‘Out in the cold-scraped plains of North Dakota and not at all far from the ‘Nekoma Pyramid,’ a silver obelisk pierces the sky and lights up red when ferromagnetic materials are brought near. That is ‘The Dakota Obelisk’s’ sole purpose as far as anyone knows, to gauge whether something is, in its own words, ‘magnetic.’ ‘Magnetic’ is the word that is cut out of ‘The Obelisk’s’ silver shell, that glows red via hidden lights when such material is in range. In the tradition of the motel vacancy signs, a single green ‘No’ can also be seen at the right angle, dim enough to be confused for a reflection or for a spot of glow-in-the-dark paint and lit as long as ‘The Obelisk’ is left alone.

And left alone it often is.

Shoulder-height chain-link suggests, but does not enforce, a boundary. Signs near ‘The Obelisk’ warn against proximity. They bear markings that resemble but are not, a skull with cross bones, radioactive triangles, and a human figure strangulating on a rope. They sometimes bear no marking at all, worn by the persistent prairie winds. They are wooden and held together with glue so as not to prompt ‘The Dakota Obelisk’s’ red response, which can be seen for miles around.’

“What?” I look around, as though there were anyone in the vicinity to talk to. “This can’t be right.”

I press Hector up against ‘The Obelisk’ and it lights up red in a way that makes my skeleton vibrate and my eyes blur. Hector scrabbles at the surface and I set him down again. ‘The Obelisk’ goes dark.

I check and re-check my pockets. No metal. I make sure I’m not wearing pants with rivets- that my shoes have no metal rings for the laces. I press my face up against ‘The Obelisk,’ thinking it might be the fillings in my mouth. It’s cold and unreactive against my cheek. Hector brushes the nub of his tail against ‘The Obelisk’ and my vision fills with red static. The word ‘magnetic’ burns in my peripheries as I feel about on the ground, otherwise blind, trying to find and coax the rabbit away from the metal surface.

Hector hops away on his own, toward a tuft of dry grass, and I collapse. My skin is tight and dry. My teeth feel unfamiliar in my mouth.

I had planned on climbing the utility rung ladder of ‘The Dakota Obelisk’ to the top, where it’s said that everything tested against the tower and left behind has been absorbed and deposited. Instead, I throw rocks at the top until a handful of nails and a handgun fall to the ground.

I wish it had been anything but a gun, so useful and terrible.

-traveler

‘There is an inconspicuous turn-off past the long right curve of I-75 in the southern-most portion of Florida which acts as a de-facto parking lot for viewing, taunting, or getting shot by ‘The Last American Cowboy.’ Signposts indicate the safe distances one might do any of these things, though these signs are also de-facto in that if ‘The Last American Cowboy’ ever chose to run down from the crest of the hill and shoot a distant heckler, there would be nothing standing in his way.

‘The Last American Cowboy’ looks like a man- like a cowboy straight from a spaghetti western. He’s been arrested many times and tried in court, sentenced to various lengths of time in jail. He’s been shot and seemingly killed. He bounces back from jailtime and death in the way only rich white men seem to do. Within a week he’s back up on the hill, shouting yee-hahs and shooting at anyone that comes too close. In this regard, he is more like a ghost or a spirit, but that calls into question the validity of his claim- that he is the last American cowboy. Does it count if you are already dead? If you were never, in the human sense, alive?

It matters less because it is his claim- the only answer he’ll give when asked to identify himself and the easiest way to get under his skin. He doesn’t like to be questioned along these lines. He doesn’t like being reminded that other cowboys do still exist. Given his effective immortality, he could simply answer that he will be the last cowboy eventually, even if it requires the extinction of man. Instead, he shoots those questioners in range, shoots at the sky, twirls his revolvers, spits in the dust.

Ignore signs that claim there is a safe ‘lasso zone.’ They are placed by the cowboy or someone associated with him, just far enough in to be covered by Castle Doctrine. In the long tradition of American cowboys, this one is out for blood.’

