There are two fairly obvious red flags in the presentation of the otherwise very cheery ‘World’s Biggest Snowglobe.’ The first is that it’s walled off entirely- completely hidden from those who neglect to pay. It even sports a sort of gazebo structure that conceals it from satellite cameras, though the official purpose is to ‘prevent the unlikely scenario that light, refracted through the globe, might cause fires in the surrounding area.’ Profit concerns would have been a more convincing lie.

The second red flag is the price of the ticket that allows you to enter into “The Snowglobe” itself. Performed with scuba gear, this ticket is… free.

‘Would we call ‘The World’s Biggest Snowglobe’ a habitat? As much a habitat as any zoo, perhaps, because the people behind the glass live there but they don’t seem to like it much, even if they go through the motions of survival.’

I pay $20 for the regular entry ticket- the one that only allows me to interact with the globe from the outside. It’s the easiest $20 I’ve spent on the Wayside, if I’m honest. It has all the protective implications of a bribe and it comes with a free slushie.

‘The World’s Biggest Snowglobe’ is bigger than any building in the town I grew up. The shade from the gazebo is offset by lights within ‘The Globe’ itself. Street lights. Headlights. Bedroom lights, one has to assume. There is a village submerged in the glass and, though the cars and trees are fixed and decorative, the residences are clearly resided in. Two men swim past me, blown out of proportion by the curvature of their enclosure. I vigorously tap the glass, as signs all around the base of ‘The Globe’ suggest I do, and one of the men takes the time press his face up close. I assume this is necessary for him to get a good look at me, but it also allows him to flash a piece of bare skin, on which a message has been crudely tattooed:

Help. We are prisoners.

The men hurry on their way, and I take a sip of my slushie. Blue raspberry.

The only revelation, here, is that the people inside ‘The World’s Biggest Snowglobe’ assume the only thing stopping people from helping them escape is ignorance. They can’t know that, even from the outside, their situation is clear as day.

-traveler

“METAL MAN, METAL MAN!”

The screaming robot of ‘Metal Man National Park’ waves his arms in my direction. I am the only visitor, currently, and thus the sole object of his attention. The Metal Man is… fused in the rock. Or is part of the rock. I approach a sign nearby and find that the question of fused-with/spawning-from/imprisoned-in the rock is still debated, with angry academics on each side attempting to out-talk each other while simultaneously blocking the research of critical peers. It would mean a lot of weird things if the metal man were spawning from the rock. Some less weird things if he were simply fused with it. Nothing weird at all if he were imprisoned in it, given the country’s incarceration statistics.

‘Pity the Metal Man who, for many years, was mistaken for a prank and who we now know is as sentient and as miserable as the rest of us. The oldest visual proof of the Metal Man is dated 1949. He flails next to three cowboys, each standing a cautious yard or so from his blurry limbs. Behind them, ‘Metal Man National Park’ stretches into a desert not yet blighted by the highways that divvy it now. Though these men were perhaps not the first to sight the Metal Man, this picture heralds decades of playful torment at the hands of curious tourists before the installation of a low metal railing in 1994 discouraged visitors from physically interacting with him.

The Metal Man has an uncanny ability to predict thunderstorms, an attribute he showcases by extending a steel rod from behind his neck and into the air above him in order to capture lightning. Some go as far as to suggest he calls the storms.’

I step over the metal railing, as many have before me, and follow a well-worn trail until it stops a few feet from the Metal Man. He’s pauses, arms slack, and then extends a hand my direction.

Here’s the thing about the Metal Man: he looks strong. Metal is just generally stronger than flesh, right? So, even though I haven’t read any cases of the Metal Man pulling someone apart limb from limb despite the many people that stand closer than I am to take selfies with his frantic form, I don’t really feel safe giving him my hand either. This seems to register with the Metal Man. He tries the same thing with Hector and is snubbed again.

He shouts: “Metal man!” This time at the sky.

He kicks at the rock around him, a motion that has broken off much of the stone and thoroughly dented his foot. He powers down suddenly, arms clattering to his sides. The Metal Man’s inside whir and buzz: an established indication of his idle state. The lightning rod begins to extend from his neck.

There isn’t a cloud in the sky when I leave ‘Metal Man National Park’ but I don’t doubt the Metal Man himself and gamble on a southward retreat. The storm gathers behind Hector and I and soon engulfs the park, leaving the Metal Man to the rain.

-traveler

‘‘The Unnamed Monument’ is described, in most literature, as a brutal obelisk that just doesn’t sit right and that’s really about all there is to it. It’s made of gray cement and weatherworn to such an extent that the only visible markings indicate the year of its installation: 1787. Plenty happened that year, both good and bad, but none of it quite warrants a monument erected on the edge of the Dakota Badlands. There was a lot of New America stuff happening at the time. One might think that monument makers had their hands full elsewhere.

