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I love it when I wake up in the middle of the night and my brain decides it’s finally time to open the cold case file on that embarrassing comment I made on the radio in 1989. No warning, no warrant, just a full-blown mental trial at two in the morning, complete with witnesses, closing arguments, and a guilty verdict and execution before sunrise.

You’d think after all these years, my mind would’ve let that one go. But nope. Somewhere between the quiet outside and the hum of the refrigerator, the night shift in my brain clocked in, dusted off an old box labeled “Stupid Things I’ve Said,” and got to work.

It’s funny how memory works that way. I can’t remember where I put my glasses half the time, but that offhand comment from 36 years ago?

Clear as a bell. The human brain must have a sense of humor, or a mean streak; it’s hard to tell which.

Anyway, it was a live broadcast, and I was feeling clever. The trouble with “clever” is that it’s usually just stupidity wearing a tuxedo.

I tried to make a joke, something harmless, I thought, but it landed like a sack of wet cement. My cohost gave me a look you could hear through the static, and there I was, trying to crawl out of the radio speaker and hide under somebody’s couch.

Now, logically, I know nobody remembers that moment but me. Everyone else who heard it has probably forgotten, moved on, or died.

But tell that to the prosecutor that lives in my skull. He’s got a perfect record and wins every case.

I’ve learned, though, that embarrassment is just another form of humility. Life’s way of reminding you that you’re human and not half as smooth as you think you are.

The trick is learning to laugh at yourself before your brain does it for you. So when those old memories come creeping around, I try to treat them like stray dogs: toss them a biscuit of humor and send them on their way.

I tell myself, “You didn’t ruin your life that day, you just gave future-you some late-night entertainment.”

Maybe that’s what growing older is: realizing that most of what used to keep you awake at night isn’t worth losing sleep over. The world didn’t end because of one bad joke, one wrong word, or one awkward moment.

I still wake up sometimes, staring at the ceiling while my one brain cell replays that ancient broadcast. But these days, instead of cringing, I chuckle.

After all, if you can’t laugh at your own foolishness, you’ll never appreciate how far you’ve come from it. Besides, the jury’s still out, but I think I’m finally winning the case.

There’s a stretch of dirt road out behind our place that’s been there since before the county ever thought about paving anything. It winds through trees and brush, dips down through a dry wash, and comes back up again in a lazy curve that always seems to eat more dust than it gives up.

Folks around here call it “Short Cut Road,” but that’s a lie if I ever heard one. It’s rougher, longer, and more likely to rattle the fillings right out of your head than the main route.

I learned that lesson the hard way. Years ago, I was running late to town, can’t even recall why, but it seemed important at the time.

I figured I’d save myself ten minutes by taking that so-called shortcut. About halfway through, my old pickup hit a rut deep enough to hide a hippo.

The back tire blew, and I ended up walking the rest of the way in a pair of boots not meant for long distances. By the time I got to town, whatever it was I was hurrying for didn’t matter anymore.

That’s when it dawned on me, life’s a lot like that road. People often rush to get somewhere that they start looking for ways to shave time, effort, or patience.

Maybe it’s skipping a step on a job, or fibbing a little on a resume, or trying to climb a ladder faster by stepping on somebody else’s rung. It might get you a little further down the road for a while, but sooner or later, that corner you cut catches up with you, usually with a flat tire and a long walk home.

I’ve seen it play out with neighbors, too. My Hank tried to save money building his barn by using green lumber instead of seasoned wood.

He got it up in record time, struttin’ proud like a rooster on Sunday morning. Then one summer later, the boards twisted, nails popped, and the roof sagged like an old mule’s back, and it took him twice as long and three times the money to fix it right.

The truth is, anything worth doing in this life, work, love, faith, or friendship takes the long way ‘round, because there ain’t no shortcuts that hold up under weather and wear. The best things we build are the ones we take our time on, where we sweat a little and square the corners.

Nowadays, I stick to the main route. It might take longer, but I get where I’m going in one piece.

And if there’s a lesson in that, it’s this: slow down, do it right, and don’t trust any road that promises an easy way out, because more often than not, a shortcut’s just a long detour waiting to happen.