-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside

It’s difficult to find a legitimate reflecting pool these days. I don’t pretend to know why, but ‘money’ is always a good guess. Budget hotels have mostly done away with pools. Upscale venues maintain them too well.

A reflecting pool has to exist in a hotel and it has to be indoors. It has to be at least somewhat enticing so decrepit is fine, but dirty isn’t. The fewer windows, the more stifling the air, the thicker the smell of chlorine, the better. Bonus points for pools that are unnecessarily deep. Bonus points for a slippery diving board. Bonus points for a mildewing sauna somewhere nearby.

But the only really important thing, besides the pool itself, is that it has to be available at all hours. It has to be available at 2:30am.

‘More a phenomenon than a destination, the Wayside ‘Reflecting Pool’ exists as a sort of litmus test for mental well-being- an indicator of the direction one is taking in terms of, say, self-actualization.

The magic moment is 2:30am. Faced with a hotel pool so late in the evening (so early in the morning) a traveler might determine whether they’ve acted on a leisurely impulse or if their life has devolved into a series of disjointed scenes acted out in liminal nowheres.’

Hector is asleep in the room as I walk barefoot down the stained carpet of a budget hotel, the name of which I’ve already forgotten. I check the room key and see it’s for a ‘Marriot,’ either purchased at some liquidation or else a self-deprecating joke.

I stand, barefoot, in the elevator- also carpeted. Hector and I have been given a room on the top floor, the fifth, with a view that, due to the plains, overlooks the interstate for miles in both directions. I meant to write, this evening, and spent it hypnotized instead.

I have a bad feeling about the reflecting pool. Worse than I expected, I mean.

The pool is situated in the center of a windowless room ,brightened only by light from the open door. My silhouette wavers in the water, though there is no reason for the pool to be disturbed. I switch on the lights- too bright- and confirm I am the only swimmer this late. The floor is pebbled cement, slick with moisture. Drops of condensation fall from the ceiling and soak into the shoulders of my t-shirt, which I wear, self-consciously, until I am at the very edge of the pool. The water is the same temperature as my body. Sliding into it feels intimate and violating and when I sigh, the sound of my disappointment echoes in the room like a ghost.

I’m lost, aren’t I?

-traveler

‘A small, sad place, ‘The Digital Pet Cemetery’ is not at all like the Stephen King novel. Well, it is the legacy of a recovered addict. And its location is something of a secret. And there are rumors that, when a human soul is somehow interred in the servers, they return as an insane digital spirit- a monkey’s paw torment for their grieving families.

But beyond those things, it isn’t like the novel at all.’

‘The Digital Pet Cemetery’ has been overhauled since my edition of the guide was published, now advertising itself as ‘The Insane Digital Spirit Adoption Shelter’ on several traditional billboards and as ‘HELPMEOGODTHYREKEEPIGUSLOC’ on a digital banner a few miles out.

“They do that sometimes,” the man at the counter says when I ask about the message, “These crazy digital spirits, you know. They get just about everywhere.”

The cash register opens of its own accord, pushing into the man’s gut. When he closes it, sparks fly from the nearby thermostat and the mildewy smell of disused air conditioning sweeps between us. The man shrugs.

“When did you, uh, rebrand?” I ask.

“Oh, the cemetery thing? Well, a cemetery’s got, like, one or two ghosts max. Otherwise it’s a pretty quiet place. What we have here is more of an infestation.” He scratches his nose. “How many do you want?”

“Insane spirits?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t want any crazy spirits.”

“Oh, well you likely picked up a few already. Wi-fi. Bluetooth. We can perform an exorcism if you like.”

The internet suggested this was ‘The IDSAS’s’ main revenue source- inflicting these insane digital spirits and then offering on-the-spot solutions.

“I’m on airplane mode,” I tell him. “Across the board. Just a tour, if you’re still offering.”

