The Old Man was out for a day trip. First, the walk in the woods, then the long wait for a grocery order. Why not see a matinee movie? I was amazed to see the theatre almost full. Not a customary sight in these halcyon days. ‘Backrooms is based on the internet-born liminal space phenomenon, the A24 Backrooms (2026).’ Backrooms is an endless yellow-walled labyrinth. The movie is supposed to capture the uncanny dread of liminal spaces. ‘Reviewers note the movie excels when it leans into the inexplicable and inexplicable horror of an infinite non-Euclidean wasteland.’

So, Backrooms was a weird movie. It was a bit like life; the more you looked for the reason and rationale to the fluorescently lit liminal yellow-walled space… There was another hall to enter. Furniture sinking into the floor, rooms that just are not correct, and the sound of footsteps. Backrooms, like all of us have been in, and yet our memories of them are fuzzy. Where are we going and where have we been? Have we reached the end, or is this the beginning?

Life is a mystery that is fun until it is not. I did not like the Hall of Mirrors at the Carnivale. I ran into too many mirrors. We have some of the Labyrinth Lover in us. The Shinnings Hedge Labrynith was scary. Life can be scary. Memories deep-seated in our souls harken to times we were in the yellow-walled, fluorescently lit, strange rooms looking for the door.

The little boy is running with his dog. He called out to his grandmother that it was starting to rain. Now the dog is in the house, and the little boy is playing unashamedly. The dog knows that a trick was played.

A frog chorus has arisen. Sounds like twenty full-throated singers or more. The summer evening is as it should be. The neighbor’s house is where it always has been. The Bullfrog Quartet is where it should be on Brooks Pond. The Writing Porch is not sinking into the ground or resting on a 45-degree angle. Tomorrow is another day to search for the path home. We must not get lost in the Backrooms forever…