There will be two of you. You will approach from any direction, but always through desolated housing and marshland covered in rail yards, truck routes, and rubbished lots. And you will meet here, beside the overpass and the derelict building site. You will leave your vehicles. Under a dark low sky, you will walk a quarter mile from the structure and climb to the embankment of the disused railway. You will head west above fields interspersed with wrecked autos and groves of sumac.

After crossing the railroad bridge, you will descend to the mud road running beneath. You will follow the road north into the phragmites. You will notice your feet avoiding the oily ruts. In a few hundred yards, where the road veers northeast, the gray blocks of the abandoned depot will appear above the reeds ahead. You will set your aim toward the tallest building and enter the grasses. The dense stalks will block your view. Every nearby thing will hear you coming, and the disturbance in the grasses will be visible to the distant cameras on the powerplant smokestack. You will move slowly and halt frequently. The view will open where the drainage ditch rims the perimeter fence. You will crouch and remain concealed.

Take in what lies before you: the posted signs, the crumbling slabs of the concrete yard, the blocks of stacked containers, the line of empty trailers, the wings of the low office building surrounding the tall central hangar. Time the circuit of the patrol vehicle around the complex. Locate the hole in the chain link and wait there. After the patrol passes, jump the ditch, push through the fence, and walk quickly to the doorway just left of the receiving annex. Inside, wait for the vehicle to pass once more.

The hangar will be surrounded by destroyed workshops, locker rooms, littered offices, narrow hallways. To give yourselves confidence, you will find a crowbar or piece of chain. You will test your swing. You will begin a tour of the rooms. You will keep clear of the windows and the darkened doorways. You will move through the mold-heavy air, assessing each detail. Everything is a clue. All signs register a presence: a torn ledger, a mattress against the wall, a scent of urine, a disturbance in the dust, a dried-out mug, an upended desk. You will watch for traps, and after every few steps, you will stop and listen. Here, the silence is not silent. You will remember that your presence is not justified, even to yourselves. You will return to the office through which you entered. You will pause before the double doors, and you will enter the darkness of the hangar. 

 Before your eyes can adjust, you will see it, in the middle, on the cinder floor beneath where the roof has lost one metal sheet.

 And then, the illumination will pass. It will be over.

With uncertain steps, you will retreat through the double doors. Only back on the embankment above the sumac and scattered wreckage will you speak to each other, and, in the fewest words, you will agree not to disclose what you have seen.

Michael Ashkin

There will be two of you (2003) is a collaboration with Hans Gremmen of FW: Books, Amsterdam