‘Much of the Wayside will appear, to the traveler, prematurely aged. This is mostly due to lack of maintenance (which, in turn, is due to the lack of capital for passion projects). A rare few cases, however, mark the result of failed experiments and these are aged appropriately, though prototypical materials may wear poorly. A traveler will rarely see these experiments in their early days due to confidentiality protocols and a tendency for them to go wrong quickly and so disastrously as to leave no survivors.
Some suggest this is by design.
‘The Anti-Sleeping Bench’ system in Broadbank, RI has managed to be just durable enough, and just harmless enough, to remain a valid destination since its installation in 2016. More than that, these benches have proven to be something of a seasonal attraction due to their changeable nature.
The pitch is something like this:
Imagine a bench meant to be as inhospitable as possible whilst still performing the minimum duties required for being a bench. Now, imagine all the simple hacks someone might employ to make this bench comfortable enough to sleep on: cushions, stacked boxes, twisted sleeping postures and so on and so forth. NOW, imagine a bench that can alter its design to combat these so-call ‘hacks.’ Imagine a bench system that’s shape can be changed from a central hub accessible only by the local government- a bench that hacks back, if you will (though not literally in this case).
That is ‘The Anti-Sleeping Bench’ of Broadbank, though it functions a little differently than intended. Broadbank’s political climate is tumultuous and the warring parties have very different feelings about people who need to sleep on park benches. When the liberal party is at the controls, the benches become subdued but still quite uncomfortable. While the conservative party is in power, the benches blossom into wild and everchanging forms to ward off even the loitering sitters.
The unfortunate truth is that the wealthy in both parties resent the unhomed equally and are only at odds about how massively to inconvenience them. It goes without saying that the voters of Broadbank are roundly depressed.
-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside
