Traveling has made me comfortable in most environments, no matter how harsh or unpredictable the terrain, but the local bar is far and away the venue I dread most. I’m not talking about one in a chain of bars, regional, national, or otherwise. I’m not referring to the loud, popular bars downtown or along trendy streets. Not the brew-pubs. Not the clinical dives.

I’m talking about the discreet brown-brick locales with broken neon signs in the windows and two sets of warped plastic lawn furniture on the sidewalk out front where people hover to smoke. The place with a pool table that nobody uses and a single television in the corner, its screen vaguely rainbowed by some unrepaired collision, not muted, exactly, but at a volume that renders the words of sports commentators garbled. The place you step inside and wonder whether or not you need to be a war veteran to order a drink, where, at any given time, the total number of human legs is an odd number or an even number, oddly distributed.

I don’t know how long it takes to become a local at one of these places but my line of work has not yet yielded a residency and, until now, I haven’t yet understood how best to play my suspicious appearing role. It’s in my nature to act like a guest in somebody’s home, to compliment mundane features of the bar or force small talk with people sitting nearby. I inevitably get the feeling they would rather be left alone.

Against all odds, it’s Hector that changes the equation as I step into ‘Bar on 144^th’ and immediately spy ‘The Out of Order Jukebox’ across the room. It’s dead silent in the bar: an early Tuesday evening crowd, the majority of which looks up at me as I enter. Not the atmosphere I hoped for but very much in line with what I expected.

Hector shifts heavily in the kennel and I adjust my arm, roll my shoulder, and step up to the bar. The bartender, a woman in her sixties, scratches the skin above her eye and slides a decrepit plastic drinks menu across the way, asking what I’ll have without giving me time to consider. I order a drink and a basket of fries and a side salad and so little changes that I wonder whether she’s heard me or whether I said anything at all. Eventually, she speaks again:

“Who you got down there?”

“Sorry,” I tell her, “I can sit outside if he’s not allowed. I came in on a bike and…”

“Just curious.”

Fifteen minutes later, the bar denizens have all crowded around Hector who, looking like the wart off an old man’s back, chews at shredded carrots and occasionally hops about on the dirty wooden floor. He’s warmed, some, since the rescue. Seems comfortable in human hands. Petting doesn’t seem to evoke any response in the blind creature, which makes me wonder whether he can feel anything at all along his leathery back. He’s happy for gentle massaging and fresh vegetables and he expresses as much by rubbing his feet together. The small, doting crowd laughs as he hobbles over to nibble at an old man’s shoe laces. They feed him more of the salad, which arrived in record time, while I wait for the fries and fret about the jukebox.

‘One assumes that management keeps ‘The Out of Order Jukebox’ plugged into the wall mainly for aesthetic purposes and, perhaps, out of some respect for the whims of the machine which occasionally plays back-to-back albums for hours on end but is just as likely to dip into a bouts of silence that last days, sometimes weeks, at a time. ‘The Out of Order Jukebox’ responds to no outside input, happily rejecting quarters and disregarding coded requests. The original ‘out of order’ sign has been replaced with one carved from wood so that regulars can wordlessly point out the naivety of the uninitiated, these otherwise stoic locals inwardly grinning at the friendly insult.

Even more sporadic than the music are the flutterings of the machine’s inner catalogue, which have grown dusty in retirement. Hidden there, between the pages, is said to be a handwritten note- a line or two of unrecorded prose. Those who see it, or claim to have seen it, walk away with the mien of a person slightly changed for the better, having been granted a subtle happiness or small piece of wisdom.’

Another bout of laughter erupts from the locals and I turn to see Hector licking curiously at an empty beer bottle. I watch to make sure nobody thinks to get the decrepit rabbit drunk but swing back around when the silent jukebox twitches. Dust floats about inside the glass, surely disturbed by a change in the delicate inner atmosphere. I try to remember what page the catalog had been on when I first looked, try to peer through the curved glass along the sides to decide whether or not I believe there might be as esoteric truth wedged there.

Someone taps on my shoulder and I turn around to find the bartender. She points at the wooden ‘out of order’ sign and the bar erupts in laughter again. I smile in a way that I hope looks resigned to being the butt of the joke.

“Fries are on the table, hon,” the woman says, squeezing my shoulder, and they all go back to patting, feeding, and otherwise entertaining Hector.

I shrug at the jukebox and walk over to my food. I’m not sure what could make me happier.

-traveler

‘Curated, ostensibly, by the Rangers and run by the most bored man in the American South, ‘The Sunburn Experience’ is one of many cautionary adventures presented by the Wayside. In typical Wayside fashion, ‘The Experience’ draws inspiration from older fables in that its moral is ambiguous at best but delivered with enough trauma that one can’t help but recall the wisdom it imparts, subconsciously or otherwise.’

It should be said, somewhere, that I also visit the more mainstream national and state parks as I bounce between oceans. It would be impossible not to visit them, sometimes, they being a source of clean bathrooms and comfortable benches and water fountains in landscapes otherwise parched. More than that, though, I enjoy visiting them. It’s a worthy system, run by enthusiastic people. I have annual passes just about everywhere I go: a better value for me than most.

But I stand out at these parks.

Traveling has instilled the sort of paranoia in me that makes others afraid- a paranoia that doesn’t ever really wane but that certainly intensifies in environments that I have been conditioned to find dangerous. National and state parks, having much in common with their rejected Wayside cousins, are enough to trigger that response. The response is enough to agitate others, an ancient raising of hackles. I find myself tailed, sometimes, by well-meaning staff. Mostly, I find myself alone.

All this to say that I am in my element when I step into ‘The Sunburn Experience’ because it is a Wayside destination and I am already waiting for the other shoe to drop when a blast of UV radiation strikes me in the face as I open the door. I recoil and swing around a corner where I find the restrooms and a water fountain.

“Sorry,” a man’s voice calls, “That’s been acting up. It’s… hold on. It’s off now.”

I pull my sleeve over my hand and reach around the corner at head-height. I am promptly high-fived by the owner of the voice.

“All clear, like I said.”

‘The Sunburn Experience’ could very well be one of the smaller state park sites, consisting mainly of a single large room with several quick exhibits. Immediately opposite the door is a counter with four hatches, each increasingly difficult to look at for all the light blazing from underneath. Other displays are less… vibrant.

“Gotcha good,” the man says.

He’s not wrong. A mirror near the glowing hatches reveals a four-inch square of raw, pink skin centered on my nose.

“What are these for if not this?” I ask, gesturing to my face.

The man presses a button on one of the hatches and it swings open again. I shield my eyes and see him hold his own hand in front of the display. He shows me his arm when it closes- tan, perhaps, but unburned.

“We’ve got a selection of sunblocks to trial over there,” he says, pointing to something that looks like a soft-serve machine, “Some sunglasses… These are just for experimenting. So, they’re for what happened to your face, only you expect it.”

“Seems dangerous.”

“Lotta lobsters walking out of here,” he shrugs, “But they know better next time.”

The man looks about the room, betraying a certain pride that makes me like him a little more. I follow as he walks to another wall.

“Over here we’ve got our timeline- folks who start with this normally don’t get caught by the box-light. That’s a fresh burn- still hot.”

The timeline consists of several human backs embedded in the display, ranging from bright red to dry and peeling. The man presses his hand into the first and we watch the shape of it slowly fade from normal, to pinkish, and finally back to crimson.

“Try it out.”

I begin to spell my name with my finger and the display shifts uncomfortably.

“Sheesh, man,” he says, “Take it easy on the interns.”

I recoil and he laughs in a way that makes it difficult to tell if he’s being serious. He leads me past the timeline, casually pulling a strip of peeled skin from the last display, and toward a glass cage, the contents of which are a relative model of the desert that surrounds us.

Inside is a single, shaved rabbit, its skin motley with tanning. Above it are a variety of filters and, above those, an impressively large, thankfully-inactive lamp.

“Seems up your alley based on your performance back there,” he says, “Dial in a pattern on the display and get to toasting.”

The man taps through several animal prints and holds down a large, red button. Blinding light fills the little cage for a second or two before he lets off. The rabbit has become faintly tiger-striped and its bowl of celery has wilted.

“Hector!” the man calls through the glass, “Looking ferocious!”

The rabbits eyes are pale white. It picks lethargically at the celery.

‘The Sunburn Experience’ has no real security to speak of, but, upon shimmying open the door in the dead of night, I do forget about the malfunctioning counter and stumble blindly through the dark for several minutes before my sight returns.

Hector is a hefty, leather lump: naturally calm or tormented past a point of traumatic serenity. I spend exactly five minutes trying to convince him to wander off into the brush before admitting to myself that I would survive in the desert longer than the broken creature at my feet. He goes back into a comfortable kennel and the kennel goes on the back of the bike, insulated against wind to the best of my ability. I’ll look up shelters when I’m back in cell range.

‘The Sunburn Experience’ burns to the ground, not so strange considering the high intensity bulbs and the faulty displays. The story is picked up in the local papers and, by then, Hector and I are miles away.

-Traveler

A thin sliver of cell service reaches me at just the right moment and, rather than risk losing it for a more convenient pullover, I balance the motorcycle on the far edge of the shoulder and wait for the map to load. ‘The Hair Dump’ is not a tourist friendly place- not hidden, exactly, but purposefully unadvertised to prevent gawkers and fetishists from hanging around the front and trying to take pictures or collecting stray hair.

