The Lost Roads

“It’s just the regular suburbs”

Hey, I almost forgot that this one was pretty heavily inspired by Majora’s Mask, a Legend of Zelda game. So keep that in mind the next time someone tells you that video games aren’t good for anything.

This is another one that I just wrote for myself, for fun. I wrote it quite a while ago, but my friend told me that her mom read it and it made her cry a little bit, so I guess that’s a good thing? But the suburbs show up in my work a lot, I guess. Even in the stuff I haven’t written yet.

“The Lost Roads,” by Andy Sima (2014)

           “‘Down right left, down right left’ my foot,” I muttered angrily to myself.  I was lost, completely and hopelessly lost.  By ‘down right left, down right left,’ I of course meant directions; but the matter still stands, there were no sages to talk to here.  Anyway, how hard is it to get to a party down these roads?

            Wait, wait, wait, let me back up a little bit.  My name is Evan, and I can’t find my party.  See, I was invited over to my buddy Chain’s house for this rocking party he was throwing, but the thing is, his neighborhood is always so confusing.  Every time, no matter what, I can never get through his neighborhood the right way.  After a while, I end up going in circles, and that seemed to be exactly what I was doing here.  Once again, I couldn’t find my way through these roads.  The tree-lined parkways of suburbia repeated themselves as I took more and more wrong turns.  I’d be lucky if I got to the party at all, by this point.  But I had to get to the party… she would be there.  Now, if only I could get out of these lost roads…

            As my dark brown mini-van (my car dealer called it “equine brown”) puffed its way in and out of never-ending “Maple Streets” and “Walnut Avenues,” I mused about the possibility of rekindling my relationship with her.  By her, I meant Naomi, my ex-girlfriend that I still unfortunately had feelings for.  Everyone else thinks she’s annoying, but I love that about her.  And that was why I had to get to this party, in case that Naomi was there.  But it was starting to look like my chances of getting to the party at all, let alone on time, were slim.

            I absent-mindedly combed my dirty-blond hair with my fingers as I peered down side roads and across intersections.  Everything looked the same down here.  I was certain I had passed through this spot at least three times, and the old man standing at the corner seemed to think so, too.  He just stood there, giving me the strangest look.  His squinted his eyes at me, and I swore that as I pulled away, he smiled.  Just slightly smiled, enough that the laugh wrinkles on his face creased like paper.  But I must have been mistaken.

            It occurred to me that I hadn’t seen any other people besides the old man up until this point, but I’d seen the old man out of the corner of my eyes a couple times now.  I had been driving around for at least twenty minutes, probably more, but no one had been outside.  No one was cutting the grass, taking out the trash, playing catch, walking.  Not a soul to be seen, except the old man.  No cars, either.  Weird… But I guess that’s how things are on this particular Friday evening.  No one wants to be stuck alone for the start of a three-day weekend.

            As I pulled around a corner onto a street that looked pretty familiar, I finally saw another person besides the old man.  He was a kid, probably only a few years younger than me, and he wore a red and green striped shirt.  His hair was died a vivid purple, and his face was round and flat.  His large eyes watched my car carefully.  He didn’t move very much as I drove up to him and rolled down my windows.

            “Hey, kid, you know who Chain is?” I yelled to him.  He simply blinked.  I supposed my piercings threw him off a little.  I didn’t go overboard with it, but here is the shaded suburbs (especially an higher-end place like this), piercings weren’t very common.

            I asked him how I could get to my friend’s house, and I gave him the address.  He shrugged.  I was about to ask again, but he finally spoke to me, saying, “Have you seen the elderly man who lives around here?”

            Something about his tone stopped me.  His voice was high-pitched, much higher than it should have been for someone his age.  But the way he asked the question… it was hard to describe.  It was threatening, almost.  Like he was interrogating me.  But at the same time, he sounded so innocent.  I answered in the negative.

            “No, I haven’t seen any old guys around here,” I said, denying out of habit.  My car purred quietly.  There was silence for a minute.  Then the kid responded, quietly, but with the same voice as before.

