There is nothing but static on the radio and I drive that way for a long time, the volume on low and the heat on high. Occasionally I’m encouraged by a ‘pop’ or a ‘click;’ twice there seems to be some sort of background jingle but, with so much white noise, I may be making it up. At least once I definitely hear a man’s voice but my surprise keeps me from understanding what has been said, if anything was said at all.
The way is forested, now, and lonely. It’s just past noon but a gray sky means it might as well be dusk. A rain drop falls every couple minutes, splattering on my windshield. The clouds can’t seem to make up their mind as to whether I’m here or not, as to whether it’s worth raining now or waiting a while for more like me to come.
I wouldn’t mind the rain.
I pass another sign: ‘For Information Tune Radio to 980 AM’
I check the radio, run a pass-through of the 970-990 range, and settle again on 980’s static. The truck has been on cruise control for nearly fifteen minutes as we wander smoothly around gentle curves and over small hills. The radio cracks again, buzzes, and then fades back to static. I tap the dash affectionately. There is no reason to rush.
‘For Information Tune Radio to 980 AM’
‘What kind of information, though? That’s the question you should ask yourself as you drive through Somerset Forest on your way across I-90 and see the many signs and their humble offering. We live in the information age, there are more words in the air than flies, than birds, than leaves falling from the trees. Sometimes we are informed against our will and that may very well be the case for you in Somerset Forest. If you’re reading this, be warned.’
I’m not sure I believe in the idea of forbidden knowledge. Secrets, sure. I understand why people keep secrets. I’ll also accept the idea that there’s plenty of information out there that I don’t necessarily need, that would just take up mind-space and offer no real benefit. Hell, I recognize that some of that information might concern things I’d rather not know; this trip alone has provided a fair share of regrettable experiences. That’s trauma, though, that’s something different entirely. I’m thinking mind-rending knowledge- Book of Genesis type stuff. If we’re talking about an idea that’s universally harmful to the extreme, that can’t be forgotten or rationalized away- I call bullshit.
And I think I’m in a pretty good place to judge.
By all accounts I follow in the footsteps of my future self, led by a book that I am destined to write. Much of what I have seen so far has suggested that the book itself is not a prank, that it has been written honestly and about places that are very real. It could be that my name was attached by the man who handed it to me, that he was able to manipulate a photo for the author credits so that I look more mature and less tired. Cleaner. He could have done the same with any book.
If I’m to assume, though, (and I do, sometimes) that what the man said was true and that a path of some sort has already been laid in front of me… well, you would think that would have taken more of a toll.
The clouds part for the sun and its light filters sideways through the trees. I lower my sunglasses, one hand on the wheel, and squint my eyes against the sudden strobe, the forest’s shadows on the pavement. The road is clear and straight.
I think mortality is the giveaway, or, I agree that it is. I’m certainly not the first to think it. We should be much more fearful of our own mortality than we are; it is inevitable and often more imminent than we assume. We already know that we will die and if that’s not enough to rend minds I doubt anything else can. Humans have evolved to be fantastic endurance runners. Maybe some of that has gone to our head- maybe we run from thoughts too. We are the great rationalizers, our comprehension wired with a kill-switch.
The radio quiets down and I think I hear the man’s voice again. It’s too garbled to make anything out; I raise the volume and slide the tuner back and forth, coaxing the distant-sounding words up and out through the speakers. Without understanding any one word I recognize the sound of a commercial, a tone that only seems to exist in advertisem-
The road pulls out from under the truck, a sudden, sharp turn. The world spins, the sun and the earth orbiting me in mad directions. There is an impact and I’m gone for a while.
Nobody finds me in the meantime.
The sun is setting when I open my eyes again. There is a great deal of pain. The windshield has shattered and a tire rests at an odd angle in front of me. I hang awkwardly in my seatbelt, the truck lying on its passenger side. I reach out and turn off the blinker. The radio still plays static; I hadn’t noticed until now.
My left arm is very broken, my hand draped limply over my stomach. I can’t seem to move any part of it. I try to adjust my shoulder and, when that doesn’t work, I try to pinpoint the trouble. Somewhere, distantly, I recognize that I may have entered shock. I try to remember if that’s something that can be solved, or even recognized, internally. I wouldn’t know where to begin.
A part of my forearm next to the elbow has emerged from the skin. A skeletal part, a great sharp piece of bone. It hurts the moment I see it. I wonder if it shouldn’t hurt more and then it does.
