On the far northeastern shore of Lake Michigan there was once a small logging village nestled amongst the sand hills and estuarial bogs. The town was named Aral, and it thrived for a few decades around the last century’s turn. Four mast schooners and steam powered lugs loaded themselves with timber, bound for Chicago and Gary and Manitowoc and Sault Ste. Marie. There was a church and a timber mill. There were homes, there were town dances and courtships, there were tragedies. And then the timber dwindled. The labile sands reveled in their freedom, nomads at heart. They moaned and gasped as they approached in the night. A livelihood moved off, the ominous dunes marched on, and the townspeople abandoned their home.

And the name Aral, one might say, is destined for ruin.