I only wanted to paint some toy soldiers. That’s how all good wars start, I guess, with somebody meaning well.

When I left them, they were quiet, still as saints in formation.

I stepped out for a cup of coffee. That’s all it took, five minutes, maybe six, and when I came back, my office looked like Gettysburg met Normandy. My plastic army men, all shades of olive green and dusty with age, had apparently declared war on a dozen shiny newcomers, fresh recruits made of metal.

See, I’d ordered those little metal soldiers with the idea that I’d paint them this week. Something relaxing, I thought.

I’d put on some Hank Williams, pour a cup of coffee, and spend an afternoon detailing tiny buttons and belts. What I didn’t account for was the jealousy of my old green platoon, who’d held the high ground of my bookshelf for over two decades.

I figured they could all get along. Maybe even share stories about the good ol’ days of sandbox warfare, but it turns out, I was wrong.

When I returned, chaos had erupted.

The coffee can that I’d kept the green soldiers in had toppled over. A platoon of them lay face down in a drift of printer paper.

My mousepad looked like a minefield. The new metal soldiers, scattered across the desk like shrapnel, some still standing proud, others fallen in awkward silence.

If you’ve ever had a cat knock things off your desk, you know the kind of mess I’m talking about. But this wasn’t the work of a cat.

No, sir. It was a full-blown skirmish.

Now, before you start thinking I’ve gone off my rocker, let me say that these old army men and I go way back. I was about seven when I got some of them, back when a dollar could still buy a good-sized bag of plastic troops and a small child could conquer the backyard with nothing but imagination.

Those soldiers had fought on every front imaginable, muddy puddles, sandboxes, and even snowbanks. I’d buried some, melted a few, and lost others to the vacuum cleaner.

The survivors had earned their rest.

So maybe it was pride, or nostalgia, but when those shiny metal troops arrived, my old plastic army must’ve seen red. They’d defended my childhood.

Now here came a bunch of newcomers, gleaming like parade soldiers, too stiff, too fancy. They didn’t look like they’d seen a single battle in the dust of a driveway.

Now, I don’t know if it was jealousy or territorial instinct, but it was clear my old green army thought they were getting replaced. So naturally, I did what any sensible grown man would do, and tried to play peacemaker.

“Alright, you bunch of toy-box tough guys,” I said out loud, holding up my hands like a hostage negotiator. “Let’s take a deep breath here. Nobody’s invading anybody.”

That only seemed to escalate things. One of the green snipers rolled off the desk and hit the floor, right under my boot, while another threw himself on a grenade to make a point.

The coffee can lie on its side, its plastic contents strewn across the keyboard. The metal soldiers were scattered everywhere, one wedged under the stapler like he was taking cover, another dangling from my desk lamp like a paratrooper who’d missed the landing zone.

The metal captain, still gleaming and unpainted, was standing atop my mouse, sword raised, commanding his troops forward. I swear I could hear him yelling, “Hold the line, men!” though it might’ve just been the ringing in my ears.

My dog poked his head in the room, took one look at the scene, and backed out slowly like he’d walked in on something classified.

It took me the better part of an hour to sort out the mess. I stood up the fallen, wiped off the coffee stains, and tried to restore order to Desk Ridge.

The coffee can, now dented but still serviceable, is a POW camp for the green ones. And the metal ones are back in their packaging, where they can lick their wounds and polish their pride.

I sat back, surveying the battlefield. My desk was a disaster, paperclips twisted into shrapnel, Post-it notes torn to ribbons, and one green bazooka man staring up at me like he’d seen all the horrors of war.

That’s when I realized I’d learned leadership is overrated when your troops are all two inches tall and made of plastic and lead.

Next time, I’ll ease the tension with diplomacy with a meet-and-greet, doughnuts, and fresh paint. Until then, peace talks have been declared indefinite, and I’m keeping the coffee can lid duct taped on tight.

After all, it’s not every day a man has to broker a ceasefire between the past and the present, on his own desk.

In the rolling hills, where the sun kissed the wheat fields’ gold, the Fourth of July brought folks together at the town grange. Tables groaned with peach cobbler and fried chicken, but this year, a quiet tension hung like dust in the air.