I confirm where I’m headed and pocket my phone in time to see a brunette tumbleweed flop lazily down the center of the highway.

Rumor has it that bribing one’s way into ‘The Hair Dump’ isn’t particularly hard, but I think I’ll content myself with the view from the gate.

‘One assumes the government could manufacture a reasonable explanation for its federally funded collection of disposed human hair but it chooses not to. Instead, it all but refuses to acknowledge the existence of ‘The Hair Dump’ and speaks in threatening legalese to those who broadcast its location.’

A day later I stand over the bike in the parking lot of a department store, watching it shudder and choke and wondering what I could have possibly done to the thing. A man, loading groceries into his SUV, breaks away from his family and approaches, wordlessly kicking the exhaust with his boot. The pipe coughs out a baseball-sized clump of hair: jet black with blonde highlights. It expands slightly and rolls off in the breeze.

“What it is to be young,” the man chuckles, watching the thing depart.

Now, when I think of aging, I think of that little ball of hair and I wonder what wisdom the man had hoped to impart.

-traveler

Out in the far west of Minnesota, hills and forests settle to flatland and, eventually, to pavement. A mile out, the air becomes thick with the chemical smell of cracked asphalt but I recognize ‘The Lotland’ from a longer ways off, the autumn’s unseasonable warmth releasing heat shivers into the atmosphere above. A multisensory mirage of a mirage, ‘The Lotland’ doesn’t look the way it should from a distance, but it doesn’t look like anything else either.

‘The well-traveled will have heard numerous variations on the American gold paradise, the recessive specter, no doubt, of its violent colonizers (their lust for treasure, their violent means). An exhaustive study of its supposed manifestations would fill several novels, suffice to say that the great American jackpot is not a where so much as it is a will-o-wisp: shiny, ever-distant, and ultimately fatal. The truth of the matter is that humanity understood the price of gold from the days of human sacrifice- wealth arrives at the expense of others. For all our great humanitarian leaps, ‘civilization’ is really just the understanding that the requisite death need not be a spectacle.

All this to say that ‘The Lotland’ is famous only for being one of the few remaining question marks on the map. It is a paved wasteland so vast that its peculiar heat signature plays tricks with satellite imagery and so distant that no locality can be pinned with ownership. The terrain is unapologetically grim, such a scab on the earth that most life is instinctively repulsed. Those few that can’t help but pick at it are sure that a parking lot so massive must serve something equally immense at the center and they seek this thing, disappearing with such confidence that their boisterous mortality furthers the legend- a series of celebratory sending-offs and muted, off-screen deaths.’

There is an aspect of me that is drawn to these sorts of things- a curiosity that supersedes health. Luckily, I’ve survived long enough to recognize the tendency and to mitigate it. Perhaps unluckily, the mitigation has taken the form of walking up to a theoretical point-of-no-return rather than crossing it entirely and so, in approaching ‘The Lotland,’ I am constantly performing the subtle calculations of the impoverished traveler, checking and re-checking mileage and gas and water and food, considering, even, the slope leading toward my destination and how it will make coasting out impossible. All this tedious worry to avoid what is abundantly clear: the safest course of action is to avoid the wasteland entirely.

I park at the turnoff and make a few final notes. I chalk the gas gauge, erect a small flag from sticks and a bright orange cap I picked out from a gas station discount bin. I set off into ‘The Lotland’ and immediately understand why a person might lose themselves here: freedom.

The stretch of interstate previous to ‘The Lotland’ is a single straight shot, the landscape a repeating cartoon backdrop and the sky an unbroken blue. The interstate system as a whole is a series of relatively straight lines and, given a fixed destination, the choices one makes there are mostly arbitrary – there is, at most, the short way, the scenic way, and sometimes the detour. Arguably, ‘The Lotland’ presents two choices: inward or outward but, in practice, the choices are endless.

There are lines painted along the pavement of ‘The Lotland’ that present guidelines for traffic and parking, but they quickly lose meaning as I attempt to keep my exit ‘flag’ directly behind me. When the orange cap disappears in the shimmering distance, I stop for a drink of water and try to discern where the lines would have me go, finding they mean less than I had even considered. Some branch in a pattern that appears meaningful and others would guide a vehicle in endless circles. ‘Exit’ is painted on the ground in several places, each arrow pointing another direction which is true, in the sense that there must be technical exits on all sides, but dangerous in that several sides of ‘The Lotland’ must open onto fields where cars and motorcycles would struggle, further stranding the lost.

The map on my phone fails to load and the GPS struggles to make contact with its network, both situations I expected. Two old compasses twitch in the sun before agreeing on magnetic north. I mark the position of the disappeared flag and hop back on the bike. Plenty of fuel yet.

