Mishalak

One of the things I loved about being in college was the chance to explore. I would set out when the mood stuck me to find where my curiosity would lead. So one evening in 1996 I had just seen a movie in the ever expanding psych building's auditorium. Being inside late at night I decided to take the opportunity to see how far down inside I could get. The building had already consumed two other buildings and been elevated to the height of six stories about ground. I head heard rumors that it extended that far or lower below as well and the construction continued.

I went down the hall and nipped into a stairwell I found unlocked. That took me down two levels before running out. I took a hallway westward under the courtyard above. I could smell the moist dust smell of curing concrete and after a turn I found an area still under construction. I walked into a largish room still just bare concrete and felt like I was in a set for Star Wars or perhaps some supernatural thriller. The center of the room was a octagonal area surrounded by bare concrete levels. There were dim lights giving a blue white glow that illuminated and cast into deep shadow parts of the room. It could have been an archeology site left by some alien civilization with the tools of the excavators abandoned for the night along with their shut down lights. It was a very cool thing to see.

I found a newer stairway and went down again past three doors and then there were twice as many stairs before I cam to the final door. Locked with nothing to indicate what it might, not even an "Authorized Personal Only" sign. I knew the steam tunnels were far above this deep place and I still have no idea what might be down there. So I went back up and was very pleased to find the next to last door off this stairway unlocked.

I wandered back in a generally easterly direction; down silent halls with white linoleum floors with the faint smell of decay and chemicals coming from behind laboratory doors. After a few turns I found myself in an older section with terrazzo flooring and a general 1950s look about it. I guessed this was one of the building psych had consumed in recent years, though I'm not sure where I was. I found a old bomb shelter sign next to a short and dark side corridor and I went to check it out. This door was unlocked as well, perhaps due to ancient arcane regulations about bomb shelters. Or perhaps it was just forgotten and behind it was stairway leadning down into cobwebs and darkness.

I could not resist going down to check this out. Down I went and I found dusty shelves and foundation pillars at the bottom, illuminated by my pocket flashlight and a few of the simple incandescent bulbs behind their metal safety cages , but also thought there might be an alarm system linked to the lights. So I walked amid forgotten furniture and square pillars with flaking paint.

Near the back I found the iron door. Riveted and rusty I didn't think I would get it open, but using a discarded chair leg to help lever it open. I found a tunnel twice as tall as wide, just a bit taller than me. It was lined with something that might have been poured cement that was now disintegrating in the darkness into sand.

I came out in moonlight in snow after about 300 meters. An icy stairway going up not nearly as far as I had come down. It looked like some sort of abandoned cloth mill, red brick buildings of an old design. The buildings were not falling down, not damaged, but they had an empty haunted feel. I did go over to one and peek cautiously in the window, but I did not dare go further. I was only wearing a light windbreaker because back on campus it was a cool, but not cold, fall evening with low hanging clouds. This was no place to wander about unprepared, I saw some bits of cable sticking up through the snow and occasional ice pool. Beyond the buildings there were dark trees, but I turned back.

It was harder than just retracing my steps to find my way back to my dorm room. I went back the next night, but I could not find the bomb shelter again.

A story for my friend enginoshouzoku because she felt blue.

If you turn and look quick (because otherwise it is dangerous) when crossing the Broadway Bridge over Cherry Creek you may briefly see a truly fascinating sight. North of this point the Creek actually runs uphill towards downtown Denver. Most of the time the human mind refuses to register this fact on a conscious level and so only by looking quickly from a few bridges can the western water phenomenon be seen.

It is a well-known axiom that in the West water flows uphill towards money. What most people don't realize is this phenomenon can occasionally happen outside the controlled conditions in a water system and result in astonishing natural events such as uphill streams and even the occasional mass relocation of water.

Until the arrival of the white man in the region there was not anything like the concentrated masses of M-1, the money supply, needed to displace large masses of water. So the creek flowed downhill to the Platte as it had for centuries uncounted. Soon after the discovery of Gold enough was refined into true money that a great tragedy resulted from its accumulation in Denver. In 1864 the creek jumped its banks and began wandering towards the human banks.

It was an startling seeing weathy miners wading through the flood with small hills of water around them. But the force has its limits and as the residents fled with their money the water was forced to once again to resume its previous course. Though some nervous residents suggested that lead weights be installed to prevent the sleepy creek from rising again.

But nothing terribly organized was done for years and several more floods struck Denver. Indeed until the administration of Mayor Speer no one had even realized that the junk choked was ascending slightly as it passed Broadway. This caused the city to realize it had a major problem. To help the Mayor cleaned up the creek and tried to attract more wealthy business to the area to somewhat counterbalance the pull of the downtown area.

More importantly he had a number of devices involving spinning lead and silver flywheels, and not buttered cats as some have suggested, placed inside his flood control walls. Along with several dams to control flash flooding we no longer have to worry about the Creek or even the River jumping its banks seeking people will large bankrolls.

I feel way too keyed up. I needed caffeine to get going this morning, up too late reading again, so I'm sort of manic right now.

I feel like writing. There is a tree at the corner of Ohio Avenue and University Boulevard. It looks like a fairly ordinary silver maple with a silvery trunk and leaves that flash green and off white in a breeze. Though if you take the time to cross the street from the Bonnie Brae Ice Cream Parlor you'll soon realize this is something more than just another silver maple. Its trunk totally fills the space between the sidewalk and curb. This is the Arlie Maple planted the city was still young by Arlie Grosman, the kindly madman who talked to trees. He was quite a character. He called himself the Secretary of Jupiter (or possibly Juniper) and apparently believed that trees keep the cities sleeping.

He planted widely and frequently, saying that he taught the trees to sing in harmonies. It is certainly true that he was often seen putting an ear to the trees he planted and could be heard humming something halfway between a lullaby and a chant as he went walking among them. In his blue green suit with the instruments of his vocation hanging out of the pockets he went tramping about Denver and nearby towns for close to 60 years. When he finally died in 1921 he wanted to have his body stuffed inside the hollow bole of an oak, but instead he was cremated by some of his friends in the eccentric community.

So why then is this tree the Arlie Maple out of all the hundreds he planted and cared for? Because it is a survivor, it is well over a century old now and no one knows why that might be. Luck, magic, something planted among its roots? None can say, but it is definitely a fantastic tree and if you heard it singing it would probably have a full rich voice of an elderly aunt singing a strange hymn.