A big-city developer wanted to purchase half the farms for a strip mall, and the neighbors, some eager for cash, while others clung to their roots, grew divided. Miss Alma, who’d taught every kid in town to read, stood at the grange’s flagpole, her eyes sharp despite her eighty years, holding a folded quilt, patched with red, white, and blue scraps.

Young Tommy, a lanky farm boy of fifteen, helped her unfold it.

“What’s this, Miss Alma?” he asked, noticing the crowd hush.

“This,” Alma said, “is our flag, stitched from bits of our community’s heart. The stars and stripes are made of the thread that forms the fabric of the nation, our work, our stories, our standing together.”

Each patch, she explained, came from folks in town: a scrap from a soldier’s uniform, a piece of a widow’s apron, a strip from a child’s first dress. Tommy, whose pa felt tempted by the developer’s offer, listened as Alma told of her grandpa, a farmer who’d fought in ‘44 and came home to plant these fields.

“He didn’t fight for money,” she said. “He fought for this, us, together, holding the land like a promise.”

Tommy thought of his pa, stressing over bills, and the neighbors arguing at the diner. Inspired, Tommy went door-to-door, asking for stories, why the land mattered.

Ol’ man Carter shared how his orchard fed folks durin’ the Depression. Missy Lane told of her ma’s garden, where she learned hope.

Tommy wrote it all down, his hands shaking with purpose. At the next town meeting, he stood, voice cracking but clear.

“This ain’t just dirt. It’s our flag, sewn by us all. Selling it cuts the thread.”

The room stirred. Pa looked at Tommy, eyes softening.

Neighbors who’d bickered nodded, remembering their shared roots. The developer’s proposal got rejected, and the area remained intact.

The following Independence Day, Alma’s quilt hung by the flagpole, a patchwork of their lives. Tommy, holding a sparkler, grinned at her. “Reckon we’re stronger stitched together.”

Alma smiled. “Always were, boy. The nation’s fabric ain’t bought. It’s made.”

Where the clay dirt clung to boots like a stubborn friend, folks gathered at the town square for the annual harvest fair. The air smelled of fried okra, but this year, a slick salesman from the city, Mr. Vance, had set up a booth.

He peddled shiny gadgets, self-watering pots, robot weeders, promising a life without sweat. “No more toil!” he crowed. “The future’s easy!”

Ol’ man Rufus, who’d been farming since the Eisenhower days, watched with a squint. His granddaughter, Maisie, sixteen and curious, tugged his sleeve. “Ain’t that something, Grandpa? No more mucking in the mud?”

Rufus spat his tobacco. “Maisie, if the world didn’t suck, everything would fall off. It’s the struggle that keeps the stars in the sky and the crops in the ground.”

Maisie, drawn to Vance’s promises, bought one of the fancy pots with her fair money. She planted marigolds, expecting miracles.

But the gadget sputtered, overwatered the soil, and her flowers drowned. Frustrated, she trudged to Rufus’s field, where he was hoeing rows by hand, his shirt patched but his beans thriving.

“Why’s your way better?” she asked.

Rufus handed her a hoe. “Ain’t about easy, girl. The earth’s tough, sucks the life outta you if you let it. But that pull teaches you to dig deep, hold on. Them gadgets? They let go.”

Maisie worked beside him, her hands blistering but her heart settling. Each tug of the hoe felt like a conversation with the dirt.

By dusk, she’d planted a new row of beans, no machines needed. At the fair the following year, Vance’s booth sat empty. Folks had seen his pots fail, while Rufus’s harvest won a blue ribbon.

Word spread, and folks turned back to the old ways, hand-tilled fields, shared suppers, and stories under the stars. Maisie, proud of her calluses, sat with Rufus on his porch, sipping cider.

“Thought easy was better,” she admitted. “But it’s like you said, the world’s gotta pull at you to keep things in place.”

Rufus chuckled, “That’s right. The suck of it, hard work, heartache, mud on your boots, that’s what roots you. Without it, we’d all float off, chasing nothin’.”