            “Remember what happened today.  Tell me what happened.”  This kid was stumping me.  What kind of game was he playing?

            “Tell me, in your own words, how you got here,” the kid said again.  He shook his head back and forth for reasons I couldn’t fathom, and his purple hair waved wildly along with the motions of his head.

            “Why should I tell you?” I spat.  This kid was wasting my time.  I didn’t care what his problem was, I had to find my way out of here.

            The kid stopped shaking his head.  He stared at me, his eyes massive.  He cocked his head to one side, and laughed a screeching laugh, but it was still no louder than a chuckle.  My car went stone-cold.  There was silence. 

            “Tell me what happened,” the kid said again.  A creeping sensation of wrongness, like something was amiss, stole slowly upon me.  I answered, as if in a trance.

            “I told my family I was going out, left my house, drove for a little, turned into this neighborhood, got lost…” I trailed off.  Nothing much had happened, and I was losing daylight fast.  Driving through here was ridiculous before, but I couldn’t even find the exit now, screw the party.  This kid was just wasting my time.

            “What else?” he said, laughing almost concurrently with his speech.  What else?  What was he…

            “You’re right.  When I was turning into the neighborhood, some idiot in a pickup truck almost T-boned me-” my breath caught in my throat.  How had the kid known about this?  Was he watching me when that bozo almost plowed me?  I prided myself then at my quick reflexes, narrowly avoiding destruction, but why-

            “Have you seen the old man who lives around here?” The kid reiterated.

            “No, I haven’t seen any old man!” I said.  “Why do you keep asking me that?” I was getting angry.  “You know what, kid, leave me alone.  I have better things to do.”  I tried restarting the car, but it stalled and shut off.  I tried again, only to get the same result.  The kid laughed, and said, “Anger, huh?” and ran off down the street, opposite of where I was going.  I twisted my car key again, and this time my car started up without incident.  I drove away rapidly.

            “Chalk it up to coincidence,” I murmured to nobody in particular.  But, I had to admit, this was getting weird.  I mean, I’ve heard of some poorly-planned neighborhoods, but this was getting insane.  The sun was setting, and the moon was beginning to rise, and I hadn’t made any headway in getting to the party.  Everything was starting to feel hopeless.  I’d never get to where I was going.

            It wasn’t much longer before I realized how completely stupid this was.  I’m a grown man, driving my own car, but I’m letting myself get bullied by some kid, and I can’t find my way out of a freaking suburb.  I slammed my fist on the steering wheel, and finally decided on my course of action.  “This is getting ridiculous,” I said to myself.  I decided that the next time I saw a house with lights on, I would stop and ask for directions.  I mean, I’d been driving for half an hour, maybe more.  My gas tank should be getting low-

            “Huh?” I breathed aloud.  I unconsciously put on the brake, and my car slowed to a stop.  I tapped my gas reader, I banged the dashboard, but nothing happened.  “Damn.  Now my car is breaking.”  The needle hadn’t moved at all.  According to my car, the gas level was still the same as when I started driving, even though I had been puttering along for who-knows-how-long.

            The gas tank gave me the final motivation to find my way out of this mess.  I eased my foot onto the gas pedal and drove slowly down the street, looking for anybody to ask directions.  All the houses on this street were dark, though, so I turned down another street.  Dark again.  Third street, also dark.  Where were all the people?  Yes, it was past sunset, but it wasn’t that late, and it was only October.

            “You know what, screw this!” I yelled, slamming my foot on the break.  My car slammed to a stop, and I jumped out.  I ran down the sidewalk to the first house I saw and banged on the door.  There was no response, but I heard an empty, distorted echo of my knock come from inside.  I got a cold feeling, and my anger cooled.  I stepped back from the house, and calmly tried the next.  I got the same response.  Third house, third response, same thing.

            I sighed and turned away from the third door, preparing to go back to my car, when I saw the old man again.  He was much closer this time, standing on the sidewalk, staring at me.  His appearance startled me to the point where I fell over onto the stoop of the house.  I gasped, watching him.  I had been seeing him for the past few miles, and had probably seen him about three or four separate times now.  He smiled.

