‘One frequently neglected aspect of the North American Continental Divide is that it’s nearly 10’ across in some places, meaning that there exists a strip of land that drains neither toward the Pacific nor toward the Atlantic Coast. Along this strip on a windless day, a traveler might collect a bottle of ‘Scaredy Water,’ named for its unwillingness to choose a side. ‘Scaredy Water Ponds’ are ephemeral even within their seasons, but the safest bet is New Mexico’s ‘Shiver Pool,’ named for the trembling motion of the windswept water and its deep cold.’

Scaredy water is supposed to be good for making decisions. That’s what the internet witches say. Drink it. Shower in it. Spill it on the ground and scry for omens. They don’t agree on how to use it. Just the purpose.

Autumn is actually the worst time to visit ‘Shiver Pool.’ There’s supposed to be a spring feeding it from somewhere underground but it’s supplemented by rain and snow to such an extent that by the time fall comes around, it’s more like a ‘Shiver Marsh.’ Still, the water collected there shows the tell-tale signs of ‘scardiness.’ It moves like loose jello and it shrinks from touch and it does both so slightly that it makes me doubt it’s doing either.

I fill a bottle with my hands safely tucked into rubber gloves from the first aid kit. I don’t want the stuff on me or in me but it’s bound to be something I can bargain with down the road. Once it’s sealed up and patted dry, I reconnoiter the area and, finding myself alone, pull the handgun from my bag.

It’s in pieces now, black and silver. It took me hours to get it apart, both because I was referencing videos on an amateurishly encrypted connection and because I was afraid it would go off at any moment, even after I had pulled out the bullets and the firing pin and a few other integral things. I’ve read that guns are heavier than they look but I don’t think that’s the case. Considering what they can do put together, the gathered pieces seem incredibly light.

With a new set of gloves, I plop the handgun into the ‘Shiver Pool’ and set up camp for the evening. I’ll let them soak there overnight and after they’ve dried a couple days and I after I’ve watched a few more videos about cleaning the pieces and putting them back together, I’ll have an untraceable gun and five untraceable bullets. If there comes a time to use it, I hope that the scaredy water treatment will work to grant me the resolve to pull the trigger or else that it will grant me the hesitation I need to overcome an obstacle more peaceably.

One or the other.

-traveler

‘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