The early internet saw the rise of a ‘Money Pit’ style rumor regarding the monument, namely that it indicated the site of some lost treasure. This led to a great deal of digging in the area and, in 1998, a man had to be airlifted from the site after ‘The Unnamed Monument’ lost its grip in the earth and crushed his lower half. The monument was righted, shortly after, and the rumor was nearly forgotten. Nearly, because a new rumor now circulates regarding a blurry picture of the fallen obelisk that indicates there may be something carved into the bottom. It’s this author’s opinion that a social media challenge or a ‘copypasta’ will have the ‘The Unnamed Obelisk’ on its side again by the end of the decade.’

What doesn’t sit right to me, is that there are a few dozen obelisks like the one Autumn by the Wayside describes, crooked in the ground like teeth in the jaw. They are each foreboding in their own way and each has a number on one side, indicating that they may be counting down very slowly, I guess. Slowly enough that it’s the least of my worries, really, because I could name half a dozen ways for the world to be ending in 1700 days if that’s the sort of pace we’re setting.

‘The Unnamed Obelisk’ still manages to stand out as wronger than the others. It’s clear even from a distance which one is the oldest, and when I’m close enough to touch it, I feel the tingling ache of mild electricity- like blood pooling in my fingers. And my fingers are bleeding when I pull my hand away. Not from any clear point- just from the pores, I guess, which seems worse in theory than it seems to be in practice. I hand-sanitize, which just spreads the blood around, and then I wipe the blood/alcohol mess on my jeans.

It’s been said before, but ‘The Unnamed Obelisk’ does seem to sit at the heart of the future-proofing problem, which is to say, there’s a lot about the site that suggests it’s more of a warning than a monument. Someone must have thought people in the future would be smart enough to stay away from evil-looking, blood-sucking obelisks on those bases alone and that the year would be explanation enough as to why one might think to install one as a marker.

Maybe just make it really boring next time.

-traveler

There is a man having some sort of lonely mental crisis at the central point of ‘Compelled Echo State Park.’ A Ranger is stretched across a bench nearby, looking at his phone. He hears me approaching and shifts as though he might lend the weeping man some assistance, fulfilling what, I have to assume, is his duty at this particular posting. He shrugs, instead, and goes back to ignoring us both.

To be fair to the man-in-crisis, ‘Compelled Echo Cave’ is a lot to wrap your head around. The nearer I get, the clearer it is that the man’s outbursts are being prompted by the cave itself. The distant sounds of his own hysterics emanate from the dark, there, and hearing them elicits a fresh bout of wailing. Though, that’s not really what’s happening, is it? In reality, the man is being compelled to echo the wailing- his crisis playing out in the cave before it manifests on the surface. I feel a twinge of existentialist discomfort, myself, and before I can find the words to comfort the man, I hear my own voice echo out of the cave: You okay, man?

It’s exactly the sort of low-bar discomfort I have to offer in any situation: reluctant and almost judgmental. I try to think of something else to say but the words form in my mouth anyway.

“You okay man?”

No. The cave says.

“No,” the man answers.

To be fair to the Ranger, this seems like the sort of thing a person has to work out on their own.

‘There is no better way to upset your already less-than-stable understanding of the universe than to visit ‘Compelled Echo State Park,’ where the cave seems to anticipate noises at its mouth just before they happen. Researchers of the compelled echo phenomenon fits neatly into the established understandings of natural science, but the papers they produce utilize a great deal of technical jargon to beat around the bush and to eventually suggest other avenues of study to be explored at a later date.

Some find the pre-mimicking of ‘Compelled Echo Cave’ to be difficult, but ultimately therapeutic. Others insist alien wordings and intonations are insinuated into what they are forced to say at the mouth. Still others assume the whole thing is a scam. Suffice to say: nobody likes the sound of their own voice.’

The cave speaks again: Look, I’ve never been good at this sort of thing under normal circumstances. I’m not going to make you feel better.

It pauses so I can catch up. The words tumble from my lips.

But this thing has always been here and seeing it for yourself doesn’t change anything.

I say all of that, too, and then I hear Hector sneeze in the darkness. A few seconds later, the Hector at my feet sneezes and seems legitimately surprised by the cave, as though it’s the first strange thing he’s noticed in all this traveling.

I hear the sneeze because the cave, and therefore the man, has quit crying. In fact, when I listen closely, I can hear the unexercised grunt of me pulling him to his feet.

The man opens his mouth to speak and I stop him, afraid we’ll end up back where we started. It must work, because the cave stays quiet and, soon, I hear the man’s footsteps fading into the dark. Soon after that he leaves.

Thanks! The cave shouts, and I turn in time to see the Ranger say the same thing. He follows the man down the trail and toward the parking lot.

I sit at the entrance of the cave for a long time, waiting to hear what I’ll say next.

But no words come.

-traveler

‘Likely the most miserable creature on earth, ‘The Angry, Impotent Cat of Bank County, Arizona’ is homeless by choice and, thus, is somewhat difficult to pin down, geographically, in a medium that cannot effectively utilize GPS. There are websites and social media accounts dedicated to tracking the direction of its wanderings. That direction is inevitably ‘away from the people who are trying to interact with it’ so most photos of ‘The Angry, Impotent Cat’ are of its butthole, likely the only aspect of its fame the cat would approve of.

Not to be confused with ‘The Angry, Important Cat of Bank County, Arizona,’ an elected official.’

-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside