In which guests stop by at a swamp populated by newts and herons that mix together delicious concoctions that might be too good to be true.
Hello all,
This year I’ll be, over the span of the next thirteen days, describing a Halloween-themed amusement park that I got to develop with Surena Marie, for fun, specifically for 13 Days.
As a big old imagineering nerd, this is a dream project and I’m so excited to share it with you all. Please excuse the shoddy sketches that accompany the overly written descriptions.
Enjoy.
Image by Tapani Hellman from Pixabay
Cobblestone paths give way to thick muddy wetground as guests approach a pair of frogs that offer out boots to borrow. Guests are going to need them if they plan to continue forward.
The tree canopy overhead becomes thick and heavy as the floor below becomes sticky and eager to hold onto the heels of the borrowed boots. Heath shrubs obscure view until guests turn the corner and find an array of little bogs, with steaming sweet-smelling mixtures in each of the swamp pools.
Wandering amongst the simmering experiments are figures, some with large glassy eyes and stubby fingers, others with spindly legs and trembling beaks, but all wearing pointy black hats and long broom-like paddles that they occasionally stir the pools with.
These wetland witches will rush over to guests and excitedly guide them through their process, handing them a brown paper pad and a quill for them to write down the ideas behind their creations. Each experiment starts with a magic flavor. Is it sour? Is it sweet? Is it bitter? Is it spicy? Where can this flavor be found in the world? What shape does it take?
Climbing upon their boom-like paddles, these newts and herons whisk guests into the air and through the surrounding forests in search of ingredients that will achieve this magic flavor. Once these ingredients are found, be they fruits or vegetables or tisanes, they’re added to a fresh pool. And then guests are asked what additional flavors would compliment the pool? What flavors would contrast? Should there be tension between flavors? Harmony?
As more ingredients are added to the pools, the mixtures take on different colors and characteristics. Some become shimmering. Others dark and murky. Some bubble. Others so viscous they’re impossible to mix.
Guests fly up into the forests to gather more and more ingredients until the pool looks ready. Then it’s ladled into bottles and taken to the folding rocks where the liquid is poured over various stones depending on the guest’s textural concepts. Is the end result going to be soft and smooth, hard and durable, chewy? The hosts and guests alike use wood spoons to shape the concoctions into bars or lollipops or rolls.
And from there they will be showcased at the banquet of treats, where creations from all the other guests are served up in little woven bowls for everyone to sample.
Because treats are not simply for one to consume. They are to be made, like moments, with conscious consideration and frivolity, with the spark of instantaneous creation and ongoing reflection. Treats are small packages of care that are to be distributed not from companies but from the heart.
They are bite size kindness.
Here guests can make as many little kindnesses as they like, sharing them with complete strangers that they’ve only just met and will not know after leaving the park. And yet, the memory of gift giving, of creativity and the excitement of experimentation will live on for forever.
As guests go around with their woven bowls, sharing their sweet and sour and bitter and spicy and fruity and mellow confections.
And the swamp is filled with scents and sounds and guests complimenting each others wonderful crafts.
Until it all suddenly goes dark.
And it all suddenly goes quiet.
As if someone turned out the sun.
And the air goes still.
And nothing emits light or sound.
Nothing.
Except for the castle on the hill, which is crackling with electricity.
And a voice that whispers “come find me.”
One phrase I find particularly delightful: "bite size kindness."
And when you wrote "And the swamp is filled with scents and sounds and guests complimenting each others wonderful crafts.," my mind rewrote is as "And 13 Days 13 Shorts is filled with scents and sounds and guests complimenting each others wonderful crafts."
And when November 1 arrives, we will indeed "come find" it again,.next year. For quite a treasure it is.