I start to cry.
It’s difficult not to despair, reader. I’ve found it difficult, even under normal circumstances, not to despair.
Circumstances have worsened exponentially.
My truck is as broken as my arm; it, too, holds up its skeleton to the fading light. We are united in a grim toast.
I pass out again.
I recognize the static before anything else. I try to open my eyes and realize they are already open. It has gotten dark, dark except for the dull, back-lit tuner. I remember, suddenly, why I woke up.
Somebody was laughing.
“Hello?” I try to say, the best I can do with a dry throat.
There is nothing. No footsteps or birds or anything.
And then the man’s voice on the radio, lost in the thick static. The tuner has been knocked to the left, its needle hovering near 972 AM. With a great deal of effort, I reach out my hand and adjust it to the right.
“-ggested to approach corners cautiously and to be aware of wildlife that may be crossing the road, particularly at night. Please do not throw cigarette butts or other waste from your windows as you enjoy the natural beauty of Somerset. Thank you for visiting!”
The voice fades into a jingle and then picks up again.
“Welcome to Somerset Forest! You’re tuned to 980-”
I close my eyes. The voice sounds familiar, some D-list celebrity doing charity work for the park service. I run through sitcoms and commercials in my head. I try to remember what audiobooks I’ve listened to recently, what commercials I’ve seen.
“…recommends flashing you lights when approaching dangerously narrow…”
The pain comes back in a burst. I wander in and out of shock. It’s impossible to concentrate- I consider and forget a hundred ways to save myself.
“…recommends flashing…”
My right hand can’t seem to find the seatbelt mechanism. I wonder what the short fall to the passenger side would do to me if I was able to free myself. I take a deep breath and hear the ragged wheeze of my lungs. The truck is quiet, the radio lit but silent. The man’s voice returns after a moment.
“Owner of the blue pick-up,” it says and it chuckles, “Heh, heh, heh.”
It’s difficult to tell how much of this is actually happening.
“Owner of the blue pick-up, why don’t you go ahead and flash those pretty lights of yours?”
-traveler
‘The Floating Rock State Heritage Site’ represents the wedding of a mystery area’s gimmick and a State Park’s credibility into an attraction that somehow manages to be a little boring. One can only think so long about what anomalous forces must exist to levitate the site’s boulder before remembering that the world is a big, strange place and that small, strange things happen here all the time.’
It takes me no little time to piece together the scene at ‘Floating Rock’ and, as I do, a bitter wind rolls over the landscape. It is winter, somewhere, and that somewhere’s winter has blown all this long way. I pull my jacket tight and huddle into myself.
This is a dry stretch of the earth and very flat, flat until I began to see the boulders which signaled my nearing the site. The floating rock is smaller than its kin, brown and roughly oblong, a meter at its widest. It is not floating, which is why it took me some time to identify the thing. If it weren’t for the signs and folksy illustrations put up by absent rangers, it would have been just another boulder among many.
‘Alex’ is the name carved into the side of the once floating rock where it lay. As far as I can tell it was this act of vandalism that also grounded the rock. I sit, in the dirt, and grow smaller amongst its sisters and brothers so that they can bear the brunt of the wind.
Lethargic ants wind aimlessly, sparse in number and disorganized by the autumn chill. Between them they carry the carcass of some larger insect, a thing I don’t recognize but that fits well enough within the realm of normalcy as to be easily forgotten. I pluck it from them and set it up on a stone like some tiny statue (in memoriam) but then I feel bad and I return it to the ants. They’ve begun to panic and seem unforgiving of my change of heart. They avoid the carcass, rightfully superstitious.
As dusk begins to thicken there is a sound ahead of me. The floating rock wobbles in place, shedding dust from its wounds. Moved by some unknown force, it tilts, slightly, and drags a half-inch before becoming still again. It is quiet for nearly ten minutes when, as before, it begins to shift. This time it rises, wobbles to an impossible balance and then falls over. A few minutes later it lifts again and maintains a tenuous standing position.
Over the course of an hour the floating rock rises and falls several times, never by more than a few inches but far enough, always, that pieces of it crack and split off. It struggles to remember the easy flight I see in the pictures around it, the days when it would float four feet in the air and spin lazily in the wind.
After a long time, I leave the floating rock to its work and find my way back to the truck. I wonder at the writer’s dismissal of the place and I wonder if I would have felt (or did feel) the same way seeing the rock untouched by the vandal. Is there value in struggle and, if so, is it inherent to struggle in all its forms?
I struggle, reader, but I do not know toward or against what. Already I feel the struggle has reshaped me and I do hope it is a refining and not the same blind crashing that splinters the rock, that may reduce it to dust before it joins the wind once more.
-traveler
Like scum on the edges of a stagnant pond, American capitalism seems to allow for a quota of small, aggressively niche businesses to thrive on the outskirts of highway towns. That may seem like an inherently negative metaphor and I suppose, in many ways, it is, but I invoke pond scum more for its resilience, its value to the ecosystem, and its universality rather than whatever an initial interpretation might suggest.
Though, these places are often dirty.
‘Mickee’s Freeze’ is the latest in a number of these particular businesses on my list and its specialties are ice cream and bold indifference to copyright infringement. Their mascot is a cartoon mouse that bears so close a resemblance to its clear inspiration that it makes an observer wonder whether the minor differences are intentional or simply weaknesses on the part of the artist. Whatever the case, aged signs of rusted tin and rotting wood suggest that Mickee has been around for years and never suffered for it.
‘Mickee’s’ is a rarity in that it appears in publications outside of Autumn by the Wayside, all of which are local to the region, however, and all of which write that it is the best home-churned ice cream the state has to offer. They, in turn, tantalize the reader with the legend of Mickee’s Mystery, a flavor unique to the store that has been universally well-received but otherwise defies description. Shitholes has its own take and, well, read for yourself:
“Is it so hard to believe that we, humans, are drawn to mystery as it appears to all senses? ‘What is that smell?’ ‘Did you hear something?’ ‘Did you see that?’ ‘How do you feel?’ In this regard, reader, taste is relegated to the realm of mystery flavors and, thus, to children. For a few crumpled dollars the tight-lipped staff at ‘Mickee’s Freeze’ will feed the child you once were. You will remember with joy and no little fear what it is to place something in your mouth, something you do not fully understand. There are no spoilers here, nor on your precious phone. Mickee guards the mystery with care and it is our place to wallow in it or to pass by, unawares.”
The inside of ‘Mickee’s’ is all sticky plastic and laminate, a rainbow of soiled colors. Flies cling in clumps to the outside of the building, drawn by the sickly sweet air that seeps out. A thick, milky substance oozes out from under a service entrance in the back and congeals in the hot dirt. As I reconnoitered, an elderly woman in a paper hat slipped out to pour a bucket of the same goo into a canister near the trash and then stepped back inside before I could make out any detail of the kitchen.
This I remember as I order, staring carefully at the top-loading freezer, at the metal scoop, and at the gloved hands of the teenager who greets me from behind the counter in front.
“One scoop of Mickee’s Mystery,” I tell him, “In a bowl.”
“One scoop is a children’s size,” he says.
“Then, uh, two scoops.”
“It’s all right, man,” he says, drawing me my single scoop, “It’s chill.”
What about me gives off the impression that I’m not calm? Last week I spent the better part of an evening’s hour just filming myself in conversation, speaking into my phone and into the mirror. I’ve watched it on loop since then, sometimes just listening to the audio as I drive. Nothing in that voice sounds ill-meaning or confused. What is it about me, then?
I tip generously and consider apologizing. That would be strange, though, that would be admitting to my slip.
Wouldn’t it?
‘Mickee’s Mystery’ is off-white to the point of yellow and smooth, visually a rich vanilla or a light citrus. It smells like nothing at all and sits heavily on the spoon, reluctant to melt.
“Is there a problem with the scoop, bro?” the guy behind the counter asks, seeing me stare at the dish without eating, “Mickee leaves no customer unsatisfied.”
He wipes at the counter with a dry cloth and waits for my answer.
“Everything is fine,” I tell him, sure now that I have crossed into the conversational gray.
I wish I were filming this.
Everybody in the restaurant seems to be staring through their peripheries as I raise ‘Mickee’s Mystery’ to my lips. It is cold and thick and very sweet, but underlying everything is a flavor I almost recognize but can’t quite place.
“Good, brother?” the guy asks.
“Yeah…” I reply, still swirling the ice cream in my mouth, “It’s good.”
It is good. It’s well-made ice cream, there’s no question about that. I take another bite much to the satisfaction of the server and he tosses the rag in the air and catches it behind his back before turning to other business. A child giggles in the booth two seats ahead of me, fed ice cream by its father.
