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great_lakes_haze
In the northern hemisphere of a distant, unknown world, there is a clutch of continents and islands collectively referred to as the New Lands. From the eastern shore of the largest landmass among them juts a peninsula known as Cape Uncertainty.
It is open to winds from the north, which stream down from the Arctic Circle. It is often shrouded in fogs or mists, and its waters are notoriously turbulent. The fishing is good, but the storms are ugly and frequent.
South of the Cape, across a firth called Jade Inlet, lies the city of Port Karen. Its harbor is a destination for ships from all over the New Lands, and its airport is open to any kind of traffic that cares to come out of the skies. Across Port Karen Sound are Ramsey Island and Helenrock Island, which protect the port and anchorage from the southeasterly storm winds. South of the airport on the river flats rolls the Green River, emptying into Kettering Bay. Down the coast, and inland to the west, there are other towns and settlements, but none so welcoming to the inexplicable as is Port Karen. This is because it is so close to Cape Uncertainty.
To begin with, there is something uncanny about the Cape itself. You can't rely on your compass when you get near it, if you sail or steam through those waters. Your compass thinks the earth's magnetic lines are completely screwy in the vicinity of the Cape. Yet its rocky shores look ordinary enough, should you happen upon them on an ordinary day.
There is something else you can't rely on: the Cape's location, or rather, its very existence. Yet, it is on the map. The one you buy when you stop at a gas station on the coastal highway. In fact, it is on all the maps printed in the New Lands, including, of course, the nautical charts. But if one day you should look at one of these geographical aids and fail to find the Cape on it, or find it in the wrong place -- well, then, this is not an ordinary day.
And there may be other signs in your environment that some unknowable influence has flowed down from the peninsula or has breached the world from the outside, affecting the entire region of the Cape. The birds may fly backwards. The ocean may begin to speak to you in a language you understand. The great semicircle of a rainbow may appear in front of you, arcing from horizon to horizon, like a vast doorway or gate that has opened for you alone -- but this great bow will have only one narrow band of color, of a pale luminous cadmium yellow. The buildings around you may suddenly shift in light or perspective -- as though you abruptly stood in an unfamiliar time or place to view them. The waiter or waitress who takes your order in a cafe may look at you with sympathetic curiously and ask if you, too, have butterflies in your stomach. And you will. A feeling of profound uneasiness, reaching right down to the very foundation of your being, often precedes the type of event the locals call a dislocation, or, speaking more casually and humorously, "falling down the rabbit hole."
If you are actually in the Cape Uncertainty region, your reality may split apart and let in other realities. Other times, other places, the past or the future, other timelines, other universes even, may intrude suddenly into your experience. And there is no telling how long you may wander in these alternative realities before you are returned to the ordinary here and now. (Assuming you are returned.)
It is believed, moreover, that all newcomers to the New Lands actually arrive through the portal of such a discontinuity. That is, every resident or citizen of the New Lands actually comes here as a foreigner, as an inadvertent visitor from some other reality.
For this reason, the citizens of the New Lands call the Cape, its waters, and its peninsula, as well as some hundreds of square miles adjacent to it, the Region of Uncertainty.
Some think that Port Karen, being nearest this area and subject to some of the odd events associated with it, ought to be included under that designation as well.
But wherever you happen to be when the strangeness begins to manifest, follow these simple rules:
If you are in a car, pull over or at least tighten your seat belt. If you are in a boat, grab the nearest handrail or support. If you are piloting an aircraft, look for a place to make an emergency landing. If you are on the street, just halt and keep your head.
There is no telling what may happen.
[Note: the title quote is from Theodore Roethke's poem, "Her Longing."]