The man grumbles and rings me up. The tour is short and disappointing- an overheated server screaming in an airless room. If anybody thinks trying to raise their loved one here is a good idea, they deserve the haunting.

That said, I notice one of the parking meters going haywire in the parking lot on my way out- ejecting coins and swearing in dim gray. I have the man at the counter corral it into an old digital keychain pet and pay a $50 adoption fee. It shifts about on the little screen, a ghastly avatar in lines, waving its arms and demanding food.

I don’t like the idea of keeping this thing against its will, but according to the Guide, I’ll need a ghost to get me through to the onion pages.

And coercion is an age-old American tradition.

-traveler

Hector and I return to the ruins of ‘The Sunburn Experience.’ The ashes have been swept away by the wind, but its charred half-walls still mark the perimeter of the building where Hector spent most of his life. The rabbit seems fine. I thought he would be nervous- that some core instinct would have pegged this place as dangerous. It’s only the human in me. I’m projecting my own concerns on the animal.

I’ve been worried for a while now, ever since I discovered the onion paper pages of ‘Autumn by the Wayside.’ I’ve said before that it seems to grow longer the longer I read it. I’ve said before that it has expanded and splayed against the curling paperback. I found a picture of myself with the book when this all started. It was slimmer, then. A compact little travel guide with thick stock pages. Now I know those pages come apart. There are entries within the entries. Sites within sites. I have been reading the sub-pages and, when I can get to them without tearing, the sub-sub-pages. Now that I know how to look, I can see more text in-between.

I’m no closer to finishing this than when I started.

‘The discerning traveler will note a basement level displayed on the interior maps of ‘The Sunburn Experience,’ the only remaining clue that such a place exists. Other mentions of the basement have been edited out of brochures or taped over on signs: very deliberate attempts at erasing public knowledge of the place entirely. Some would attribute the unedited maps to conspiracy. The likelier explanations are incompetence or apathy or an understanding that, if someone has made it as far as the lobby, they will not be dissuaded by missing information.

Like everything made secret, the basement of ‘The Sunburn Experience’ holds a wonder: a source of daylight in miniature. Like every wonder on the Wayside, it has been wasted on dangerous and lucrative pursuits.’

The trouble with the ruins is that the trapdoor is less immediately clear than it would have been if the building was standing. If the guide is right, the door wasn’t meant to be easy to find to start. We wait for nightfall, hoping that the source of daylight will stream up through cracks in the floor. It does not and I assume, too early, that whatever was down there was lost with the rest of the building.

Hector disappears in the middle of the night, and he doesn’t come back. If it were anywhere else, I would let him be, but because he has a history, here, I shake off sleep and set out to find him. It isn’t hard. He’s nested on the bare floor in the northern corner of the once-lobby. I pick him up, finding his underside unnaturally warm, and there, beneath him, is the latch.

The ground radiates heat.

Beneath the floorboards of ‘The Sunburn Experience’ exists a miniature star. It spins in a room of broken mirrors, segmented by office dividers and shelves of dried-up suntan lotion. I find a pair of those little goggles and squint to keep them in place. Hector is nervous at last- I leave him on the surface for a quick look around but hardly make it more than a couple rungs down before the heat makes my skin tighten. I think of all the dangerous things the human body can do with too much sun and take a last glance. A man’s skeleton, bleached white, rests against the far wall. Several rabbit skeletons litter the floor. I don’t know what happened, here, or when it did, but it’s plenty of reason not to leave fingerprints.

I wipe the rungs of the ladder on my way back up and join Hector at camp, where he’s resettled in the sleeping bag. I peel the onionskin between ‘The Sunburn Experience’ and ‘The Terrestrial Star,’ and read about a quirk in the parking lot- a patch of asphalt that has split and cracked in the shape of man’s face- how it seems to discharge and arrange loose pebbles into neat rows of teeth no matter the number of times they’re pulled away. I split the pages again and read how every thousandth tooth contains a cursed gold filling. I tear the page trying to split it again, but I see more text. It will take finer tools than my fingers to delve deeper without doing damage.

