The junk drawer.
Odds & Ends
This is where things go that don’t fit anywhere else. Clippings. Notes on napkins. Photos that might be something. Emails we can’t verify. Diagrams drawn at 3 AM. The stuff that fell behind the filing cabinet and we found six months later and couldn’t remember why we saved it but couldn’t bring ourselves to throw it away.
If you’re looking for rigor, try the encyclopedia. This is the other thing.
Polaroid, unlabeled, circa 1987
Found taped to the inside of a filing cabinet in the Depoe Bay field office. Shows what appears to be a large wake approximately 200 yards offshore. The back reads, in ballpoint: “Tuesday. Again.” No further context. No one claims ownership.
Re: the compass
The compass in the Tillamook field kit has been replaced three times this year. Each replacement begins pointing north normally. Within 72 hours of deployment in the Coast Range, it begins pointing approximately 3.7 degrees west of magnetic north. Nolan insists this is calibration error. The fact that it’s the same deviation every time suggests otherwise. We’ve stopped replacing it.
Email, received 03/14/2026, 3:42 AM
“I found your site by accident. I was searching for something else. I don’t remember what. The entry on [REDACTED] describes something I saw when I was eleven years old in Klamath Falls. I never told anyone. How did you know about the sound it makes? Nobody talks about the sound. Please email me back. Please.”
Status: No reply sent. Sender address bounced.
Status: No reply sent. Sender address bounced.
Note found in RC’s field journal, page 47
“The problem with documenting things that shouldn’t exist is that after long enough, you start to feel like one of them.”
Items found in the glove compartment of the field truck (inventory, 02/2026)
- • Binoculars (functional, one lens smudged)
- • Pens, black, fine point (3, one out of ink)
- • Granola bar (expired 11/2024)
- • USB drive, 16GB, labeled “DO NOT OPEN” in Sharpie
- • Map of Tillamook State Forest with 14 hand-drawn X marks
- • Map of Tillamook State Forest with 11 hand-drawn X marks (different handwriting)
- • Business card for a bait shop in Depoe Bay that closed in 2019
- • Tooth (species unidentified, analysis pending)
Ellis, to no one, at the office, 11:30 PM
“The data doesn’t cluster randomly. I keep running it. It doesn’t cluster randomly. It clusters in primes. Who clusters in primes? What clusters in primes?”
Notice
This section is updated when we find things. There is no schedule. Check back or don’t.
— Filed by nobody in particular