nanowrimo 2k9

Up in the pacific northwest, there are still a lot of trees, even if there aren’t spotted owls living in them. There are a lot of old roads far from the highway, too. A lot of homemade junkyards, converted school busses, and do-it-yourself yerts. While the population still centers around the recycling liberatopia of Seattle, the city’s boundaries are short and falls quickly into the hours of countryside and rainforest that surround it. The rainforest stretches all of cascadia from BC to norcal, and while a few large roads may wind through it, and what little population that can’t make it to the cities flocks to rest stops and tourist towns that clutter the exits. Living vacariously from the stories told by the truckers passing through.

But whenever there was a sign pointing left to mcdonalds, there was a right hand turn into the wilderness. The farther you drove from the mcdonalds the deeper into the wilderness you got. Freeways broke to highways; highways passed through traffic lights and strips malls, first pawn shops and gun stores, sometimes passing acres of tire shops and auto body repair, fading into small suburban style home and quickly fading into to local roads. Here, the roadside treeline dotted with “do not enter” signs posted under “trespassers will be shot”, few roadsigns, fewer paved roads only the occasional service station and “hunting and fishing” license registry.

These highways usually lead somewhere, someplace nice to see on the way to a quaint little time to spend a weekend. Going up to the mountains, there is always a scenic lookout, in the flat woods there are lakes and rivers. Cabins start to appear closer to the road, driveways are open, and little parking ways open up. Modest roads turn off into small groups of families. These roads always go somewhere, but usually to a highway, which usually just runs through bigger towns and back to the freeway to the big cities.

Outside of these attractions, along those few cross streets, lie roads that do not end, but just get narrower; the pavement decays to gravel, and then swampy mud. Right at the end of civilization sits an old rusted mail box with a plastic newspaper holder, so grimy and moss-covered that only the crest of a ‘T’ and bottom half of a ‘une’ can be made out. Scrawled in white paint, eroded by rust the letters read: “Rt 5: box 3a”. The box is empty and the flag is up. There is no newspaper in the cubby. There is only the rustling of the leaves.

In the distance, a motor sputters to life, dies down and gasps a new breath. The rusted mailbox still sits stoically unaware of the hum in the background, rusted shut. The idling roars again, and in the distance, dust belches through the trees, and funnels up into the road. The exhaust rolls in kicking pebbles and dust against the mailbox. Through the maelstrom, a hellish vespa glides out of the muddy path and lands squealing on the clearing. Accelerating into the gravel, the driver skids to the right and firmly plants a spiked boot in the ground, the vespas tire digs into the ground, revs up, and is gone in a flurry of dust, leaves and gravel. The echo of the motor shakes old pine needles from the surrounding trees, and the mailbox  sways, and shlufs its pile of dead pine needles onto the newspaper box.