Another day, another time to clean!

Come to think of it, you haven't checked what's inside the basement since forever! Who knows that there might be a whole thriving ecosystem, or maybe there might be a group of teens using your basement as a hangout party, only God knows unless you check.

You walk down the basement through stairs, but suddenly something compels you to be wary. You felt goosebumps all across your skin. Nevertheless, you still continue to walk.

As you reach the basement floor, you see a box in a middle of the area. Just a singular cardboard box in a middle of a cobweb-filled room.

Half of you is curious of what's inside the box, and the other half says to leave it behind.

Ya know? There's really no reason for me to come down here. A mess, like fine wine, should be allowed to age. Oh, wait; that's really a very lame excuse. Here's a better one -- I've avoided the basement for many months; what's the problem with a few more? That's a little better. Why am I so afraid of this dark, damp, dreary dungeon? The spiders like it; why shouldn't I?

Oh, come on. It's time I got this job done.

What's this box? I don't remember ever seeing it. What will happen if I nudge it with my foot? Well, the box didn't whimper like a puppy or hiss like a miniature dragon. I guess there aren't any animals in it. I didn't hear anything rattle, like broken dishes. I suppose I should just go ahead and open it.

I take out my pocketknife and slice the packaging tape. Okay, nothing terrible happened. I'm just being silly to be so scared.

I lift the top.

The first thing I see is just a large wad of crumpled brown kraft paper. Padding material, to protect the mysterious contents.

Under the brown paper, there are some more papers. Old maps, including one of someplace called the Fergana Valley. Central Asia. A guide book to Samarkand. A journal, filled with writing and sketches.

I set the papers aside. The next item I find is a golden-brown teak box. Hey, maybe this is a jewelry box, filled with treasure! I quickly open it and find ... a mariner's compass and a sextant, both wrapped in soft wool felt.

What else is here? Books. Seven Years in Tibet, by Heinrich Harrer. Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea and The Snows of Kilimanjaro. Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Dana. More travel and adventure books, some fiction and some not. No wonder the box felt so heavy.

Whoa! This is just too much! I am overwhelmed by the contents of The Box.

I feel a bit lightheaded. It must be the fetid, funky atmosphere of the dark and dingy basement.

No, there is more. The papers in The Box had their own nasty mustiness, as if they had been denied air since the time of Crusades.

The Aura reached out for me. It had no odor. It didn't make a sound. I couldn't see it. Yet, I felt it holding me as if it were a green anaconda.

I called for help. Clio, who held a doctorate in Asian studies, readily agreed to come. Herodotus, her colleague, whose expertise was in the field of ancient commerce, would also join us. Two of my drinking buddies, Rabbie Byrnes and Bill Faulkner, were eager to see the mysterious Box.

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My four visitors avidly examined my new treasures. Rabbie looked at the guide book and asked, "What's this place, Samarkand?" Clio responded, "It's the second largest city in Uzbekistan and a major commercial hub in its region." Herodotus expounded, "It's an ancient city, probably founded in the 7th Century BC, possibly the 8th Century. It was an important market city on the trade route connecting China with Persia and Europe." Bill lifted his beer. "Do you mean The Silk Road?" "Many people use that term, coined in the 19th Century. Really, it was a network of routes, not a single road, that carried commercial traffic between centers of wealth and culture."

Bill dug an old map from The Box. "Why is there this map of the Fergana Valley? I never heard of it." Clio sipped her wine, then replied, "The Fergana Valley is an agricultural region southwest of Samarkand. The modern countries of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan all occupy parts of the valley. It's located southwest of Samarkand. Alexander the Great took his army through here when he invaded central Asia. The valley was also part of the route of the Silk Road."

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My visitors and I settled back with our drinks and talked about the Silk Road, and Alexander the Great, and central Asia, and our love of travel. Gradually, it seemed The Aura took hold of each of them. Long into the night, we talked of travel and adventure.

What is Adventure? Here’s one definition of ‘adventure’ as a noun:

• · A daring feat; a bold undertaking, in which dangers are likely to be encountered, and the issue is staked upon unforeseen events; the encountering of risks.

Another definition, this time of ‘adventure’ as a verb:

• · To risk oneself; to dare to go somewhere or undertake something

Oh, I get it. “To boldly go where no man has gone before.” A daring feat, a bold enterprise. “Ad astra per aspera”.

Does this strange box contain an invitation to adventure? Or perhaps these items are the accoutrements a daring soul might use.

Uh, what’s going on here? The aura of the box has become more intense; its glow now fills the basement with light. The box is changing. It has become larger, and it no longer is cardboard, but has transformed into wood. Now it is teak, inlaid with a wood the color of gold. Beneath the box a Persian carpet has appeared. We five investigators sit spellbound.

We move the box to one side so that we can closely examine the carpet. Clio and Herodotus were fascinated. “The workmanship here is exquisite!” Rabbie, who always displayed an active imagination, said, “I wonder if this is a flying carpet.” Wrong thing to say! The carpet trembled, like a tiger ready to pounce, yet it didn’t move from the basement floor. Bill Faulkner spoke, “What are you thinking, Rabbie? Do you plan to ride this old rug to Samarkand to meet the vizier who is trying to cheat death?”

In an instant, my friends and I were aloft, bound for an unknown destination, perhaps in Central Asia.

Soar to great heights like an eagle. Dive at tremendous speed like a falcon. Make stupendous sweeping turns above the clouds. Erratically change direction and dart among the clouds.

From the depths of memory, I remember words of an ancient hard rock song that was a favorite of my grandfather – “Come with me, little girl / On a magic carpet ride” and “Close your eyes, girl / Look inside, girl”. Whoa! My head is filled with a dizzying, smoky haze. Now I feel the lyrics of another ancient rock song

High above a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim, I had to …

The carpet bucked like a frenzied bull in the arena, and I come to my senses. WTH is going on? I look at my companions – okay, we’re all still together, although they are wildly bug-eyed and pale. The mysterious box is firmly settled in the center of the carpet. Its aura now encompasses the carpet and us, its five passengers.

Whither are we bound? Does the carpet have a destination? Does it somehow know how to get there?

We seem to be flying over North America, especially the Great Basin and the deserts of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. As the carpet circled, it descended to a lower altitude over Utah’s rugged landscape. Could it be searching for something? Maybe its home? Again, I heard words from an ancient song, “Those voices are calling from far away.”

Abruptly, the carpet abandoned its circling and turned in a northwest direction. We climbed to a great height, seemingly to fly among the stars. The mountainous spine of the continent was far below and on our right. We crossed ranchland, farmland, and impenetrable forests. We turned westward where the taiga gave way to the barren tundra. For a while, we seem to follow a mighty river. Could this be the Yukon?

We are no longer over land. To our left is a great expanse of water, an ocean. To the right, there’s another ocean, largely covered with ice. We cross a large peninsula dotted with volcanoes, then some more icy water, and then land again. We turn slightly south and soon are again over the dense forest of the taiga. I think this might be Siberia.

We continue flying east and south. The forest is replaced with dry grasslands of the steppe. Soon, this landscape in turn is replaced by desert. Could this be the Gobi? The carpet again descended as we crossed a mountain range. Hm, I just can’t remember the name of this range in Central Asia.

The carpet makes another sweeping turn as it descended into a wooded river valley and landed. With a touch of panic, I wonder, “Where are we?” My companion, Herodotus, retrieves the sextant from the mysterious box. He determines that our latitude is about 38 to 40 degrees north. “I think we might be near Samarkand. This river might be the Zarafshon.”

Samarkand? The legendary oasis on the trade route known as the Silk Road? Do adventures await us here?

Felixia, the ferocious feline of the frozen forest, was feeling peckish. Her favorite prey, the roe deer, were nowhere to be found. She was now hunting for less substantial quarry. Her smaller cousins, who live in Canada and Alaska, might subsist on snowshoe hares, but she hoped to find something larger. Well, if she were truly desperate, she might take a wolpertinger. Ugh! Marmots are tasty, but they are hibernating, out of reach in their snug burrows. A capercaillie would make a nice, light meal. Where are those noisy birds? She hadn’t heard one, nor seen any signs of one, in several days. What’s a lynx to do? She silently made her way through the forest to Quail Meadow, where she hoped to at least get a nutritious snack.

A shadow passed over her. She looked around and up. What the huckleberries? It was much too small to be a cloud, too large and too solid to be a flock of birds. It paused over Quail Meadow, then settled to the ground like seven centimeters of fresh snow. Again, she asked, “What the huckleberries?” Was this some abomination made by humans? Felixia retreated from the edge of the meadow, to where she could lie concealed among the trees.