After an hour of driving in a relatively straight line I begin to notice cigarette butts on the ground and it isn’t until I stop to verify their reality that I realize how dizzy I’ve become with ‘The Lotland’s’ mirage. I stumble and stretch and close my eyes against the sun for a while. The butts are real and scattered about like frozen insects, occasionally turning over in the wind. I re-check the compasses and find that I’ve been veering east- a slight mistake that, over an hour, has probably put me a few miles off-course. I correct and remind myself to pay closer attention, staring out in all directions with my hand a visor to my forehead like a wide salute to ‘The Lotland’s’ trickery.

I find a skeleton after an hour- a skeleton car and a skeleton driver, both dead for a long time. To the extent that I allow myself to investigate I recognize that everything useful has already been taken. The last item of interest is a chalked compass on the dash that disagrees with both of mine entirely. Not a good sign. A sign so ominous, in fact, that I begin to consider turning back early and am congratulating myself on the personal growth when I notice the shadow of a structure in the man’s rearview mirror. Something is out there and it quickly overcomes my budding sense of caution.

The structure is a long way off and not at all in the direction I was planning to go. I’m sweating underneath my jacket by the time I cover the distance and confirm what I had begun to expect with a sense of both disappointment and awe:

It’s a parking structure, casting a long honey-combed shadow across ‘The Lotland’ and the top of which disappears into the wavering blue sky. I stop outside, again, to check my compasses and fuel. Rough calculations suggest that I can either delve further into the heart of ‘The Lotland’ or explore the lower levels of the structure. Attempting both would be a half-measure at best, a dangerous stretching of resources at worst.

When I lift the cracked visor of my helmet I spot movement from within the structure- cloth or tarp billows intermittently from a space ten or twelve stories above me. That more or less settles it.

I quickly find that the misleading nature of the painted lines take a dangerous form within the structure. They’re easy to ignore on flat terrain but the spiraling climb of the structure calls upon so many previously ingrained habits that I’m soon lulled into following them. The first time it happens I realize I’ve been driving between the same two levels over and over, following ‘further parking’ signs up and down needlessly.

A waste of fuel.

The second time is the first indication that the lines are random only to disguise occasional malevolence. Up until the eighth or ninth floor, the guides suggest a relatively straightforward path until the intersections become switched. Past that, the base of the structure narrows and an inner wall falls away, revealing a deep cement shaft at the center. The lines begin to divert traffic just before the proper intersection, a detour that passes between two pillars which obstruct the driver’s view to what lies beyond them. The new path leads directly into the center shaft- a swift death I avoid only for riding in the opposite lane (my attempt to break the rhythmic stupor of the place). By then, the darkness of the shaft is too deep for any of my light sources to penetrate fully, but the smell of spilt gasoline rises up from the shadows there.

I take the next several floors slowly and eventually reach the billowing tarp, finding the abandoned remains of a shelter. Another car, in better condition, looks out onto ‘The Lotland’ and somebody rests in the backseat- a body, I assume, because the doors are locked and the blanket-covered form is dusty and skeletal. It’s hard to tell from the empty cans of food and beer, from the semi-permanent tarp walls and the improvised furniture, whether this woman chose to stay or became stranded. The cardinal directions are spray-painted along the pavement and differ in their opinion of north both with my compasses and with the broken compass from the previous car.

Not a good sign.

New calculations suggest this is the end of the road for me. Assuming I coast easily down the structure and make it back to the hat/flag in something of a straight line I should have gas to get me back to the nearest station. Hopefully, by then, the mystery of ‘The Lotland’ will be distant enough that I don’t feel compelled to return.

It’s damned hot, though, so I check my watch and wait until the sun begins to set before heading out, sharing space with the woman for a while and helping myself to an ancient soda.

When I do finally roll out of the structure I see a light further into ‘The Lotland’ and this is where Shitholes saves me. I remember the will-o-wisp and keep my back to it, finding that the tempting light is as good as my makeshift flag was to start.

It represents the exact wrong direction.

-traveler

Facing the yellowlight windows of a rural bar/diner, I come to the conclusion that I may be consuming the best basket of fries I have ever yet had. Cooked evenly. Well-salted. Even the portioning is right- enough to avoid dissatisfaction, not so much that it congeals into a ball of potato and grease inside my stomach. The trouble, of course, is that good and bad french fries are so close to the same for me (which is to say my bar is set so incredibly low that anything constructed of root vegetable and fried will earn points) that I am likely to lose this moment to my lifetime’s fry eating. As it stands, I don’t remember eating a particularly bad set of fries and, until this moment, I don’t remember a basket of fries that has so left an impression.

I should write it down somewhere.

