“Where did it go?” whispers Waitress. By the time she finishes the question Tracker is the only one who can still distinguish the drone from clouds and sky.
“One of the many eyes that will be watching you,” the host informs the group. His voice is rich with implication, though the truth is there’s only the one drone and since the contestants will be under tree cover most of the time, it’s being used primarily for establishing shots.
“Now let’s begin,” says the host. “Over the next weeks, your skills will be tested and your fortitude pushed to the limit. You do have an out, however. If a Challenge is ever too tough, or if you can’t stand another night being nettled by mosquitoes, simply say ‘Ad tenebras dedi,’ and it’s over. Remember this phrase. This is your out.” As he speaks, he hands a notecard to each contestant. “Your only out. We’ve written it down for each of you to memorize. Ad tenebras dedi. I want to make this clear: Once you say this phrase, there’s no coming back.”
“What’s it mean?” asks Rancher.
“You will learn its meaning,” replies the host.
Black Doctor is shorter and rounder than Tracker, with a goatee. His mustard-yellow bandana covers his head. One of his white-flecked eyebrows perks as he looks at the notecard in his hand. Then a close-up confessional, trees behind him, a hint of scuffed stubble surrounding the goatee. “It’s Latin,” says Black Doctor’s future self. “?‘To the night, I surrender.’ Or ‘darkness,’ I’m not sure. It’s a little pretentious for the circumstances, but I’m glad there’s a safety phrase. It’s good to know that there’s a way out.” He pauses. “I hope everyone can remember it.”
And then the host, sitting in a canvas camping chair by a day-lit fire, directly addressing the viewers. “The contestants don’t know everything,” he says, his soft tone and downward-tipped chin inviting the viewers to share his secret. His body language reads: We’re co-conspirators, now. “They know no one gets voted off, that this is a race—or, rather, a series of small races during which they accumulate advantages and disadvantages. What they don’t know is that this race does not have a finish line.” He leans forward. “The game will continue until only one person remains, and the only way out is to quit.” No one knows how long the show will last, not the creators, not the contestants. Their contracts said no less than five weeks and no more than twelve, though a fine-print footnote actually allows for sixteen weeks in the case of extenuating circumstances. “Ad tenebras dedi,” says the host. “There is no other way. And regarding this, the contestants are truly In the Dark.”
A series of confessionals follow, all with generic wilderness backgrounds.
Waitress, who knows her only chance of cashing out is to win Fan Favorite: “What will I do first if I win the million dollars? Go to the beach. Jamaica, Florida, I don’t know, somewhere really nice. I’d take my besties with me and sit on the beach all day, drinking cosmos and anything on the menu that ends in ‘-tini.’?”
Rancher, with an honest shrug: “I’m here for the money. I don’t know what they got in store for us, but I don’t plan on saying those words. I’ve got my boys back home taking care of the ranch, but I want them to go to college and there’s no way I can pay for that and afford to lose them as workers. That’s why I’m here, for my kids.”
The light-haired woman with the brown glasses. She held a spiky yellow lizard in her application video and the editor sees more to her than her hair. “I know this sounds ridiculous,” she says, “but I’m not here for the money. I mean, I won’t say no to a million dollars, but I would have signed up even without a prize. I’m almost thirty, I’ve been married three years, it’s time to take the next step.” Zoo exhales nervously. “Kids. It’s time for kids. Everyone I know with kids says it’s never the same, that it changes your life, that you lose all your me time. I’m prepared for that, I’m okay with ceding some of my individuality, and, yeah, my sanity. But before that happens, before I exchange my name for the title of Mom, I want one last adventure. That’s why I’m here, and that’s why I’m not going to quit, no matter what.” She holds up the slip of paper with the safety phrase and tears it in half. The action is symbolic—she has the phrase memorized—but no less sincere for the drama of the gesture. “So,” she says, looking at the camera with sly intensity, a smile hiding behind her straight face, “bring it on.”
3.
I lie in my shelter well into the night, but can’t sleep for the tightness I feel everywhere—legs, shoulders, back, brow, eyes. The arches of my feet are screaming, as though only the pressure of movement kept them silent throughout the day. My rehydrated body thrums, changed and needing something more.
Finally, I push my backpack out of the front of my shelter and crawl into the night. Leaves crunch beneath my palms and knees, and my loosened bootlaces drag like snakes. Cold air pinches my cheeks. Pausing, I hear crickets and chirping frogs. The brook, the wind. I think I can hear the unseen moon. I stand, leaving my glasses folded through a strap on my pack. Without them, my vision is a pixelated blur of alternating grays. Held at breast height, my palms are pale, their edges nearly crisp. I rub at the base of my left ring finger and relive the uneasy flutter of my heart when I removed the white gold band. I remember slipping it into its velvet-lined box and placing the box into my top dresser drawer. My husband was in the bathroom, trimming his beard into the even stubble I like best. He spoke more than I did on the drive to the airport, a role reversal. “You’re going to be amazing,” he said. “I can’t wait to watch.”
Later, on the short flight to Pittsburgh, I sucked back sobs and pressed my forehead to the window, sharing my anxiety with the sky but not the snoring stranger to my left. It didn’t used to be so difficult to leave, but it was different before I met my husband. Before—leaving Stowe for college, that summer hiking hostel to hostel across western Europe, six months in Australia after graduating from Columbia—my fear was always tempered by excitement enough to tip the scales. Leaving was always scary, but it was never hard. But this time I not only left familiarity behind, I left happiness. There’s a difference, the magnitude of which I didn’t anticipate.
I don’t regret New York, or Europe, or Australia. I’m not sure I regret coming here, but I do regret leaving my wedding ring behind, no matter the instructions I was given. Without my ring, the love I left feels too distant, and the plans we’ve made feel unreal.
At the airport he promised me the retired greyhound we’d been talking about adopting ever since we bought our house. “We’ll find a good one when you get home,” he said. “Speckled, with some ridiculously long racing name.”
“It has to be okay with kids,” I replied, because that was what I had to say, that was the reason I gave for leaving.
“I know,” he said. “I’ll scout while you’re away.”
I wonder if he’s scouting right now. Working late but really scrolling through Petfinder or checking the website of the greyhound rescue organization we saw at the farmers’ market a few weeks before I left. Or maybe he’s finally getting a drink with the new guy, who he keeps saying seems a little lonely.
Maybe he’s sitting home in the dark, thinking about me.
Standing alone in the gray night, watching leaves whisk in the wind, I need him. I need to feel his chest beat against my cheek as he laughs. I need to hear him complain of his hunger, a pain in his back, so I can put aside my own discomfort and be strong for us rather than for just myself.
Out here I have nothing of him but memory, and each night he feels less real.