The sky is blue. The water, blue. The haze, the mountains, the feeling that creeps into your mind and soul as you crunch quietly along the roadside: blue.

 
      But the paint... everywhere, the paint. Where the sun hasn't dulled and destroyed it, hints of homemaking remain. The flaps and scratches in one layer reveal the brilliant jewel tones of another. Crisscrossing over all of it, new graffiti; rude sayings and psychedelic art, scrawled childlike genitalia and truly mind-bending masterpieces. I crouch on the edge of the expanse of death, in front of a cleverly painted drainage pipe elephant, shading my eyes and considering the small piece of metal peeking over its top edge. It gives the pachyderm an inquisitive eyebrow, as if it's saying, "so are you gonna grow a pair, or what?" I look over my shoulder towards the sunny, dust-blurred neighborhood down the unpaved road behind me, and try to work up a bit of courage.

I guess I should explain. I'm standing in a destroyed section of Salton City, and even though there is no movement, no life, and the sun is high overhead, I'm a bit chilled at the thought of walking into the standing bones of these abandoned homes.

 

There are signs of people having been here. Recently, even. In the shadows of doorways, gaping wide as though caught in screams of agony, piles of scrap and garbage point to squatters, partiers, drug users.

 
            Fuck. It's just so hot. The sun is relentless, but I know better than to go too far into the shaded wreckage around me. I don't have anyone watching my back; I don't want to leave the safety of the open dusty roads around me, empty as they are. I am already an anomaly here. I dare to break the silence and the path of the stifling wind as I pick my way around needles, broken glass, chunks of concrete, and desiccated piles of... something. I cannot find a photosphere or street view in the place that I am currently frozen. And why would there be one? There's no street here; no address to find. (This is the closest I can come to the area that I explored, but it's not quite in the center of the desolation.)

Your nose will twitch at the smell of decay, and the heat bouncing up from the milky white bones covering the ground is oppressive. Watching gulls waddle over a seemingly endless field of desiccated husks, you wonder how anyone could ever live or play or love here again.

The reality is, they won't.

 

           To catch you up: I've written about the tragedy of Salton before, with a focus on the beach of bones. The haze of death and stench looms behind my back as I wander through what's left of picture perfect Stepford decadence. I'm not trying to be dramatic, but I know for certain that walking into any of these homes, as fascinating and as eerily beautiful as they are, is a dangerous, stupid thing to do.

I strain on tiptoes to peek through a window that doesn't have any glass shards left around the sill.

 
            You can't make photos like this up. (Okay, you can — but I'm not carrying a creepy mannequin face around just hoping that I'll find a conveniently located pentagram in the center of a sun-baked crater comprising the detritus of existence. I am not that dedicated, and I also don't want to be blacklisted by every flight security agency on the planet.) I know that someone left this here with the express purpose of eliciting a response like this out of me, but that doesn't mean I can shake the nope fuck nope nopeNOPE feeling as I walk carefully and as quietly as I can along the row of collapsing porches and slumping roofs.

_{I hate empty chairs in empty rooms. Each window is like a vent that allows the scorching air to move in channels, and every now and again it creaks. I think. I don't know. I hate this. But imagining sitting in this chair and watching the moon rise over the fatal fog on the lake becomes a terrifying, momentary fantasy. I break my own rule and step further into this living room. It's missing two walls, so I'm not really in it, anyways.}
 

Tracing the hypnotic stripes painted on the ply here, where no one will ever see them, I turn and have an instant panic attack as I find the rest of the murdered mannequin in my peripheral vision.

 
           Whoever put her here triangulated her placement with mathematical precision. She's visible from every opening — sight lines run from every corner of the surrounded overgrown property. She's fucking watching me wherever I go, and she doesn't even have a head; well played, to the mysterious asshole who masterminded this stunt. You got me.

Framed by stacks of burned tires and a childish scrawling of blood red letters spelling out R E D R U M, I can't help but notice how clean she is.

 
           Everything here has a thin layer of dust and concrete gravel and wrappers and stench, but the watcher is wiped down. While most of me has decided this is absolutely the perfect time to go, the photographer in my heart feels a thrill at how perfectly posed she stands and the complimentary colours and the diffused light and my luck in that she is the only thing here without a drop of paint, old or new. I've officially had enough of this place because it's weird and vaguely threatening, but I've found that photo that reinforces why I dig in caves,climb trees, poke through dead towns, and stand in poison mud. For a place so thoroughly marked by human hands and the ravages of nature, she stands outside time and consequence.

Somehow, I imagine when the whole neighbourhood finally falls, she'll remain standing: a muzzy figure smudged by fog and silhouetted in the nuclear sunset. Definitely, definitely time to go.

 

These photos and words are my own work, inspired by travels all over this pretty blue marble of ours. I hope you like them. 🌶️

 

Hi, I'm Crimmi. I help run a top 30 Steemit witness, along with my project partner @followbtcnews. Feel free to reach out to us on Steemit Chat or Discord at any time! If we haven't earned your vote yet, please take some time to look at our tools and our work — place a vote for followbtcnews if you feel we're doing a good job.