It? Is that the right word in this situation?
“Hazelnut,” I say.
The guy behind the counter seems to freeze for a moment before he goes back to wiping down a blending machine.
“It’s hazelnut, right?” I ask, “‘Mickee’s Mystery’ is just hazelnut.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, bro,” the guy mutters darkly, only turning halfway back to me, “I don’t even know what a hazlenut looks like. Are you thinking about a walnut?”
“No…” I say, confused, “You’re saying it wrong. Hazelnuts are… well, they’re really popular in some places. They grow them in Oregon I think.”
The child hasn’t made any noise since the exchange began; its father follows the conversation casually over his shoulder.
“I’ve never heard of a hazlenut.”
The couple across the restaurant stands and leaves.
“It can be kind of a subtle flavor but I’m sure you’ve had something with hazelnuts in it before. If you’ve eaten the ice cream here then you definitely have.”
“No, man,” he persists, wringing the dry towel in his hands, “No… that’s not it.”
“Really?” I ask, taking another bite, “Because this tastes like hazelnuts.”
“Maaan,” the teen says, tossing down his paper hat on the counter and shrugging a little, “Can I talk to you privately real quick because-”
“Are there nuts in this?” the dad breaks in suddenly. He points to the ice cream. “My son is fucking allergic to nuts.”
“Welllll,” the server begins.
“There’s definitely nuts in this,” I say through a mouthful of ice cream, “If it’s actually allergic to nuts you should get to a doctor, maybe.”
“He,” the father seethes, acknowledging me only briefly before rounding again on the counter. “You fucking tell me now if there’s nuts in this!” he demands.
“I can’t really…” he’s quickly looking over a laminated sheet in front of him, running his finger down some sort of list. “I’m, uh, not here when they make it. I just sell the stuff.”
I only have to stand to see he’s looking at a flowchart of some sort and reading off canned excuses. I sit again while he sweats and avoids my eyes, rummaging with his rag in a half-effort pantomime of work.
“It’s not really a mystery if you just refuse to say,” I think out loud.
“A mystery is more than a, uh, puzzle box,” he says, hardly turning to look at me, barely disguising the fact that he’s still peering at the chart, “Not all mysteries need to be solved, wink.”
“You were supposed to wink, not say ‘wink,’” I tell him, “That would suggest a friendly collusion-”
I’m interrupted mid-explanation by a tiny cough a couple booths down. The baby sneezes loudly and then looks around, bewildered, a trail of snot and spittle glistening on its, or, his, onesie.
When the father speaks his voice begins terrifyingly calm and monotone.
“Somebody needs to tell me whether there are nuts in this right now,” he says before his volume slowly starts to creep up, “My baby is fucking allergic to nuts and there are NO allergy warnings on ‘Mickee’s Mystery.’ So… IS THERE FUCKING NUTS IN THIS?”
“The prevalence of modern nut allergies is psychological in nature,” the teens says, holding the chart and casting off any pretense of original thought, “You slash your friend slash your child is fine. It’s fine.”
“He’s fine,” I correct and the father lobs a spoon my direction.
“IS THERE NUTS?”
“Your generation’s ease of living has caused you to invent problems that do not exist,” the teen reads on, “If you slash your friend slash your child spent less time in front of the television and more time outside then this would not be a concern. It is your lifestyle that is to blame for you slash your-”
“Vaccines did this to my children!” the father yells as the baby starts to cry, “And now your damned hazlenuts will kill him!”
“He’s trying to direct you away from the point of all this…” I complain, “And there’s never been any link between vaccines and nut allergies.”
The restaurant is quiet for a second, as if to briefly acknowledge the altered direction of this exchange.
“Also that’s not how you say ‘hazelnuts.’”
The teen walks stiffly around the counter and looms over my table, glaring down at me through tearful eyes. He carefully reaches down and pulls the ‘Mickee’s Club Loyalty Card’ from under my bowl and crushes it in his palm. I look over my unfinished ice cream with regret but take the cue to leave. The noisy exchange begins again as soon as the door shuts behind me.
Amidst the dust and buzzing flies I find a moment to consider that it may be the world that’s changing and not myself. There are places here that requires an amount of paranoia to get by and it may be that, by adopting a defensive nature, I’m simply adapting. This could be healthy.
I could be healthy.
I take out my phone and turn on the camera. I see my haggard face on the screen and I begin to record.
“Hello,” I say, “How are you? I’m fine too. Nice to meet you, my name is-”
-traveler
‘Josie’s Bed & Breakfast,’ is way out of my set budget for places to stay, especially considering I spend about 80% of my nights in the truck itself which costs me nothing at all. Every once in a while, Shitholes throws me a bone and reviews a place with a mattress, excuse enough to live a little kinglier for an evening and, in this case, the morning after.
‘The wait time for breakfast at Josie’s could be just as easily attributed to a lack of foresight as to a stroke of genius. Past a certain stretch of waiting, any food in any condition will seem better, if only for its close proximity. Let this assurance guide you, then, as the wait grows to the unimaginable, as it seems to end only to begin once more. Assure yourself that the food is made better for your invested time. Is it worth the exchange, though? Could it ever be?’
The author doesn’t speak at all about the room which means he (or I) probably only reviewed the place for the breakfast and that I could probably get away with doing the same, no extra money spent, but I could use a night of solid rest and god I hate waiting. My lifestyle has become one that revolves around cheap food and quick service and, though other aspects of myself suffer for it, the quick turnaround of a burger has only served to validate it.
If there can be a life without waiting, I’ll gladly live it.
The entry room, Josie’s lobby, is extravagant. I say as much to the young woman at the counter, someone I assume is not Josie herself.
“It’s not extravagant,” she says, swiping my debit card, “It’s just old.”
I look around again and see that she’s right. Everything in the room is old and heavy-looking. The wooden furniture is bruised and dark with years of re-staining, the curtains dusty with time. Josie’s lobby straddles the line between sitting room and antique store, at times a sincere representation of old-world posturing and at others, unironically gaudy. It’s easy for my generation to confuse nostalgia with class. We seem, at times, to wishfully look back on the greatest hits of past decades, comfortably ignoring history’s B-sides. Maybe every generation does that. Maybe it’s just me.
“How long have you worked here?” I ask.
“A while,” she says, pushing my receipt over the counter, “I’m saving for college.”
“Getting close?”
She looks at me, darkly, and says nothing.
The room is much like the lobby, an already small place made closer by the furniture arranged inside. The pack I slump off my shoulders, the jacket I hang on the bed post- both look cheap and dirty and somehow unwelcome. I do too, when I find my reflection in the vanity’s mirror, I look distinctly out of place.
Normally I have a hotel room routine- a contemplative lie-down on the bed, a long sit in the restroom, a shower, a nap, a belated order-in dinner, and finally sleep. Today I settle for a shower and manage to eat a granola bar before passing out under the bed’s oppressive quilt. It has been a long time since I have dreamed.
I open my eyes and it is still very dark. In keeping with the atmosphere, Josie has provided no electric clock, no indication at all that this is not the 19th century. I tap my phone on the bedside table but it refuses to respond, the battery dead. I grope around blindly for a while before I find the light switch near the door.
The first fright I get is my own naked body, hunched and pale in the reflection across the room. The second is my jacket, the floating guise of a man to my still-waking brain. Travel has made me paranoid; as my eyes adjust I come to the conclusion that there’s nothing to be afraid of in the room at all.
I plug in my phone and see that it’s only just past midnight. I piss and settle in for the rest of the night.
It is still dark when I wake again and I lie, unmoving, in case it was a sound that disturbed me. Pressed into the bed by the quilt, I remember the thing in the walls and the hefty reassurance of Phil’s hammer. There is no noise, though, and no smell; no one sense that suggests anything dangerous has happened, is happening, or will happen soon. I look at my phone and see that, despite feeling wide awake, I have only slept fifteen minutes.
I cough a couple times in order to break the silence and then once more out of necessity before turning over and closing my eyes. Quasi-sleep follows.
The next time I check my phone it is a quarter to one and a dull headache has begun to grow behind my eyes. I recognize this from college, from when I pretended to go to college. Back then I would sleep in until early afternoon and nurse this same headache the rest of the day. I would use it as an excuse to skip class and to go to bed late.
I sit up and use the restroom again, drink some water. My stomach growls and I wonder if it isn’t hunger that’s keeping me awake. I eat a few more granola bars and a tough strip of jerky. When I’m finished my phone reads 12:55am.
Five minutes has passed, is what it’s saying. It has been the middle of the night for ages.
Fully-conscious, I take stock of the things that don’t add up. The hunger, the headache, the constant trips to the restroom, the fact that my aging phone seems to have charged itself entirely in less than an hour- nothing is suspicious on its own, none of that really proves anything except that my perception of time, and potentially my body, are distinctly out-of-whack.
I finish piecing all this together in less than 60 seconds, according to my phone. As soon as I tap the screen it ticks off a minute, as though feeling guilty all of the sudden. As though feeling self-conscious. I stare for a long, long time before anything happens.
And then another minute passes.
I dress myself and peer out the windows, wondering if my phone’s clock isn’t malfunctioning. It looks, by all accounts, like one in the morning. I open my door a crack and stare down the hall. In a hotel I wouldn’t think twice about leaving my room but a bed and breakfast is so much like a stranger’s house that I don’t know how to act in a way that doesn’t seem like trespassing.
I take the creaking stairs in socks and find the lobby dimly lit. The woman from before is there, still. She’s staring at her phone.
“Hi,” I say.
She looks up, not particularly surprised or interested.
“I… was wondering when breakfast is,” I say.
“It starts at half past seven and runs until ten.”
“And, uh, what time is it right now?”
“Nearly one in the morning.”
“Right,” I say, “Okay. Just having some trouble sleeping.”
She maintains the bare minimum eye-contact necessary for this exchange.
“It’s not a problem with the room, I mean…”
She doesn’t seem to care. I force out a fake yawn and walk back upstairs, back to my room, and close the door behind me.
My phone reads 12:59am and it is quiet. I pace the room, stare at myself in the mirror, and then I try to sleep again. I close my eyes and I count seconds until I drift off.
The headache, having gathered itself like a storm, greets me as I wake. I open my eyes slowly, hoping to see light between the shades but the room is still dark. I check my phone- 1:10am.
I leap out of bed and then stand, quietly and without purpose. Even if I were able to prove to myself that time has slowed down, what would I do to change it? I sit down again, still in the dark, and tap my foot. I drink a glass of water and eat the rest of the dried goods I’ve stored away. I wander the room, memorizing it in the dark. I make faces nobody can see. I open a book, a western thing I picked off a rack in a gas station, and I finish it by half past one.
I’m starving.
The woman at the front desk doesn’t seem surprised to see me leaving, but I hesitate at the door anyway.
“Just going to grab a few things,” I tell her and she nods.
The roads are quiet, but not suspiciously so. A seemingly normal number of cars pass me on my way to a convenience store I remember seeing as I drove in. I look at the clock inside- 1:17am, and I clear the place of its jerky stock.
“Long night?” the man asks.
“Sure.”
The truck’s time has just ticked off 1:21 when I park back at Josie’s. I walk into the lobby, a bag heavy with meat at my side, and ask the woman there a very pointed question:
“Did that seem fast to you?”
“What?” she asks, looking up from her phone. Her screen is visible from this angle- she’s been staring at the clock.
“Do you know how to beat this thing?” I ask, “Is that something you can tell me?”
“Just got to wait it out, man,” she shrugs.
Back in the room I set up a small nest- my bottle of water, a pile of jerky, and the quilt, wrapped heavily around my shoulders. With my phone plugged into the wall I sit and stare, counting the seconds to verify that they match the passage of time. And, for the most part, they do. As soon as I quit counting, though, or look away for long, the clock slows itself.
Or, I think it does.
There’s not much I can do to verify.
Eventually I fall asleep and I wake, slumped forward in a pile of jerky-smelling plastic. I take the phone with me into the bathroom and I drink a bottle of water while the morning slips tediously past two. The headache has grown beyond ignoring so I pop a couple ibuprofen and think about the flask. I’m not sure I want to risk falling asleep again.
The most circuitous path through the room goes over the bed but I start going around after a few dozen laps because I’m just that out of shape. I pace in circles, counting off the minutes till 3:00am. The numbers warp and furniture moves strangely in my peripheries. I find myself too warm and too cold in turns. My eyes dry and the headache thuds quietly under the restraint of the painkillers.
There is a knock on my door just past four as I stand, swaying slightly on my feet, in what passes for a break. I step quietly over and find the woman from downstairs in my doorway, holding her phone as I hold mine.
“I could hear you walking around up here,” she says.
“Sorry,” I tell her, “I can be more quiet.”
“It’s fine,” she says, looking down at her screen, prompting me to look at mine as well. I haven’t turned the lights on in my room and it is dark in the hall. Our faces hover in the shadows, illuminated by the two phones. “Do you want company?” she asks, without looking up.
“Sure,” I tell her.
She steps inside, slips off her shoes, and sits on the bed without ever looking up from the device in her hand. I’ve lost track of mine already, just trying to keep up with the strange presence.
“There’s not anything more to this than waiting,” she says, sensing my eyes on her, “And if you don’t watch, you’ll fall back. Can I have some jerky?”
I join her on the bed, eyes refocused on the screen, “Sure.”
“How many times have you fallen asleep?”
“A few,” I tell her, trying to remember, “Several.”
“I thought so,” she smiles, a smile that remains on her face as she tears a piece of the jerky from the mass, “Only twice for me.”
“This happens every night?”
She nods and yawns. When she covers her mouth I notice her nails have been chewed down to the skin.
“Why do you work here?”
“I got caught shoplifting just out of high school,” she says, “Had to go to court and everything.”
“So this is like your personal hell or something? Some kind of punishment?”
“Uh, no,” she says, “It just makes finding a retail job impossible.”
“Right.”
It gets quiet in the room for a few minutes, quiet enough that I hear when her breathing takes on the rhythm of sleep. I tap her leg with my foot and she starts.
“You were sleeping.”
“Thanks,” she says, and she yawns again. “Why are you here?” she asks, after a moment, “Not a lot of middle-aged guys stopping through on their own.”
“I…”
I explain everything. We’ve got all fucking night and what do I care if she believes me or not? I even tell her about the dead guy, I even try to replicate the breathing sounds he made. It all comes out of me and before I know it we’ve passed an hour and a half. Above my screen I can make out a look on her face, not quite impressed, I guess, but certainly not uninterested. She seems to let the story digest before settling on an answer.
“That’s…” she begins, “That’s pretty crazy.”
My heart drops a little in my chest. That’s exactly the answer I give to the loonies I meet on the road, to every old woman that’s seen a UFO and every hunter that’s seen a bigfoot. It’s not agreement or disagreement and it’s an unwillingness to engage with the story, lest there be more.
“Well,” she says, standing to stretch, “Hang in there for another half an hour. Things go back to normal at six every day and I have to start food prep. Thanks for passing the time.”
“No problem,” I say, and as she’s slipping back into her shoes I ask: “How’s the breakfast here?”
“Extravagant,” she says.
I return to the road, reader, feeling as though I never rested.
-traveler
It’s midday and I’m traveling north again, straight up through the belly of America. A week-old soda thickens to syrup as it rolls back and forth across the passenger seat and a grasshopper crawls slowly across my windshield, having hitched a ride at the gas station and found itself pressed into the glass by 60mph winds. I drive the speed limit, exactly the speed limit, for as long as I possibly can. Cars pass easily, skittering around the lumbering blue truck and its driver.
The fairy fern has died.
Cool weather and the smell of pine greet me as I make my way across an open stretch of road, only ever at exactly the speed limit. There is supposed to be bad weather ahead, a couple days ahead, that is, always a couple days ahead. In this perpetual autumn there have been no icy roads or sticky asphalt, only the occasional rain and long, clear nights and mornings clammy with dew.
I take to sleeping during the day, when my truck is kept warm by the sun, and driving at night when the traffic is minimal and I can run the heater. My conversations are confined to gas station clerks and motel owners and they all say the same thing no matter where I am or what time it is:
“You look tired.”
‘Autumn by the Wayside’ is, as far as I can tell, a book written in perpetuity. I should be narrowing in on the finish line now, I should be running out of places to see but there always seems to be something, something I missed in a region I know I checked off. The glove compartment is full of crumpled maps and charts that detail the trip so far, none of it cohesive or meaningful. There is no way to write a book like ‘Shitholes’ except for the way it’s already written.
Actually, that’s probably not true.
I am not an editor, that’s more to the heart of things. I’m not an editor in the widest sense of the word. I live my life like a bad novel, jumping from one scene to the next and making mistakes along the way and learning nothing, gleefully unaware that even a run-on sentence ends with a full-stop. There are a hundred ways to write any book but I only know just the one so I write what’s in front of me and then I move on.
Behind me is the scorched earth that once was ‘The Kat Cirkus,’ ahead of me is ‘A Prairie Dog Ghost Town.’
I’m somewhere in the middle.
-traveler