i was talking to dany about the gummy bears picture and
a lot of places i have to go for work are legit Midwestern Gothic
they aren’t the Midwestern Gothic Aesthetic posts that feel like they were made by people who slept the whole way through here once while on a summer road trip in the backseat of their parents’ used silver ford taurus, posts with the same picture of a Hell Is Real sign, the harvest is ended and we are not saved, and slightly distorted photos of three girls in a cornfield
i mean, yes, midwestern gothic is absolutely something in the unending cornfields; it’s “hell is real” on a fading billboard; it’s bible quotes on marquee gas station signs underneath a notice about 99-cent eggs, missing several letters and a zero used in place of an o; it’s two locations of grandpa’s cheese barn - one which you can never find, and the other which is never open, even at two in the afternoon on a wednesday; it’s bored teenagers who dare each other to climb into condemned buildings, only to find the walls already covered in symbols and warnings (run); it’s rusted out trucks standing guard like husks of a past era on the side of the road as the grass grows around them, reclaiming them, eating them; it’s that there is always, always a lake
these things are very midwestern gothic
midwestern gothic is also time stretching and twisting along flat straight highways between the only cities everyone on the coast knows, how fifty miles takes over two hours, even at 75mph
it’s those highways all looking the same. the same cornfields the same soybean fields the same wheat fields the same alfalfa fields. rusting water towers rising from the tufted wheat, home of the warriors!. always the warriors, never the saints. it’s those fields hardened and frozen and covered in ice, and suddenly you can see those black ruler-straight roads cutting through the ice-white empty fields. those roads don’t exist in summer. you know not to turn down them in winter. the water tower blends into the grey sky, home of the warriors! floating in the clouds.
it’s small towns named for places elsewhere, and the strange sense upon welcome to london (or versailles, or paris, or cairo, or lima) that there’s a door in someone’s basement that leads to the original, a door guarded by a long-forgotten being dragged here across the sea against its will centuries ago
it’s neon lights in the long sunsets, and the smell of popcorn and cotton candy in the summer. everyone is in 4h. you don’t know what 4h is. you don’t know anyone who’s ever done 4h. everyone is in 4h.
it’s a ferris wheel that runs on the laughter of children. from the top of this ferris wheel, you can see the ferris wheel at the neighboring county’s fair. it’s night and empty and that county’s fair is next week, but you wave anyway.
(your friend pushes your arm down. something might wave back. you leave the fair, and it takes three days to get the powdered sugar from the fried dough off your fingers.)
it’s all those towns looking the same. the same square. the same cars. the same movie theater. the exact same courthouse on the exact same street. (it’s always market street, never main). the exact same diner across the exact same corner from the exact same courthouse, serving the exact same three-dollar burger.
it’s that three-dollar burger tasting amazing, too amazing. like it was made with powers granted by sacrifice to a forest god, whose home was torn down for soybeans.
it’s the same family owning that diner for two hundred years. the town was founded a hundred and fifty years ago. everyone in town has a story about that summer they slung milkshakes at the diner and got tipped in nickels by the county judge. he’s been the county judge as long as that family has owned that diner. he has a booth. he’s always in the booth. you’ve never seen him in the courthouse.
it’s four churches and not a single stoplight. it’s a used car lot in the middle of a field, which has the same inventory for decades and never sees a spot of rust. it’s mail pouch tobacco advertisements and quilt designs on every barn, like guiding lights toward somewhere you’re not sure you should go.
it’s that one guy whose house is falling apart around him, the corn has invaded the living room, but he’s been fighting the county’s imminent domain claim for twenty years. the county is about to give up. there’s a reason he’s on the land, a reason he needs to stay. a reason they need him to stay.
it’s a one-lane bridge over a rushing creek at night. the creek had no water in it last week. now it’s three inches below the bridge. a girl died on a bridge like this last summer, you have a pin from her memorial service on your backpack. everyone seemed to know her, but you never saw her before in your life. you honk and flash your lights, a plea disguised as a warning. something moves in the woods as you drive across the bridge. teenagers, you tell yourself. bored teenagers screwing with travelers. the bridge is twenty miles from anything.
it’s everyone knowing everyone in a one hundred-mile radius. it’s the one person in town who knows the ancestry and family lines of everyone in three counties. it’s grandparents on their death beds who have never once crossed county lines.
it’s snow that’s blowing so hard you can’t see six inches in front of you; it isn’t even snowing, it hasn’t snowed in days. it’s tornado sirens you ignore because the sky isn’t the right shade of green. it’s there being a right shade of green for tornadoes. it’s humidity that surpasses one hundred percent and still doesn’t rain. it’s driving down the highway and passing three thunderstorms and never feeling a single raindrop.
it’s weird and creepy and terrifying and i want more of the real midwest on this website.
i want more of small towns inhabited by hungry ancient fae who keep the town that has no money pristine and cute and Touristy in exchange for Something Else, i want more of tricksters who create mirages of gas stations and a mcdonald’s just over the next hill, i want more of weird shit like buying soda with gummy bears because this town doesn’t actually exist, your money isn’t good here.
less of the same “hell is real” image.
we know hell is real. we live here. there are more stories.
(though they may have been eaten by the crows)
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