As the crickets sang, Maisie smiled, feeling the weight of the land holding her steady, like the earth itself was saying, “Stay put, child. You’re home.”

 

Here, where the creek runs clear and the stars burn bright, life ain’t about chasin’ fancy notions or stackin’ up shiny trinkets. It’s about findin’ joy in the simple fixin’s, the kind of stuff that don’t cost a dime but fills your soul to the brim.

My wife got to talking with her friend Kim the other day, and Kim says, “I like the look of your lip balm.”

Mary, with that sly grin of hers, says, “Thanks, it’s bacon grease.”

Now, that right there’s the kind of down-home wisdom that’ll carry you further than any high-dollar self-help book. It’s practical, it’s real, and it’s got a story to tell.

See, country life ain’t just a place, it’s a way of thinkin’. It’s knowin’ that what you got in your pantry or your heart is plenty enough to get by.

Bacon grease ain’t just for fryin’ eggs; it’s a reminder that what’s left over from yesterday’s supper can still shine today. Mary’s been usin’ it for years, keeps her lips soft, her skillet seasoned, and her outlook grounded.

That’s the first bit of countryfied philosophy: make do with what you got, and make it work twice as hard. Ain’t no need for store-bought when the good Lord gave you ingenuity and a Mason jar.

Now, don’t get me wrong, life ain’t always as smooth as a sunny afternoon. The crops fail, the truck breaks down, and sometimes the neighbors ain’t neighborly.

But here’s the thing: a country heart doesn’t buckle under hard times. It bends like a willow in the wind.

When the bank account’s leaner than a stray dog, you learn to barter with a smile, a handshake, or a bushel of tomatoes. You sit on the porch with a glass of whatever and figure out what’s worth frettin’ over and what ain’t.

Most times, it’s the fretting itself that’s the problem, not the problem you’re fretting about.

Another piece of this philosophy is knowin’ your people. Out here, community ain’t just a word, it’s the glue that holds the whole dang world together.

When Mary’s mama took sick one winter, folks didn’t wait for an invite. They showed up with casseroles, prayers, and a couple of boys to mow the yard.

That’s love in work boots, and it’s worth more than gold. You don’t need a big city to have connections; you need a front porch and a willingness to listen. Share your burdens, share your bounty, and you’ll find both get lighter.

Time’s another thing we reckon different out here. It ain’t about rushin’ to the next big thing; it’s about savorin’ the now.

You ever watch a sunset creep over the hills, turnin’ the sky all pink and gold? That’s God’s way of sayin’, “Slow down, son, this moment’s enough.”

We ain’t got no use for hurryin’ when the rhythm of life’s set by the seasons, not a smartphone. Plant in spring, harvest in fall, and in between, you mend fences and mend hearts. That’s the pace that keeps you sane.

And then there’s faith, not just the churchgoin’ kind, though that’s got its place. I’m talkin’ about believin’ in somethin’ bigger than yourself, whether it’s the Good Book, the land, or the love you got for your kin.

Mary’s bacon grease lip balm ain’t just a quirky fix; it’s faith in the small things, trust that what’s humble can still be holy. You don’t need a megachurch to find meaning; sometimes it’s in the grease jar, the garden, or the way your dog looks at you like you hung the moon.

So, here’s the heart of it: live simple, love deep, and laugh often. Mary’s bacon grease ain’t gonna make the cover of no fashion magazine, but it’s real, and it works.

That’s what country life teaches you. Find beauty in the everyday, make peace with the hard days, and keep your roots planted firm.

Kim might’ve thought she was complimentin’ lip balm, but she got a glimpse of somethin’ bigger: a life that don’t need polish to shine, and that, friends, is about as countryfied as it gets.

I was sittin’ on the back porch last Tuesday, sipping a mug of coffee that had long ago gone cold, thinking about the world and how it seems to have its knickers in a twist. My dog, Buddy, lay stretched out in the sun, snoring like a chainsaw, and I reckon he doesn’t care about much besides food, shade, and a butt scritch.

Some folks might say I’m stubborn. I call it principled.

