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Your fingers wiggle around the laces.

34thparallel.substack.com

Your fingers wiggle around the laces.

34MAG
Jul 2, 2023
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Your fingers wiggle around the laces.

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Forest Haven housed more than a thousand children. They were not permitted to own shoelaces.

KEEP MOVING BY MATTI BEN-LEV34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 111

Abandoned buildings to me are kind of like holding your breath.

“Here it is,” James said. We were alone but we still whispered.

Forest Haven, a village with no doors. Vines crackled under our shoes, nipping, coiling around our ankles. The woods seemed like they might envelop us if we stopped for too long. The moon was bright white, a spotlight.

The first brick building had a platform, like a loading bay. Graffiti was sprayed where doors and windows used to be: All Welcome Except Nazis.

Our flashlights clicked on, a steady beam. Our eyes, wide open, no peripheral vision; we could only see what was directly in front of us. Glass hissed. Our footsteps echoed, broken fragments of sound. Scraps of wood, door frames and chair legs, and dressers hiding in corners. Papers scattered across a concrete floor: diagrams and patient files and surveys and…

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