Not art like I usually post but heres the Magnus Archives statement I wrote to get me out of an art block.
Statement of Maeve Campbell regarding a peculiar drive to work. Original statement given April 10th 2013. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.
My drive to work was never really interesting. How could it be, you know? Thirty minutes of nothing but trees and the occasional passing cars. Standard. Normal. Until a few days ago. I’d woken up for work around five o’clock. The sun was just starting to come up and the house was empty. I don’t know why I didn't find that strange. My partner, Bailey, they were never gone that early. But for some reason I didnt even think about it as I grabbed my keys to leave at six.
At first my commute was just like every other day. The dense fog made sense, it was typical for April so I didn’t question it, especially so early in the morning. As I drove it just got thicker, until I couldn’t see anything around me but the faintest sign of the road in front of me. I had to rely on the street signs to understand anywhere I was going. Luckily I knew what road I needed to turn down, not that it helped me in the end. Eventually I saw a street sign. It read Lukas Rd. I’d never heard of that road before but then again I’d really only had the one I had to turn on memorized by name. So I kept driving. Again though, the very next street sign Lukas Rd. And the next, and the one after that too. Every turn I came to. I was driving on a straight road so there’s no way I got turned around but every time the fog consumed the last sign I’d see the next one and they were always the exact same. I stopped looking at the signs. I just drove. I thought if I could just get past the fog I would see my exit. I would be free from whatever nightmare the situation was currently becoming. I just needed to get to the end of the fog.
It had no end though. No end and no cars and no animals in sight. All there was was that damn Lukas Rd. Like it was taunting me. I grabbed my phone to call someone, as if human interaction would break the seal and allow life to exist around me again. I was desperate and it made sense to me at the time. It had been fully charged when I’d left my house that morning but it was completely dead. It had felt like I’d driven for hours and nothing had changed but my belief that maybe reality didn’t exist anymore. The fog most likely helped in that warped, dream-like perception. But there truly was nothing. At some point I’d rolled down the window to see if I could hear anything at all besides my car on the rocks in the road. I couldn’t, but even stranger, there was no feeling to the fog. I was expecting a chill or a ‘drink the air’ kind of humidity that would have matched the weather but it didn’t exist. It was like the entire world had become stagnant and stale, a void of itself. I think that’s when I accepted I was trapped. Despite that realization I couldn’t stop driving. I wasn’t sure why but I had a terrible feeling about stopping my car. I saw Lukas Rd. again then. Had I been passing it that whole time without noticing? Or had it disappeared until it was able to call to me again? What would happen if I had taken the siren's call of a turn? I decided to find out the next time I was given the opportunity. I’d had nothing to lose, I was already stuck.
I saw the sign and went to turn. Just then, before I’d gone down the road, I’d heard something. I swear I'd heard Bailey call for me from further down the road I was about to leave. It was hardly a whisper but it was carried by a soft breeze that I know had not been there prior to the voice. I stopped my turn and kept driving the direction I had been going for hours already. No matter how many times I passed the beckoning sign I couldn’t turn down that road when I could faintly hear their humming in the distance. The same song as every morning. I clung to their voice like a prayer until, through the fog, I saw something coming towards me on the street. I can’t even describe the relief I’d felt. When it was fully visible I almost couldn't help but laugh at it. A horse and buggy. In this day and age. The absurdity of it almost made me forget the fear that had been coursing through my veins for so long. Once it was past me the fog seemed to be getting lighter even. I feel it necessary now to say that at no point did I ever stop going straight forward. Yet when I was clear of the fog I was at my house. The same house that I’d left in the morning. That I’d been away from for possibly days with how long I’d been on the road.
Work be damned at that point I ran inside to see Bailey. They were in the kitchen making pancakes and humming. The same tune I’d heard that probably dragged me out from whatever circle of hell I had gotten stuck in. I hugged them, much to their shock and as I did I caught sight of the clock on the stove. Seven thirty. I’d not even been gone two hours according to that but there was no way that was true. I promise I had been gone far longer than that. I have no way to prove it. No way to prove anything. That fog was on no radar and nobody else saw it. Lukas Rd. does not exist on any maps. The only evidence I have is the tank of petrol that I’d gone through almost completely despite it being full when I’d left, and the terror that chills my blood whenever I wake up alone.
Well, it’s great that she mentioned the complete lack of evidence for her story. Makes it significantly easier to file it in with the other statements that are obviously utter bullshit.
Even so, I had Sasha do some further investigation. She could find no evidence of a so-called Lukas Rd. near Ms.Campbell's residence nor could she find any real proof of there being any fog that day. In fact, it was rather sunny. The only thing that could be considered odd about the date this supposedly took place was a town wide service outage following the departure of a cargo ship called the Tundra around six in the morning. It was fixed within a few hours. Ms.Campbell refused to do any sort of follow up regarding her statement, most likely because she forgot the details to her overly complex fable. A mockery of the institute really. I truly hope there aren't many more of these I’ll have to go through however I highly doubt I could be so lucky.
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