I’ve been hearin’ a lot about people getting “canceled” lately. You say one thing that doesn’t sit right with the masses, and suddenly, you’re public enemy number one, ostracized, shunned, maybe even unfriended by folks who’ve known you for years.

Hell, it makes a man wonder if honesty’s worth a hill of beans. I thought about that while Buddy sneezed on my shoe.

“Bless you, boy,” I muttered. “Even the universe’s smallest things get rejected sometimes.”

See, I grew up in a place where words had weight, and promises meant something. My granddaddy always said, “Tommy, you’ll find the world’ll twist you up if you let it, but Christ don’t give a hoot about what the world thinks. He’ll still put bread on the table for you.”

I didn’t fully understand it then, mostly because I was busy runnin’ barefoot through fields, but I get it now.

I reckon there’s a difference between rejection and judgment. Folks in the world can turn on you faster than a cat on a hot tin roof, but that doesn’t mean you’ve done wrong.

It just means the world’s got its own blind spots, and it’ll judge without knowing a thing about your heart. Christ, on the other hand, well, He’s the only one I figure that really sees straight.

He doesn’t cancel you for your mistakes or misunderstandings, or throw you out for speakin’ your mind or lovin’ the wrong people at the wrong time. He’s patient, the kind of patient that makes Buddy look like an impatient whippersnapper when he’s waitin’ for supper.

I took another sip of coffee and thought about the things I’d said recently. Things that got some folks riled up.

Online, they’d call it “controversial.” Around the local diner, they’d call it “stirrin’ the pot.”

But in my own quiet mind, I knew it was true, or at least honest. And the truth, no matter how messy, is better than a mouthful of lies that please everyone else but rot your own soul.

My neighbor leaned over the fence and hollered, “Tom, you talkin’ about gettin’ canceled again?” I grinned and said, “I’d rather be canceled by the world than rejected by Christ.”

He nodded slowly, like he understood something he didn’t have words for. Sometimes, the right kind of trouble comes with a conscience intact.

Other times, it’s just plain foolishness. You gotta know the difference.

I reckon you do by watchin’ your heart while the world’s tryin’ to yank it out of your chest.

Buddy stretched and yawned, turning over to show me his belly, his eyes half-lidded in contentment. I ran my hand down his middle and thought about grace.

Real grace ain’t about popularity. It ain’t about followers, likes, or gettin’ your name in the paper.

It’s quiet and still. It’s the kind of thing that keeps you sittin’ on a creaky porch at two in the afternoon, coffee long gone cold, and feelin’ the sun on your face anyway.

We can spend our lives tryin’ to please everyone, but there’s a cost. A heavy cost.

It’s called your soul. And if you’re gonna spend it like it’s worthless, you might as well get a drink and toast the whole mess.

But if you care about where it goes, about who sees it, about the One who matters most, then you don’t worry too much about being canceled. You worry about bein’ rejected by the only One who counts.

By the time the sun was sinkin’ behind the ridge, I’d finished my coffee and Buddy was dozin’ off again. The world could raise its voice, scowl, point fingers, and call me every name under the sun.

I’d hear it, sure. But I’d sit right there on that porch, let the wind brush against my face, and remember my granddaddy’s words: the world can take your name off a list, but Christ keeps your name on His table.

And that’s a table worth more than all the lists in the world.

The night had settled over the village like a damp, suffocating shroud. The fog rolled low from the woods, creeping between buildings and curling against the saloon’s shuttered windows.

Outside the dimly lit saloon, the two men sat close, talking.

“Terrified by the creature inside the house,” Joe said, his voice barely above a whisper, “the men grabbed their torches and set fire to it. They stood around and watched it burn to ashes. And that was that. Nothing. And no one ever came out.”

I leaned forward, a half-smile tugging at my lips. “Damn. What a story. Actually has me a little freaked out.”

Joe chuckled, but there was no mirth in it. “Yes. It’s been passed around here for, oh, I don’t know, since I was a boy. Not many people like to talk about it, though.”

“Really? How come?”

“Because they’re afraid, of course.” Joe glanced toward the blackened street, where shadows wavered in the lamplight. “Have you noticed that people around here don’t like to stay out after dark, or that we keep our distance from the woods? That story is more than just a legend to people in these parts.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Does that include you?”

“Well, yes.” Joe’s hand trembled as he lifted his Old Fashioned. “I probably shouldn’t even be talking about it. To even mention the beast is supposed to bring bad luck. But it’s probably just an old…”

Joe stopped, noticing the look on my face.

He frowned. “What is it?”

My eyes rested on an area between the buildings. “Hey, look. Do you see that down there?”

He turned. Beyond the railing of our upper deck, the fog had deepened, smothering the lamplight that lined the road.

For a heartbeat, there was only white mist and shadow. Then something moved.

A figure stepped from the treeline at the edge of the road, slow, deliberate, and wrong. Not the wrongness of a limping man or a trick of light, but something primal.

It was tall, or seemed tall because of the way it bent, its shape shifting with every movement, like smoke trapped in the shape of a body.

“Thomas,” Joe rasped, his chair scraping the wooden deck. “Get inside right now.”

I blinked. “What is it?”

“I mean it. Now!” Joe’s voice cracked, breaking into panic.

I’ve never understood why my best writing comes when I’m hurting. Not little irritations, not fleeting annoyances, but the kind of pain that sits heavy in your chest and refuses to leave.

Yesterday, for example, I’d gotten into it with someone over something trivial, and for hours afterward, I just sat in my chair, staring at the wall.

“Tom, are you even listening to me?” the person had said, voice tight with frustration.

“I am,” I lied.

I wasn’t. My mind had already wandered into that familiar place where anger and disappointment fold together like paper cranes, sharp edges pressing into you.

When she left, I stayed there, silent, the house thick with echoes. And then, I opened my laptop.

It’s funny how pain works. You don’t have to force it; it finds its way to you.

And when it does, the words come like a flood. I typed sentences I didn’t even know were hiding in me, lines I couldn’t have written when I was laughing over coffee or walking Buddy down the trail.

Pain makes you write honestly, makes you cut through pretense.

The first line I typed was jagged, barely coherent: Anger smells like burnt toast and old regrets. I paused, reread it, and chuckled softly.

Yeah, that made sense. That’s the thing about writing from pain.

It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else. It only has to make sense to you.

A few hours later, my friend Jim called.

“You sound like hell,” he said.

“Feels like it too,” I admitted. “But somehow, I’m writing. And it’s good. Don’t ask me why.”

“I’ll ask anyway,” he said. “Why does it have to be pain?”

I shrugged, though he couldn’t see it. “Maybe it’s because pain refuses distraction. It doesn’t let you drift. It presses you into your own skin until you notice the details you usually ignore. You feel too much to lie.”

He was quiet for a moment. “Sounds exhausting.”

“It is. But it’s worth it. Because when I’m not hurting, the words are there, but they’re polite. Safe. Pain gives them teeth.”

By the time I hung up, the room was dark. The words on the screen were jagged, raw, sometimes ugly, sometimes beautiful.

I leaned back and looked at them, feeling that strange mix of satisfaction and exhaustion. Pain had walked me into the room, uninvited, and left me with these words as a gift.

I don’t chase it. I never have.

But when it finds me, I don’t fight it either. I write.

And in those hours, I understand why the hurt comes: not to break me, but to make the words bleed.

A year or so ago, someone shared a diary entry with me. I’ve thought about it often since, like a dream you keep trying to re-enter.

Yesterday, I finally saw Mark Twain’s chair. It looked like a doll’s dollhouse furniture, brittle, breakable, just a few old sticks pegged together.

I suppose people were smaller back then, small enough to fit in such chairs and fume out such tall tales. Perhaps Twain himself was a slight man, delicate in body, which might be why he couldn’t make it in mining or fighting.

We were lying in bed when a happy, jubilant Mexican music came pouring through the window.

“A mariachi band in town!” we thought.

Quickly, we dressed and hit the streets. We looked everywhere—every saloon, every bar, both sides of the road. We found plenty of merriment and country dance music, even Johnny Cash on the jukebox and some silent riders in buffalo coats with showy, clanking spurs—but no Mexican music.