A shadow passes over me: a vehicle rambling down the highway outside. Six men and four women slowly churn their feet at the base of a rolling bar. They look exhausted, hungover. One of the men anchors himself on the seat and vomits out onto the pavement. A woman steers from behind and a man in the center begins shaking a new cocktail. Hearing the rattling contraption outside, the owner/cook of the restaurant I watch from steps out to the porch to take a look for himself. He spits casually into the gravel parking lot and shakes his head.

It’s a party bike, hundreds of miles away from any city that should support one. I’ve been waiting to tick this one off my list- not at all an easy thing to find and, knowing my luck, an easy enough thing to lose. I stuff the rest of the fries into my mouth and wipe salt and oil into my jeans, passing the man on the porch his money on my way out.

I make a mental note to write about the fries.

‘With no official criteria with which to serve as a diagnostic guide, there is a good deal of disagreement regarding what constitutes a case of ‘The Boonies.’ It manifests mainly as a sudden, irrational resolve to remain on the Wayside- a sudden, insatiable need to remain in transit. What sets it apart from similar disorders (and the reason for which it is not formally recognized) is that it is as likely to occur in groups as it is in the individual.

A family, returning home from a visit to the country, will miss their exit, will miss dozens afterward. Night will fall and they’ll shake their heads and pat themselves on the back for their clever spontaneity, paying for a room in a hotel and vowing to return after continental breakfast. They’ll pile into the car the next morning and keep going. A city bus full of people will drive through the downtown of a faraway capital, the passengers thinking occasionally of signaling for a stop, but never reaching for the cord. The most obvious cases are those that occur among strangers practicing strange modes of transport, which is why the public understanding of ‘The Boonies’ is so tied to the party bike. These glorified refreshment stands are palatable, if not annoying, in the balmy, slow-streeted cities where they originate. But to see one attempt a sloping interstate exit? To see one shaking delicately on an unpaved forest road? These stand out among the lost families asking for their picture to be taken with unremarkable vistas and among lone motorcyclists, anonymous beneath their helmets and shades. These are the cases that make the occasional headline.

And so, ‘The Boonies’ is a disease associated with the party bike, where a group of four to sixteen people pedal together into the great American unknown, sustaining themselves on the sugar and fruit of expensive cocktails and never needing to stop for gas. Upon spying them, consider passing silently and with signals. They mean no harm except that which they inflict upon themselves.’

The party bus has made impressive progress by the time I catch up. I realize, late, that hovering behind will make my gawking obvious, so I limit my study to only a few minutes of ‘will he pass, or won’t he?’ They’ve been at it for a while, I’d think. Every bar attendee sports chiseled calves and a sickly, distended stomach that hangs vaguely between their thighs. The same man throws up again, a spray I avoid easily enough.

They’re straining, I realize, because the highway is sloping mildly upward, an ascent I wouldn’t have registered except that as I shift down I see a sort of terrible relief cross their faces. The sort of relief that breaks a person.

-traveler

It’s not often that I stumble upon something strange about the Wayside that Shitholes has neglected to warn me about. More often than not, it’s a case of my overlooking some chapter or subsection of the guide (though I have not yet ruled out that it may be growing in complexity, the font becoming smaller and denser, the pages splitting toward impossible fractals as I sleep). There must be things it doesn’t know, however, and there are certainly things so similar and numerous that they are condensed into generalized write-ups. Take, for instance, a series of signs I begin to see as I straddle the border between Wyoming and Colorado:

“Fresh-Squeezed Lemonade: $100”

The signs are childishly hand-painted and I don’t think much of the missing decimal until a later sign clarifies:

“Lemonade by the Glass: One Hunderd Dollars.” [sic]- if it isn’t already obvious.

So now, as I lean against an already-leaning fencepost across the street from a grim looking child with a jug of iced liquid, flipping through my haunted book and considering the current slimness of my wallet, I have to wonder: is this under

‘The Wayside houses expertise in the way that a trench sometimes houses a fine, name-brand sweatshirt, which is to say, expertise sometimes falls to the Wayside in the same way a newly purchased garment may be sucked, unnoticed, through the open window of a car on the way back from the store. It is a rare occurrence and tragic in that most things fallen to trenches are lost to the muck- an meaningless waste.

If one is to find a ‘Lost Connoisseur’ along the side of the road, consider that they are among the scavengers lucky enough to enjoy its foreign opulence while likely contributing to its decay, a maggot in a thing so fresh it may be mistaken for sleeping.’

or,

‘Popular media has trained the American public to read benefit in hardship, suggesting, all else being equal, that a difficult path may be more righteous than a simple one. While sometimes true in nature, the shortcut is often worn less for a reason, be it danger or difficulty outweighing the convenience. There is reason behind the Ranger’s insistence that a traveler stay on the path.

Predatory aspects of the Wayside have capitalized on this mismatched perception of trial and consequence, creating ‘The Obvious Wrong Choice,’ a situation or service so clearly malicious that it becomes intriguing enough to inspire deviation. These ‘Choices’ rarely last long, either producing enough survivors that more specific portents begin to spread, or so few survivors that the areas surrounding ‘The Obvious Wrong Choice’ are consumed by overgrowth.’

I look up from my reading at the child and watch it grimly stir the contents of the jug. I smile. It looks up at me in response, unsmiling.

Stirring.

-traveler

Having dwelled too long in the Midwest, perhaps, I expect to find ‘The Spring Herd’ displayed in some orderly fashion, it being among the privately-owned, eccentric-collection type oddities the Wayside has to offer and it being located in a field gone to weeds. On the contrary, I’m pulled over on the shoulder and trying to isolate the source of an off-tempo squeaking that I assume is coming from the motorcycle and find, when the wind blows, that it isn’t the bike at all. Just tall enough to peer over the underbrush, I spy the bobbing head of a cartoon penguin, weather-worn as to evoke images of the typical Hollywood apocalypse. I tap it with the toe of my boot and it rocks back and forth, squealing with the strain of rusted metal.

That’s the noise, all right. If it started ten minutes ago that puts me pretty much in the thick of it, I imagine, and as soon as I imagine it, the wind blows and ‘The Spring Herd’ begins screaming.

‘For the uninitiated, ‘spring rider’ refers to the ridable caricature of an animal attached to the ground with an industrial spring, allowing sober children and drunk or nostalgic adults to sway back and forth, side to side, and in deteriorating circles until the spring surrenders, leaning sadly to the ground, or the momentum of the animal is enough to drive the top of its head into the bottom of its rider’s. They come in pairs or groups of three and rarely represent a collection of a single species.

Insightful travelers may notice the dwindling of the American playground, both in number and in size. Parks are becoming fewer and, with their natural habitat dwindling, spring riders are nearing a state of endangerment. One family has exploited the peace between species of spring riders and created an unofficial, off-highway preserve in order to stave off their seemingly inevitable extinction. This collection of spring riders is referred to as ‘The Spring Herd,’ due both to the construction of the pieces and because they are best viewed in the spring, having risen from the snow and being not yet concealed by growth.

Visitors beware- though tame, the collective undulations of ‘The Spring Herd’ in the wind has been said to induce nausea in those who watch too long and, though the riders hardly suffer for it, there are carriers of lead and tetanus among them.’

I refuse to be seen on one of these creatures from the highway so I venture inward and have soon dropped far enough off the shoulder that the occasional rumble of passing trucks hardly rises above the crinkle of disturbed grass. The squawking of spring riders precedes the wind across my scalp by several seconds. Standing still, it’s clear they’re all around- some nearby, and some a long way’s off. Hundreds if not thousands. When the wind blows just right, it sounds so much like they’re coming toward me that my knees wobble with fight or flight.

I’ve come too early to see them together in the floral twilight between summer and fall (or autumn has too well maintained summer’s growth) but I eventually find a flaking alligator with my knee and upon recovering, I stomp out a small clearing. Precariously mounted, I am content to be carried for a while on the back of something older and wiser than me or anything I own.

Eventually, I’m convinced that ‘The Spring Herd’ is singing.

-traveler

After several days of attempting passage through the American Midwest I hole up in a motel, blocked in on all sides by ‘The Disaster.’ It’s hardly the first time I’ve had to alter plans to avoid ‘The Disaster’, but it normally exists in a relatively contained space. At the moment, it seems to stretch straight up the middle of the state. Local news doesn’t have much to say about the situation, but a split-second throwaway map during the traffic segment confirms what I had assumed- several red ‘X’s mark off the interstates for hundreds of miles in every direction. ‘The Disaster’ has formed a straight line.

‘The failure of early American infrastructure to manifest anything beyond the great sprawl of asphalt and gravel has just one benefit: options.

There is no place in America that can be reached in just one way. There is always a shortcut, a service road, or an extended turn-off that allows for some less-convenient but available improvisation when the normal methods fall through. Oil is America’s lifeblood and, like the circulatory system, the roads have spread in such a way to allow for some… chaotic redundancy, sometimes looping back on itself, yes, sometimes feeding strange tumors in the Wayside, and sometimes becoming so stretched as to be near collapse.

‘The Disaster’ seems, initially, to be the system’s opposing force. It occurs as a physical blockade, patrolled by government officials in hazmat gear and is as likely to appear on a privately-owned backroad as it is on the interstate. It is difficult to breach ‘The Disaster’s’ blockade and seemingly impossible to return from the inside. Those who have taken it upon themselves to blast through the gates are not seen again, dead, detained, or kept in perpetual quarantine.

