Travel Tips for Visiting Carcosa

As Told by Someone Who Should’ve Known Better

The lake is black. Not poetic-black or goth-kid-on-a-Tuesday black—this is a black that eats other blacks for breakfast and asks for a second helping. And above it? A sky so voided-out it makes nihilism look like a children’s craft project. Somewhere inside that double-vacuum of celestial indifference, twin suns sink behind clouds that aren’t clouds, not really—more like exhausted gods wrapped in gauze, drifting nowhere in particular. You’ve felt that tug, haven’t you? That migraine behind the soul. That faint, sick gravity you get when you read the wrong lines of the wrong play at exactly the wrong hour. Congratulations. The King’s RSVP card was filled out in your own handwriting at a time before you were born. So you’re going. Fabulous. Resistance is for the sort of people who still believe entropy has rules. Sit down, champ—here are the only travel tips that won’t get you killed immediately.

First rule: pack nothing reflective. Nothing. Mirrors are hostile witnesses in Carcosa. Reflection is an act of aggression. Phone screens, polished forks, the glossy sheen in your lover’s eye—each one is a sniper scope pointed squarely at your identity. The second your own face looks back at you, the Hyades triangulate your coordinates and that’s that—your exit strategy becomes an anecdote told by people who swear they almost remember you. Bring matte everything. Matte luggage. Matte boots. A matte heart if you’ve got one. The shinier it is, the faster you’re erased.

Maps? Don’t insult the city like that. Cartography is basically a blasphemous petition around here, and the deity answering the mail is the kind that smiles while skinning its devotees with a dull butter knife. Carcosa rearranges itself on a whim—spitefully, seductively, sometimes erotically depending on the humidity. Streets drown, towers negate themselves, alleys elongate into centuries. Trust only in Cassiopeia. She’s the closest thing to sane navigation you’ll get. If she turns her back, walk the other way. If she bows in grief, you kneel with her. If she’s not there at all, brother—you’ve already overstayed your welcome. Begin composing whatever theatrical last words you hope someone might overhear.

As for the language: you don’t speak it. You won’t. And, you probably shouldn’t want to. At best you’ll manage the terminal syllables, those cursed phonemes that, when spoken, sound like wet paper being torn. Practice them in the shower until the steam begins writing them on the glass without your having directed it to do so. Speak them aloud only after deciding which portion of your personal identity you’re prepared to lose. The locals—tall, drained of color, smiling like their bones itch—will nod politely and guide you deeper into whatever passes for hospitality. Refuse their guidance at your peril; the alternative is to be left on the shore with the other doomed tourists who still believe return tickets might hold some meaning.

Dress code: black. Not fashion black. Not funeral black. Seek the black that light falls into and never climbs out of. Velvet works if it’s worn down to the memory of itself. Lace is encouraged, provided each hole corresponds to a star the universe denies exists. Jewelry? One item only: the Pallid Mask, or a cheap imitation sold by the blind, whispering woman near the Lake of Hali—her wares are made from the tapering shrieks of dying priests. Wear it low, by the heart, so the King recognizes his property.

Time behaves badly here. Don’t dignify it with schedules. Clocks often run backward, sideways, sometimes emotionally. “Late” is a punchline. Arrive whenever you suddenly remember having already left. If this causes you skull-tightening pressure, good—that’s the brain acclimating to the idea that cause and effect are currently on bad terms and have decided to stay together only for the sake of the children.

Currency: memory. Spend like a drunk on payday. That birthday party you half-recall? Ferry ticket across the lake. The smell of your mother’s kitchen on a winter night? One room at the inn that once had a name before the sign rotted into the Yellow Sign’s suggestion of itself. And don’t you dare hoard nostalgia. Illegal. Dangerous. The officials who enforce that rule wear masks shaped like the faces of people you once loved, and they will be heartbreakingly polite while dismantling you.

If a man in a yellow robe tells you he remembers you from a previous century, do not correct him. He’s right, and the century he’s referring to hasn’t quite made up its mind yet. Offer him a cigarette if you still smoke; he will decline with exquisite sadness and then recite the exact hour of your death in a voice that sounds like the raging fires of a thousand burning libraries. Thank him and tip him generously. It’s customary.

And finally—when those twin suns set for the very last time, and the sky rips open like wet canvas to show you the snarling, luminous face of your own darkest interior self—don’t flinch. That’s the moment Carcosa’s been grooming you for. That’s the postcard you came here to send.

There is no return address. There’s no need of one. The city already knows where you live—past, future, and whatever the hell’s left.