Disappointed, we turned homeward through the fading light. Then we heard it again.

There it was! The doors to the Territorial Enterprise flung wide open, Mexican music pouring out, along with dust, rubble, and a thick mist. Inside, two workers in dust masks stood on scaffolding, pounding away at the building’s insides.

Before long, the owner, Tom, with a mustache and a booming voice, appeared. He led me upstairs into a crumbling castle, a fortress of imagination.

There, among broken walls and exposed brick, stood a single long, gold-framed mirror almost reaching the ceiling. I took a self-portrait and caught a view of Virginia City I had never seen before, through the windows of the Territorial Enterprise.

Downstairs, one crystal chandelier still hung. It was better kept than Sam Clemens’ little desk in the corner, pushed up against the spot where he once worked. That tiny chair of doll-sticks. He must have had a slender frame. People were so much smaller then.

And maybe his sensibility was delicate too, not in the hauty, “haven’t lived yet” way of the modern easily-offended, but in a deep, human way. Hypocrisy seared him because he wanted better for us.

He could see it everywhere, so he chose the most loving way to point it out: with humor. He made us laugh, and that’s how you know there was love in his critique. I imagined this delicate man, with great wisps of hair, smoke, and eyebrows, sitting in that chair.

The moment I entered, my cameras fell apart. Upstairs, while trying to photograph the chandelier amid the rubble, the viewfinder on my camera popped off, rolled across the old ashen plank floor, and, boom, straight through the only hole in the boards, like an eight ball in a corner pocket.

It’s a $250 part. The camera’s useless without it.

I ran downstairs. “Where the hell could it be in this dimly lit pile of rubble and Mexican music?” I muttered.

I don’t believe in ghosts, but things had been falling on my head ever since I stepped inside.

“We’ll find it,” said Tom.

And by God, I did, pretty quickly, in fact.

Broken pieces of the old printing press jutted from the shattered walls, elegant and formidable like giant iron spirits rising from brick. They reminded me of Greek and Roman statues, headless, limbless, yet still standing. Down in the basement, among the rubble and half-forgotten artifacts, stood Mark Twain’s desk.

Immediately, my light meter gave out. I tried to capture a moment of Tom laughing on the stairway, his broad grin and deep mustache, but the meter was stuck on an overexposed reading. By the time I clicked the shutter, his smile was gone. Only the spindly wooden stairs remained, casting scary-movie shadows in the dim light.

What was I to do in this cavern of forlorn objects? There was an 1800s payroll machine, Mark Twain’s desk, relics of the past, and my newly tuned cameras betraying me one after another. I swapped batteries from one to the other, but dammit, I had no nickel to open the compartment.

I’d left home with my festive best, a trimmed-down camera bag, and apparently none of the essentials. Somewhere in this room full of history, there had to be a scrap of metal to fit the slot.

I searched the back room. There, a bag of metal bits.

And then, two mummies. Full human mummies, one wrapped in a black garbage bag to avoid scaring people, the other in a large wooden drawer.

I grabbed what I needed, twisted the battery lid, and suddenly, one of the batteries sprang out and disappeared on the floor. Now I was down on my hands and knees, flashlight in my phone, sweating, hoping Tom didn’t catch me rummaging through relics.

Finally, I got the batteries in. But the camera still didn’t work. It wasn’t the battery; it was the camera itself. I rewound and removed the good film, switched it to the other camera, all while batteries, lids, screws, and film threatened to leap from my hands.

“Oh no, ghost of Mark Twain, or whoever you are,” I thought. “I’m here. I’m doing this. I’m real, and I’m winning no matter what. You’re not getting another piece of my camera.”

Well, I did lose one more little battery to the floor, but fine—you can have it, ghost. No loss.

With the camera I didn’t want to use, now loaded with good film, I got one shot—just in case I never get to come back. Meanwhile, brick walls shuddered with dust and debris with each hammer blow above Mark Twain’s little corner.

Daylight faded. Tom wanted to go home to his family. The workers needed their rest.

“You can come back any time,” said Tom as he locked up. “We can even get you the code to the front door.”

I haven’t seen him since.