On the other hand, ‘The Disaster’ is normally easy to circumvent, often taking up such a small length of road that barricades on one side of the perimeter can be viewed from the side opposite. Detours are generally unaffected, lending some credence to the supposition that ‘The Disaster’ does not oppose the rambling infrastructure but, rather, encourages it. Occurring in the worst possible place, ‘The Disaster’ sometimes inspires drivers to breach the sacred fontanel between the place they are and the place they must go. Curbs are flattened, medians erode, and gates are unlocked, further complicating the American maze.

‘The Disaster’ itself appears relatively contained for all that it occurs constantly and across the states. Those manning the barricade will admit to very little about it and are careful not to make promises regarding how long it may last or what form it takes beyond the barrier. They are calm, at least, harried only by those who attempt a premature crossing and dangerously competent in reaction to a breach.’

I may be among the first 20 or so people that notice the strange shape of ‘The Disaster.’ For all its persistence and all that it suggests some great, vague conspiracy, there isn’t much online interest in tracking ‘The Disaster.’ It’s easy to research specific instances of it, but the real work of an up-to-date system involves separating out hoaxes and other, mundane disasters from the big ‘D.’ It would be a lot of work for not a lot of pay-off and the suits at the barricade don’t exactly go out of their way to dispel the notion that anybody who does the work will find themselves offline permanently.

I’m able to find a stream of the news broadcast and capture a frame with the local traffic map. It fits nicely with several others people have posted, some of which are, admittedly, a little less credible. Someone has taken a picture of a paper road map with red tape showing a similar blockage in the south. Another poster has scribbled a map of Alabama and indicated closures there. Removing those, however, still leaves a clear pattern of pictures and maps and coordinates like mine, all from the last day or so. ‘The Disaster’ seems to have split the country straight down the middle.

I watch the forums. An argument evolves, one side sure that the line dividing the east and west is solid, that the population is purposefully being split, while the other argues that holes in ‘The Disaster’ are not due to lacking information but a ploy to funnel traffic into specific areas. As is often the case, neither side has much evidence to support their claim and it eventually devolves into something altogether uninteresting.

I take a shower and lay in the bed for a while, listening to the cars outside. The Stranger’s ‘Release of Burden’ has found a permanent home in my wallet- I fish it out and wonder if this is what he meant. This drive is something that I may never see to completion. It may not have a clear direction or a clear goal. There is always more work to be done, which was part of the appeal, initially at least. Now I find myself happy for an excuse to rest and not at all curious as to what ‘The Disaster’ heralds.

-traveler

‘There is no act more arrogant than that of stacking rocks along a path. There is no need for it but to prove that a past traveler has conquered a pass or sat meditating at a pond previous to those in the present. The anonymity of the ‘Rock Tower’ (versus more traditional forms of vandalism) further makes the point- the structure is no modern tomb, no personal memorial. It does not exist as a medium with which a person’s name might live on after them. It is, at best, the licking of a baked good, the unnecessary reminder that others have come first, traveled further, and had the time for idle activities. It is an insistence that denizens of the present are merely shadows cast by those who came before them.

There are two approaches in the conquering of a ‘Rock Tower.’ The creation of a new, more complex tower is the common choice. It is proof that the past can be beaten at its own game, though this is accomplished at the detriment of the future (where this method becomes increasingly difficult) and to the relative indifference of the past (the progenitors never having to face their defeat). It is the opinion of the author that the propagation of ‘Rock Towers’ is always a failing move.

The only appropriate answer, then, is the toppling of ‘Towers’ and the dispersion of rocks, though opponents would rightfully suggest this is a strategy better suited to the philosophy of the Strangers. It is one of only a few origin stories given much credence, that the most dedicated, the most fastidious Rangers are the most likely to convert. The narrative suggests that the Ranger philosophy will be warped after decades of patient trail-cleaning. After years of hauling rocks back to where they belong, after weeks spent dismantling tedious stone structures, after one last ‘Rock Tower’ collapses painfully across a leg, the Ranger is martyred on the path and replaced by the Stranger, who violently pursues the same goals.‘

-excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside

‘There is a public “discovery” of the ‘Graycard’ phenomenon every few years, they being featured middle-way through a ‘Top 10 Games You Never Knew Existed” list or a regional tournament being live-streamed via the hidden camera of some exhibitionist onlooker. Despite these minor publicity spikes and despite the wide, if shallow, public knowledge of their existence, actual acknowledgment of ‘Graycards’ outside of the Wayside is perpetually tenuous. Most people will have seen the booster packs in gas stations before and some of those people, likely those who have pushed them aside for other collectible cards, will be able to describe the game’s motif without realizing.

For example, they will never remember ‘Graycards’ as having their own hook on a display or box on a shelf. They will have noticed them accidentally mixed in with other cards or, more often, in loose piles behind the cases of other games. They will remember the packs as looking aged and crumpled, dusty and potentially stained by whatever may have leaked in the truck that stocks the station. They may remember the lack of art and the poor title layout, as though ‘Graycards’ only exist as a bootleg of themselves. Most who have owned ‘Graycards’ have been gifted them by grandparents who don’t understand the differences between games and are happy to save a dollar. They are sometimes handed over wordlessly with a receipt for unrelated products as part of some un-advertised special.

Inexplicably, ‘Graycards’ exist in the peripheries by design. The tarnished foil of their booster packs is printed on, as is the dust and staining. Packaging becomes duller year by year. The brand that supposedly prints the cards changes with each set and a little research reveals none of the companies have ever existed. The less-than-ideal shelf placement stems from the perpetual low stock and low turnover. The placement and the packaging feed into each other and the cycle maintains the product’s relative camouflage among items that are designed to draw attention.

The cards themselves are well-made and rarely as damaged as they seem from the outside. Styles vary set by set with a few clear patterns. Each set is characterized by a single color in addition to grayscale illustrations. Each set contains sporadic cards on which the lettering is printed in silver ink (seemingly the ‘foil’ of ‘Graycards’). Every known card has the same back- a series of nested circles in black and white. This pattern is mirrored by a small holographic circle on the corner of the face-side, acting as a mark of authenticity and making it difficult to scan or even take quality pictures of the cards.

‘Graycards’ seem only to emerge in booster packs and, as such, there is no official source for rules. Several popular variations of play exist and can be found online, their sources inevitably the writings and experiences of those who played before the internet allowed for such collaboration. Though the bulk of rules are agreed upon, regional variations represent another obstacle in the popularity of the game. A winning deck in the northwest will be entirely incompatible with a tournament in the south.

New ‘Graycard’ set releases are sporadic and frustrating enough that most believe it is another means by which the creators of the game sow discord among the playerbase. Booster packs for historical sets (say, the Ultraviolet Crimson set, widely available in 1994) will reappear in bulk decades after their initial printing. Promotional singles have been known to fall out of chip bags, condom boxes, and cases of car oil. It’s rare that a tournament occurs without the debut of an otherwise unknown card that defuncts prize-winning decks and overturns the meta understanding of the game, usually prompting accusations of cheating and forgery. Backhandedness is encouraged by a number on each card that seems to indicate how many of its kind have been printed. The collection or destruction of specific cards in order to boost power and rarity is common. At least one card, ‘The Eavesdroplet’ from 1988’s Pale Beige set, is thought to have been made extinct by these practices.

The inclusion of ‘Graycards’ in tournaments and conventions are relatively common, though the events are rarely a headline attraction and are commonly relegated to the conference rooms of nearby hotels. Perpetual travelers that add a pack of ‘Graycards’ to their gas-station lunches now and again can easily turn a profit at such a get-together, the serious playerbase being one that does not get out all that much. In fact, this pseudo-pollination seems to be the only mechanism in place to keep ‘Graycards’ afloat, it being a game that resists playing.’

You might imagine the cool stab of fear I experience upon opening the Stranger’s copy of ‘Autumn by the Wayside’ and seeing a black and white card flutter to the ground, seemingly a forgotten keepsake made bookmark. It bears an uncanny resemblance to a card I carry in my own copy- the Traitor from my days of playing with Sebastian’s group. The one is clearly inspired by the other, Sebastian himself having created the game while working at a gas-station. The phantom pains of my burn-scarred arm ease as I mark the differences and assure myself that his was a curse dispelled.

I’ve seen the packs of ‘Graycards’ now and again. They’re difficult to miss if you spend enough time on the road. I even followed the advice in Shitholes once, buying them up until I had a little shoebox of boosters to sell out of the back of the truck at a college campus. The buyers, though… The people who showed up asked me where each pack had come from and how long I had had them. They pulled up the flaps and inspected small markings in the creases. One woman asked if she could weigh the packs before purchase with a little jewelers scale. Selling the cards made me feel dirty, as though I was feeding an addiction I didn’t totally understand. The profit was good, even accounting for the time I sat there, but I’ve never done it again.

The Stranger’s card is one called ‘Release of Burden’ and, if the entry is correct, it’s one of a thousand like it. The illustration is of a haggard man’s face as he reclines backward into a chair. It’s printed in grayscale, of course, except for a very faint blue shading as though the scene is illuminated by an out-of-frame television. One of several wiki-style forums suggest its from a set released in the mid-2000’s: the Pastel Blue set. The rules on the card mean nothing to me, but the man’s expression lingers in my mind the rest of the day. I set up camp off an unmarked service road and slide into my sleeping bag, balancing the card up against the tent wall. The man’s face is emotionless and, in that neutrality, I can project both relief and disenchantment.

I fall asleep, wondering what the Stranger may have seen in it.

-traveler