-traveler

‘Nobody gloats quite like the owner and doorman of ‘The Roadside No-Mystery House,’ who takes it upon himself to follow visitors about the premises as they investigate, trying to find anything about the house that might be considered strange. The trap door leads to a wine cellar. The hollowed-out book is a victim of rats. The distant human moans are the sound of wind in the chimney. The rattling at odd hours can be attributed to old pipes. Pings on personal EMF detectors are false signals from an electronic hobbyist group that stores their equipment in the basement. Animal corpses that collect on the lawn can be attributed to a pack of feral cats that roams the area. Missing tourists disappear due to ‘the nature of the wandering soul.’

It would be convenient for the gloating man to be the mystery manifest, but he lays himself bare with the slightest provocation, telling his life story the way a nervous high school student cites an essay. Everything is backed up by evidence twice over. He narrates his worst moments, illustrates them with mugshots and bankruptcy declarations and divorce filings and criminal records. He has no secrets and he gloats, unceasingly, about the sheer mundanity of the present. He gloats like a man who understands that a good life is one without surprises.’

­-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside

Hector and I manage to take a road all the way to ‘The Heart of the Forest.’ It’s new asphalt- the smoothest ride we’ve had all year except for all the distractions. Things like gingerbread houses. Like lurking men in hooded cloaks. Like beckoning animals and women with backwards feet. Like spring-fed ponds with treasure sparkling in its bed. Like birds singing in such a way that they might be speaking words.

That sort of thing.

‘Say what you will about it being cheesy or overdone, ‘The Heart of the Forest’ served as the inspiration for all those weary tropes that seem a little too familiar- a little too on the nose- in this, the civilized 21^st century. One might as well say that the moon is cliché for hanging in the sky, given all those times we’ve seen it visited, colonized, and blown up in films. Nobody would suggest the moon needs to build upon what it already has going.’

We stop at the center- the heart of ‘The Heart’ I suppose. The Rangers have set up a safe-zone there, paved all over in cement and park benches. Heavy duty garbage cans form a perimeter, way more than would ever be necessary. A sign suggests they disrupt the narrative pull of ‘The Heart of the Forest’ just by being out of place. I’ve read, elsewhere, that they’ve got to change the perimeter out every once in a while, since ‘The Heart’ has a tendency to evolve and push out some fable about elves that lure children into dumpsters or what have you.

There’s a rattling in one of the cans as soon as I think about it. I try not to think about it and the sound dissipates.

The Rangers’ signs offer all sorts of warnings about ‘The Heart of the Forest,’ mostly harping on the Red Riding Hood “don’t leave the path” sentiment. That’s the trouble with the Rangers. I’m not sure they have ever understood what exactly they’re dealing with. As soon as they tell visitors not to leave the path, they sow danger on the peripheries. They create a new branch of the Wayside.

-traveler

‘The practice of shaking one’s hair out into the grass operates with the common assumption that a bird will use the hair to build its nest- a straightforward, circle-of-life type excuse for a fairly benign practice. And it’s true, only, it’s not true the way people think it is. The specific, truer-truth is that birds as a species don’t engage in this practice. The truest-truth is that there is exactly one bird that collects hair and fingernails for its nest. Hair and fingernails is all it uses.’

The nest of the Fingernail Pigeon takes up the entire rooftop of a towering hotel on the outskirts of Omaha. The hair and the fingernails droop down over an old neon sign and clatter in the wind like swarming insects- like tiny, percussive wind chimes. Tumbleweeds of hair and nails are said to be found at far as fifty miles away. Hector and I encounter our first just a few miles from ‘The Nest.’ It claws lightly at my jeans until the wind changes. It rolls off toward the highway to be crushed like a dry beetle.

