The Need For an Adventure Will Get Me Killed

I find myself following him. After passing a red-marked tree, he takes a sharp left and stops. There is an old-looking small caravan standing behind a rusty short fence not that far from the campsite. Hidden in the corner of a forest, visible only as a result of the moonlight shining through the branches. Creepy. Dark.

Thanks to the dirt and scratches, the caravan is perfectly masked and blends with the surrounding nature. There is no clear trail leading to the entrance, so my steps make their own path through the tall grass.

There are three steps leading to the main and only door. Surprisingly, it doesn’t look nearly as old as the rest of the “house”. Its yellow colour is the only clearly visible part of the caravan. It does not have any handle, only a keyhole and an anaesthetically looking sign “push” that does not match the surrounding whatsoever.

I have to use a torch on my phone to be able to see in the endless darkness. The torch reaches only a metre or two, and everything else around it disappears as I get used to the light.

When we get to the caravan, he opens the door, winks at me, and I step in. What the hell am I doing?

Inside, it does not look much better. No separate bedroom or kitchen, everything connected by a slim hallway. The entrance leads to open, multifunctional space. The overly used folding sofa on the left side of the room takes the most space. The TV, a small 1960s model, is turned on, shining much brighter than the yellow corner lamp, and it’s placed in the corner of the room, standing on the antique table right next to the couch. Everything is twice smaller than usual, so it can fit into the narrow space. There is only one chair and a cooker, a mini-fridge, and a greasy microwave next to it. The only door in there leads to the aeroplane-sized toilet in the same room as a tiny shower, fake foil mirror, that changes one’s face into ridiculous shape and covered in dust toilet.

He sits down on the dirty sofa, and I do the same, almost feeling the bacteria from the couch adhering to my clothes.

The reporter on the BBC news informs that ‘Chancellor Sajid Javid has announced a one-year spending review to give government departments “financial certainty” as they prepare for Brexit...’

‘Aght, Fuck oof.’ He frowns, turning the TV off. I can almost see the dust coming out of the sofa when he throws the controller on its surface.

He turns the radio on, and for a couple of minutes, I’m forced to sit there and watch him while he’s trying to find a channel that actually works. After an endless moment, he finally tunes it to a rock channel, and my favourite song, ‘I don’t want to miss a thing’ by Aerosmith, starts to play. It begins in the best part, the middle of the song, so I sink deeper into the sofa, relaxed. I close my eyes, moving my head into the rhythm of the music, and for that one moment, I feel quite comfortable. This is not so bad, I think, but he takes his jumper off, and that’s when I see it.

Both of his arms are heavily covered with tattoos, but that’s not what scares me. All of them are ridiculously colourful and cartoon-styled but one.

In the middle of all this old school, amateurly done art is a single-line drawn woman with full black eyes but her body weirdly deformed. Her arms and legs are made into an equal-armed cross, with each limb continued at a right angle.

I slowly slide across the sofa to get further away, trying to act as natural as possible, but he notices it anyway.

‘Dinny worry. We ur pure blood.’ He says and lifts his right arm into the air in a salute with a straightened hand.

I don’t really know what to say, but I’m curious. Usually, I’m used to the awkward silence in the room, but this was a different version of it. The atmosphere is so thick; one can slice it with a knife.

After my body being numb for a couple of seconds, the muscle in my left calf starts to twitch, and I can finally blink.

‘You German?’ I try to sound more interested than judgemental, maintaining fearless eye contact.

‘Am naw a nazi. Juist hink th’ world wid be better wi’oot certain fowk, ye ken?’

He opens a small overused chest.

‘Whit dae ye hink?’ he asks, picking up a weirdly shaped wooden spoon and showing it to me. ‘A’m learning tae carve. Nae bad fir a first attempt ey?’

I try looking closely at the odd object, but my vision isn’t great. He passes it over to me so I can have a closer look. One end definitely looks like an end of a spoon: wide, round, quite an impressive work. But the handler is different.

Swastika.

My throat gets dry, and I’m not really sure how to react. On the one hand, it’s excellent work for a first attempt, but on the other hand, well. Why is he showing this to me? Maybe he doesn’t even properly know what it means. After all, under all of that old man’s shell, there’s a spark of a naïve boy who never completely grew up.

I can sense that he is staring at me, waiting for my reaction. His eyes are filled with expectations and excitement, reminding me of a dog waiting to go for a walk.

I’m probably the first person he has shown it to, and for the first time, I properly examine his face. His black hair is unevenly cut, and there is not a single unwrinkled space on his face. Dozens of tiny wrinkles are surrounding his dark brown eyes.

I have three options now.

A) I compliment his work, and he might tell me more.

B) I ask him, ‘What the fuck?’ and give him a piece of my mind.

C) I run.

But since I’m intrigued, there’s no other option than option A.

‘Impressive.’ I say in the most impressed voice I can manage, but it’s not easy. He smiles, clearly satisfied with my response. I wait for him to continue, but he just keeps moving in the rhythm of the song playing on the radio. He grabs a small aluminium rectangular hinged tin, starts to roll a joint, and once again, we fall silent.

He rolls the spliff in record time and passes it over to me.

‘After you.’ I say and watch him take a long draw of the cigarette. He coughs but immediately takes another one. When he passes it to me for the second time, I don’t refuse and follow his lead. This one feels really strong, and I immediately feel hazy. My eyes get sleepy, my mouth dry, and my lips lift into an idiotic smile. I sink deeper into the sofa and rest my head on the backrest.

‘Have you been working here for a long?’ I ask.

‘They’re really gid hier. Nae backgrun checks,’ he says and stops himself from revealing more. ‘Ah come back hir every summer. Nae really gid money bu ye saw th’ nature around...,’ he continues talking, but I don’t listen.

No background checks.

This sentence rings in my head like an ambulance siren, and I can’t focus on anything else but the spoon lying on the table in front of me.

I pick up a phone and message my friend, ‘SOS, call me.’ She calls me immediately, and I’m relieved. It usually takes her forever to answer. He stops talking and looks at me and the phone.

‘Hey, yeah,’ I answer the phone, ‘okay, I’ll be right there.’

‘Sorry, my friend’s looking for me. I should be going.’ I tell him, trying to avoid eye contact. Fuck, he knows I’m lying.

‘Okay,’ he just says and shrugs.

We both stand up and walk towards the door. His face is blank and movements slow, but he opens the door for me and nods.

I don’t even say goodbye, and when he closes the door, I jog through the tall grass, blinded by the darkness, following the nearby lights of the campsite shining through the trees.

The second I leave the forest, I hear the loud music and cheering coming from the pub. It feels like the whole weird and creepy experience was either just a dream or happened years ago. The forest is almost like an invisible wall separating joy and happiness from the dark, unpleasurable place.