NOTE: IF YOU EVER PLAN ON VISITING IT YOURSELF, STOP READING. THE PARK SHOULD BE EXPERIENCED WITHOUT PREAMBLE IF AT ALL POSSIBLE.
Alright, if you're still with us, then I assume you probably won't ever be coming to Japan, or you just don't care. Suit yourself! I will now begin the tour.
Two Saturdays ago, after a bout of band practice, Jenn mentioned that she wanted to go to the town of Yoro, because there was a park there that she wanted to check out. A park? Alright, nothing special, I thought - until I heard the name. The park of Reversible Destiny. Oh, yes please. I wanna go too!
I still thought it'd just be like a nature park, with trees and maybe a pond or a waterfall or something, but the name was intriguing enough that I had to check it out. Fortunately, Jake was meeting his friend Masaru, so he was there for this conversation, in the middle of the food court at the local mall. Masaru had been there before, said it was really cool and we should all go. He could drive. We'd leave tomorrow morning. It was settled.
So next morning rolls around. I'm a little afraid Jake and Masaru will be too hungover to make it, but they defy expectations and roll up (thirty minutes late). I ran into my coworker Michael out in front of the apartment, while waiting, and he decided he'd join us. Masaru's girlfriend Robin did, too. So full car - not enough seatbelts - as we make the 45 minute trek to the park.
At this point, I knew it wasn't any ordinary park. Jenn described it as a land of "optical illusions" - kind of like a house of mirrors. Still, I thought surely it would be an innocent, kid-oriented kind of place.
I was wrong.
We stopped at a conbini (convenient store) for some food, and made some other..."preparations"...in the parking lot upon arrival. Behind us, mountains loomed large. Nearby was an old amusement park - but that was not to be our destination. We got out and began crossing a large field with a lone, leafless tree. It's January. The grass is jaundiced, pale and hard beneath our feet.
We buy tickets at the gate, and enter the park. The Site of Reversible Destiny. So far, it looks pretty sparse and not at all trippy - just kind of old. We enter a faded pink house with an oversized, sloping roof.
This is the Reversible Destiny House, as you can see in this sign.
The house consists primarily of entrances. Terrain predominates over plan. Two distinctly different re-worked labyrinths are used one above the other in constradistinction to one another...There will be parts of the kitchen or the living room that will reappear in the bedroom and in the bathroom. It may take a few hours to go from the living room to the kitchen. It may take several days to find everywhere in the house that the dining room is in...There will be a superabundance of references, a surfeit of landing sites...
The house will relieve one of having to have a personality...
Strange happenings are afoot. I go outside - I've fallen too far behind my comrades. I'm already beginning to lose my way. I've somehow managed to climb atop this craggy mountain.
This is where we must go to get the water from the well. I can see the house now...there it is.
Some of it is outside. Some of it is inside. The ground is above. The ground is below. And the walls...keep shifting...
It is time to get out of this twisted house. Solo, I stumble my way through the park. I think my friends went this way?
No. I've somehow ended up in America.
It's like New York...but something's...different...
Oh God where the hell am I
I've come across a big chunk of metal. It's like a piece of spacecraft fell from the sky and lodged itself into the earth. It is misshapen and jagged and there are people bending down, looking for something in the crater as I approach. There is something inside the giant shard. You have to bend down to see it...
It's...a ladder?!
I crawl under to investigate. The ladder is a bust though - it leads to nowhere. But inside the sculpture is another labyrinth of walls, perhaps identical to the previous house, perhaps not. It's impossible to tell, because the floor is uneven and it's dark. It's like there's been an earthquake in the middle of the night, but time has stopped going forwards or backwards. I feel my way around. There's another stove. Another mattress. Another toilet. I crawl back under the walls and return to the land of sunshine, but time seems to have remained frozen in place.
I am looking out this great basin of vegetation. It is a strange sight to behold. I slowly descend down the incredibly steep slopes - I would later fall flat on my face trying to get back up these hills. This is a dangerous place. There are families with children around, but the children are not laughing and having a good time like you would expect to at a traditional fun park. They are clinging to their parents and screaming kowai! (scary!). At various points, I have heard even parents muttering to each other about how difficult it is to get around: Abunai... Abunai...
The basin hosts another few permutations of the labyrinthine house, including one without walls, as you can see here:
And a lot of paths through nearly inpenetrable wilderness:
They boast names like the "Exactitude Ridge" and the "Geographical Ghost" and the "Trajectory Membrane Gate," and they all hold certain charms. At some point I meet up with my friends, who have travelled their own journeys backwards and forwards through time, navigating the perils of this twisted place. We find ourselves in a bizarro version of Europe, with German and French street names plastered below our feet.
It seems we've fully explored every nook and cranny. My mind wanders back to the sign in the Reversible Destiny House - was it an hour ago, or two; two weeks ago, or another lifetime that I'd seen it? - but the phrase The house will relieve one of having to have a personality jumps into my temporal lobe. It is shocking how accurate it's proven to be. I've completey lost track of time, of what I'm doing, of who I am. In my simple effort to constantly acclimate and reacclimate to my surroundings, I've gone into a sort of instinctual survival mode. More than any other time - including my New Year's ordeal on the mountain - I am struck by just what life might be like for a wild animal, or a primitive human, just trying to get by in a strange world. It is fascinating. I try to remember the civilized world outside the park's boundaries, but it's fuzzy and difficult to place...
Right before we are leaving to go, Jenn and I discover that we've not been to the Cleaving Hall. It is difficult to find any place, even with the map, and so we set off back into the fertile basin to experience one last thrill.
The Hall is easy to miss - it's just a slit in the flesh of the mountainside.
Inside it is pitch black. I can go left or right. I turn to the left, and immediately careen forwards down a hill. I run into a wall and wait, the only light emanating from that tiny crack which leads to the outside world. Jenn's silhouette appears in the sliver. She, too, turns left, takes a step, and falls flat on her ass down the hill.
She's fine though. We cannot stop laughing.
I hold my hands out in front of me as we continue to explore the pitch dark tunnels, which snake upward and downward like the handiwork of a deranged mole. In the center of my vision, there is a spiral of imperceptible color, pulling me in me inward. It is like I'm falling in forward motion, into a bottomless pit of eternity stretched out before me. A black of hole of possibility swallows me into the complex.
It's another maze. At some point, we come to a room. An outline of Japan is cut into the ceiling, shining down on us from above.
It is as though we've been transported into space, and can look back at the country we used to inhabit, beckoning to us to return. I am giddy and excited and filled with the exhiliration of a 10-year old child after his first ride on a jet coaster.
Eventually, we go back out into the world. First, the world of Reversible Destiny, and then the real world, that shining beacon of insanity that is Japan. But the experience remains, residue imbedded into my circuitry.
I'm still not sure what Reversible Destiny means, but I'm a whole lot closer to finding out.
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