The hotel only begrudgingly acknowledges the existence of the Fingernail Pigeon, which is considered endangered despite proving to be functionally immortal over decades and decades of sightings and the occasional botched poaching attempt. I ask for a room with a bird’s eye view, which is sort of code for wanting to see the unspoken thing. They charge $10 more for the privilege and throw in a pair of old binoculars.

The guide ‘Birds to Watch and Birds to Watch Out For’ describes the Fingernail Pigeon as being ‘somewhere in the middle’ of its titular scale. It’s been known to swoop down and tug and at egregious hangnails and it occasionally makes a play for hair that hasn’t naturally fallen, but neither case has ever resulted in more than a minor injury. And there’s just the one Fingernail Pigeon, so it’s likely not in most people’s general vicinity anyway.

On the other hand, it’s not a particularly rewarding ‘watch.’ It’s an ugly bird, its feet pink nubbins and its feathers crooked and frayed. It’s often seen carrying hair and fingernails tangled about its body. It tends to stare back, after a while.

This last part I find very true. I get an eyeful of the Fingernail Pigeon in its nest early on and go back to the bed to read for a while. Hector engages it from the floor, staring up until it, eventually, stares down. It’s funny, at first, but over the course of an hour the Fingernail Pigeon climbs through its nest of hair and nails to sit just outside and stare back with the sort of blank malice one sees on mannequins. When I try to close the shade, it flutters its wings against the glass, tapping and scratching.

The hotel refuses to let me change rooms.

I try to ignore the quiet standoff in the corner and eventually I do get some sleep. When I wake, the Fingernail Pigeon is gone- off to find more hair, I suppose. Hector has fallen asleep on the floor and he’s slow to rise and stiff around the joints. The rabbit’s getting old, I think. Too old to be picking fights.

-traveler

‘Not many of the Wayside’s stopovers lend themselves to the online experience, but ‘The California Manual Library,’ which boasts an impressive print collection of nearly every English manual to date, really ought to have been digitized years ago. For one, it’s a fire hazard resting tenuously in a state that is on fire for most of the year. For two, its collection, though somewhat mundane, is unrivaled. It is the American Library of Alexandria, waiting to be lost. For three, and like many Wayside attractions, few people ever visit ‘The California Manual Library’ on purpose, meaning that its practical value has been relegated to a semi-interesting restroom stop off the interstate.

Rumor has it that ‘The California Manual Library’ resists digitizing due to an amount of forbidden knowledge that, on the open web, might call the wrong sort of attention to itself. It’s the author’s opinion that anyone who would want to do it harm would have lit the match decades ago.’

I’m halfway through a ream of paper that claims to be a manual for pumping blood through the human body via contractions of the heart when I feel my own heart begin to studder. I focus on it and in my panic I’m able to compress.

Once.

Twice.

Good.

As soon as I go back to the manual my heart stops again. I squeeze with my cardiac muscle, too hard this time, and feel my arteries stiffen with pressure. I calm and squeeze again. Again. Again.

With fifteen minutes’ practice I’m able to put the function of my heart on the backburner of my active mind and bring a sliver of my focus back to the cardiac manual. I study an appendix for reengaging the heartbeat as an automatic process and have it down in half an hour or so but when I think back to the passage that switched me to manual, I find the world going black again.

By closing, I’ve trained myself in both processes, which may seem like an accomplishment but is really more trouble than it’s worth. I find a manual for my phone and finally figure out how to turn night mode off. I read about all the wrong things I’ve been doing with Hector’s diet, which explains the gas. Still, the circulatory override sits there in the back of my brain. It’s there even as we pass the state line, a sore tooth that can’t be pulled. I buy a cheap set of headphones at the next gas station and set to burying it as best I can.

-traveler

‘It’s difficult to encapsulate the Wayside, except to say that it is experienced most keenly on backroads and in backrooms. Try it out, why don’t you? Try it out at ‘James Vapes’ and see what sort of ugly niches you can find in the way-back of a head shop now that weed is safe and legal.’