This patch of multi-colored snow had a very strange shape, something she had never seen before. It was like the misshapen cell of a honeycomb, one that had burst its bounds and now had only four sides instead of the usual six. And it was kinda large; she would need to leap at least four times to cross it.

The five human adventurers looked at each other in astonishment. What had just happened? Where the Hamlet’s Ghost are we? Why did the Box and the Carpet bring us here? Just what kind of mushrooms had been on our pizza?

The Box shimmered like the aurora borealis. I went to it, hoping to find some answers to our questions. I found two new items: a copy of the novel Dracula, by Bram Stoker, and an old newspaper, folded to accentuate an article about the steamship Carpathia rescuing shipwrecked survivors of the Titanic. I was bewildered, as were my companions. Herodotus took out the sextant; he determined our latitude to be between47 and 48 degrees north. “I think the Box might be telling us that we’re in the Carpathian Mountains; that would be consistent with our latitude.”

Rabbie Byrnes spoke, “Uh, the Carpathian Mountains? Never heard of them.”

Clio spoke haughtily, “Ah, yes. Another example of the failure of American education.”

I told him, “Rabbie, I bet you’ve had a few beers from this area. Did you ever drink Ursus Premium?”

“Yeah. That’s a really good dark lager. The same brewery also produces a golden lager with a crisp, refreshing flavor. So those brews are from this area?”

Clio replied, “Yes. So you see, you know more about the Carpathians than you thought. The Carpathians are a group of mountain ranges in Central Europe, generally south of Poland and north of Bulgaria. They form a bit of an arc running from Vienna to near Belgrade.”

Bill Faulkner asked, “Why do you suppose the Carpet brought us here?”

Herodotus, “I think I know. You remember we had the radio on while we cleaned the basement. There was a commercial message for a flooring company, advertising their sale of luxurious carpets. That probably caught the attention of our Carpet. The next ad was for some finance company, something about low car payments. ‘Car payments’ sounds just a little bit like ‘Carpathians’.”

“So the Carpet and the Box thought we wanted to go here.”

“We certainly didn’t intend to come here. What do you say, should we tell the Carpet to take us home?”

“And clean my basement? Are you sure you want to do that?”

“Hey, this could be a nice adventure for us. Let’s see if the Box has more stuff for us.”

Felixia thought to herself, “These humans, with their chatter and other noises and their awful smell will scare all the wildlife away from …” Just then, a covey of quail burst from the tall grass and ran towards the forest, in fact, right at Felixia. She got her snack after all.

The Box grew larger as we approached it. Yes, it was full of treasures. Tourist literature. Detailed maps of the Carpathians; one area, perhaps our location, was circled with a black felt-tipped marker. Here’s an ornithology guide. A guide to the area’s wildlife. Professional-grade cameras with telephoto lenses. Binoculars. Outdoor clothing. Camping gear.

As we examined our gear, the Box began to hum and to glow more brightly. We stepped back. In an instant, the Box became a backwoods cabin, large enough for all of us. Inside was a wood stove, beds, a table, comfortable chairs. The pantry was well stocked.

Our Romanian excursion was very pleasant. Wildlife was plentiful in the vicinity of our ‘House in the Meadow’. We didn’t see any brown bears, but we did learn what they do in the woods. Our favorite animal was the chamois – you don’t see anything like that back home. We took many pictures of a Eurasian wildcat (Felis silvestris stallonis) that visited our camp daily, hoping to scavenge something to eat. We saw a lynx catch a pheasant at the edge of the forest. We didn’t see any deer, nor the wolves that prey on them. Bill thought he saw a sounder of wild boar.

Wild birds were also numerous in our area. There were waterfowl, terrestrial birds like pheasant and grouse, doves, and predators such as hawks, eagles, osprey, and owls. Rabbie became quite tiresome, repeatedly bragging (crowing?) about seeing a blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus) and two Great tits (Parus major).

Around the campfire one evening, we realized that we had exhausted our supply of graham crackers, marshmallows, and Hershey bars. No s’more vacationing in these foreign mountains! In the morning, we relaxed on our Magic Carpet as we flew home.