? Were my parents going to call and apologize, while demanding I come home? None of these things happened. I was stuck in a morbid staring contest, for as long as I could stand it.

I remember one last thing, while looking down at that scene, taking in the energy of something that had been a dark secret to a place I loved to visit, a place of escape and safety.

The deer on the top of the pile moved.