ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK? AN APPALACHIAN ANECDOTE.

I’ll admit to being afraid of the dark. I don’t believe that I have an unhealthy fear. It doesn’t really affect my life and the older that I’ve gotten I think I’ve learned to embrace the darkness. But I’ve never really felt comfortable in being unable to see my surroundings. There are important differences between being inside or outside, and in familiar locations versus unfamiliar. The worst place to be in the dark must be outside. I’ll go a step further and say that being outside in the woods is the worst. There is a 100% probability that there is something else out there in the dark with you. Sometimes that “something else” might be what you least expect, and sometimes, the things that “go bump in the night” stay with you, burned in your memory forever. Many years ago, I found myself in the dark, outside in the West Virginian mountains, early in the morning and alone.

At this time in my life, I was working in the oil & gas industry, specifically methane gas wells in West Virginia. Often the areas I worked would be in the middle of nowhere, while in the middle of nowhere, and continued further into nowhere. There were times when you could find yourself an hour away from asphalt, a house, or any trace of civilization. A maze of gravel or dirt roads snaked around the mountains connecting the gas wells. We were given the task of moving or “tramming” heavy equipment to a specific location before the road would be closed. I don’t remember which part of the process that was happening, whether a drill rig, work over rig, or fracking, but we had to get by them before they blocked the path if we were going to work that day. We arrived early that morning in the dark. I was driving a pickup truck in front of a convoy of excavators and dozers, trailblazing the dark crooked roads that scar the Appalachian forest. In case you are unaware, heavy equipment move slowly. I would drive half a mile at most and wait for them to catch up, then drive another half mile or so and wait, and so on. The only thing actually visible to me was the tunnel of light shining forward from my truck. The only other light source was the cherry of my cigarette (this is back when I smoked.) While I waited for the equipment to catch up to me I would stare out into the dark woods, just me and a cloud of tobacco smoke.

I have purposefully using the following to describe the road: “a maze of… dirt roads snaked... crooked roads that scar.” Curvy mountainous roads have blind spots. You can only see from curve to curve, with no ability to know what’s ahead of you until to get there.

After the pattern of driving ahead and then waiting went on several times, I continued my path forward towards a blind curve. Beyond the turn, to my discovery there was something in the middle of the road. I’m not sure if it was the darkness or if I was tired or just the absolute shock of the situation that I had found myself in, but it took an inexcusable amount of time to process what I was seeing.

This thing in the road was short and wide. It was almost like a lumpy, or curvy square block. The exterior of it was pale and reflected light back to me. The reflection wasn’t blinding but shocking... surprising. The road had in incline and the thing leaned uphill, combating gravity. To this day I can’t remember how long it took after my discovery until the thing moved. From the top of the square figure, a head lifted and turned in my direction.

I don’t know what crazy shit you’ve seen in your life. There are a lot of things that we all know, accept, and understand about the world without having to witness. There are dark truths that we all experience but don’t speak. As the eyes of this uncanny figure reflected the headlights of my pickup truck, I finally realized that what I had stumbled upon was a grown man taking a shit in the middle of the road.

The man blocked my path forward and heavy equipment blocked my path behind me. I was trapped, alone in the darkness of the Appalachian mountains watching a grown man defecate while I shined him a light. Just him, me, a cigarette in the darkness, and a growing pile of poo. I wonder sometimes who was more shocked, me or him. I had no knowledge of his presence but surely he heard me approaching. Either way he finished, wiped, and got out of the road. I flicked my cigarette, passed him, waved, and continued to lead the convoy of equipment deeper into the mountains.