Short Cut

Not far from our house is an abandoned resort complex, only three-quarters built. It covers an extensive area and ought to be beautiful with views of the Mediterranean and half-landscaped gardens full of olive and orange trees, lantana and jasmine, but instead it is eerie and sad.

It is also in our way: every time we've walked past it on our way back from the beach, I've wondered out loud if we couldn't just walk through it and spare ourselves half a mile down a long dusty road with no sidewalks, scary dogs, and many potholes. Somehow, we've never had the time to chance this, and it has really irritated me. Cliche though it is, nothing ventured, nothing gained. And looking for shortcuts in weird places is just the sort of adventure I love.

Yesterday, my husband and I went for a walk down to the beach. The weather was perfect for a change and on our way home, as we walked past the rose-flanked entrance for the umpteenth time, it was just too tempting. "There's bound to be a way out," I said. "And it would be a great short-cut to know, wouldn't it?"

My husband shrugged.

"There's no keep-out sign," I pointed out. "No fence or dogs."

My husband considered this. Fierce dogs are a common feature in this area, given all the half-developed building sites just begging to be vandalized. The fact that we couldn't hear any barking was a real plus.

"If there's no way out, we can just retrace our steps. Extra exercise! We'll only be out the time and the shoe leather. Right?"

He cracked. "Okay."

The driveway itself, winding, upward sloping and tree-lined, took five minutes to negotiate. We could hear our footsteps echoing through the empty courtyard as we made our way past the empty pools filled with dried leaves and debris. Parts of the complex were almost complete, while other parts were mere skeletons, waiting to be finished. We skirted the main building, a dark, scary, cavern-like space with no floors and cables dangling down like so many snakes from the unfinished ceiling. There was something really odd about walking past gleaming sheets of marble and glass, stacks of cinder blocks still hermetically sealed in plastic, case after case of brand-new pipes, sparkling porcelain-white toilets, bathtubs and shower stalls.

As the sky darkened, we could see a few lights flickering on in the empty blocks of rooms, very strange considering the fact that there were almost no windows or doors. It was a long, weird walk, through half-formed gardens with the once-churned earth now full of weeds. In fact, there were weeds everywhere, vigorous and healthy as corn, poking up behind packing cases, through piles of cables and building rubble, around the slender trunks of year-old saplings already withering.

The main path that led us through the complex looked as though it was heading straight for our neighborhood. We could practically see it through the trees. It looked very promising.

"See?" I said, nudging my husband. "If we hadn't tried this, we'd never have found this great short cut!"

"We still don't know if we can get through."

I scorned this. "Of course we'll be able to get through!"

Barely a minute after I said this, the path curved around, revealing a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. On the other side of this, the path continued indefinitely, disappearing into a thicket that surrounded a farm. The kind of farm that has scary dogs on the premises, just waiting for a couple of trespassers to stroll past and make their day. After a game attempt to pass under the fence, my husband wiped his hands on his jeans and shook his head. "This won't work. We'll have to go all the way back."

And so we did.

It took over twenty minutes and my husband led me right through that horrible, dark, unfinished main building. He was even nasty enough to grab one of the cables and make a bzzzzt noise as though he'd been electrocuted, making me jump out of my skin.

Still, we were only out the shoe leather and a little time. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and even a small adventure is worth something.

There's a sheep farm-cum automotive garage just down the way from this complex. My husband says I'm crazy, but I'm betting there's a path through that.