I have never vaped, myself, but in the dozen or so circumstances in which I found myself second-hand vaping, I’ve been surprised at how diverse the flavors tend to be and how pleasant they are in comparison to your traditional smoke-based inhalants. I say this as a man who has smoked plenty in his life- who has ignored the sharp, chemical edge of haphazard drugs for a moment’s fleeting relief. Who has burned his nose and esophagus and the tips of his fingers, trying to squeeze comfort from the embers of something unpleasant.

Vaping seems downright pleasant, if not a little uncool, but with no real intention of starting a new habit, I never suspected I would find myself in a vape shop and I arrive wholly unprepared.

‘James Vapes’ is the sort of business where everything is kept behind the counter without labels or pricetags, the sort of place where you’re expected to know what you want before you walk in. The man behind the counter looks up at me as I enter. His eyes eventually fall to Hector, in my arms.

“Weird,” he says, and smoke pours from his mouth.

“James?” I ask.

He laughs, billowing sweet vapor into the air. “No.”

“Cool,” I say. I haven’t said that in years.

“What can I do for you?”

“Uh-” I squint in the hazy shadows behind the counter and find I can’t identify a single thing. There are wattages and volumes- heat indications and potency meters. There are strains of nicotine and cannabis and mixes of the two that don’t make any sense to me. I grimace and hope I look discerning. “None of this is, uh, quite what I’m looking for.”

The vapor emitting from the man’s mouth comes out low and thick. “What are you looking for?”

This is a good sign, according to my research. It’s all a part of the dance we have to do in order to get past the bead curtain- a sort of Konami code for back room access: rebuff, rebuff, inquire, nod, and proceed.

If you’re keeping track, we’re on the second rebuff. “I’m not sure you’re going to have it.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you have anything…” and here’s where the nuance is. This part is all about using the right words. Wilder for meat. Lower for deeds. More engaging for people. I take a chance: “…more substantial?”

The man sighs and his face disappears in the fog. He’s grinning when it clears. “Can you keep a secret?”

Nod.

“Follow me, then.”

The beaded curtain clatters as we step into a pantry. There are a few vaping devices here, each advertising wattages and temperatures that seem outrageous for something that’s designed to enter a human mouth. Mostly, though, the shelves are stocked with vials of strangely flavored vape liquid. No more blueberry. No more cotton candy. The glass in the backroom advertises things like ‘nostalgia’ and ‘haircut.’ I see a vial labeled ‘locker room,’ another that just says ‘boy spit.’

Not-James has his eyes on me. He’s quickly filling the little room with his fog, thick and sour. “Is this more to your liking?”

The shelves are split by a thin door, one that leads even further back. I consider it and ask: “When’s your next shipment?”

“We’re fully stocked, if that’s what you’re asking. Should I put something on order?”

“If you don’t have it already, I’m not sure you’ve got the right supplier.”

“If you have a name…”

“Do you have anything… (headier? thicker?) more tailored?”

“Ah,” he says, a phantom in his own gas, “You should have said. I assume you’ve brought a sample?”

I nod.

“Then follow me.”

The man ignores the thin door and tugs one of the shelves instead. The vials toast each other as the wall comes forward on a set of hidden hinges. A machine sits idle in the room ahead, all pistons and pressurized canisters.

“How’s this?” The man is indiscernible from the shadows, a cloud in the dark.

There’s no more doors, thank god.

“This is exactly what I was looking for,” I say, without knowing what it is I’m looking at.

I leave ‘James’ Vapes’ with a small vial of my own blood, condensed into a thick goo that, inserted into any modern vaporizer, should allow me to inhale and expel it as a red cloud. After all that build up, it was all I could think of.

Not-James looked disappointed. He told me blood was the most common material component offered to the machine. I recognized that it was almost too commonplace for such a far backroom. He said much the same himself, before disappearing into a grate in the floor. A sub-backroom?

I’ll let that one slide, I think.

-traveler