            “You’ve met with a terrible fate, haven’t you?” he said.  My mouth dropped open, and a sickening chill went up my spine.  Those words…  The old man’s smile got wider, and his eyes squinted even more…

            I finally got a good look at the old man, and noted his appearance.  He was tall, but walked with a stoop, like he was perpetually hunched over.  His hair would probably have been orange, if he wasn’t so old, and he wore a purple Hawaiian t-shirt with a gold collar.  His eyes were always squinty, and his face was flat and smooth, like a mask, except for his laugh wrinkles.  He clasped his hands together in front of himself, and I swore that, for a second, he was wearing a back pack.  But that was ridiculous, of course. The man had to be at least seventy years old.  But he could have been older.

            The man chuckled, and his smile never wavered.  “I hear you’re looking for directions.  But to where?”

            I admit it, I sat there for a while, looking stupidly at the old man, but when I finally got the nerve to speak, I stammered out, “My friend’s house.  I’m going to a party.”

            “Are you sure that’s where you’re going?” he asked, his squinty eyes watching me.  At least, I thought they were.  I couldn’t actually he his eyes through the folds of his skin.

            “Yes, I’m sure,” I said, gaining confidence as I stood up.  Why was I scared of this guy?  He had to be at least a foot shorter than me.  Well, he was with his stoop, anyway.

            “Well, that’s interesting,” the old man said.  His expression was solid; it never changed.

            “What’s interesting?” I questioned.

            “Nothing, nothing,” The old man said happily.  After a brief pause, he continued, saying, “Well, you want directions, then?”

            “Yes!  Yes, I need directions!” I exclaimed, ecstatic I was finally getting somewhere.  I asked the old man if he could give me directions to my friend’s address.

            The old man looked up at me, and was silent for a couple of seconds.  Finally, he frowned for the first time in my short experience with him, and said, “Oh my, that won’t do at all.”  His wide, tight-lipped smile quickly flashed back on, and he continued, “I’m sorry, I can’t help you with that.”

            “Please, man, you have to help me!” I sputtered.  This old guy was starting to piss me off.  Why was he here, anyway?  Why did he have to follow me?  But, I lamented, asking for more help.  “I’m at the point where I will pay you to give me directions.” I started to feel like I was bargaining for his help.  “I will do practically anything if you can tell me how to get to my friend’s house.  Or, to a lesser extent, tell me how to get out of here.” 

            The old man didn’t even miss a beat.  “Oh, I can certainly tell you how to get out of here.”  There was something off about the way he said it, like with the kid before.  I couldn’t quite put my finger on why, but his tone disturbed me, like there was only one right answer to a question he wasn’t asking.

            “Are you sure you can’t tell me how to get to my friend’s house?  I mean, he’s just over on Oak Woods Avenue.  I will do anything, anything within reason, to get to that party.  I do not want to go home,” I said, my eyes bulging.  Some sort of understanding seemed to dawn on the man, and his smile turned down, ever so slightly, but returned soon after.

            “Hm.  I see,” the man hummed lowly.  “Well,” he spoke, “I can’t help you with either of those goals.”

            I gasped in frustration.  “You just told me you could help me get out of here!  Can you at least send me home?”

            “No, home’s not what I meant…” he said quietly, almost as if he were .  His smile began to feel more fake and plastered, less fitting for the conversation.  His face rarely changed expression.

            “Are you kidding me?” I finally exploded.  “Then what the hell did you mean?  Okay, you know what, I’m done here.  I’ll find someone else to help me.”  I stormed off, swerving around the old man and towards my van.  The old man turned around to face me, still unaltered in façade.

            “Repeating yourself, huh?” He called to me before I slammed the car door.  I put the pedal to the metal and drove away, the stars shining emptily above.

            I fumed for a while, turning down more streets I had already seen, and passing houses again and again.  I didn’t see the old man, so that was a good sign.  After a while, I realized how late it was getting, and the apparent hopelessness of my situation began to sink in.  How was this happening?  This shouldn’t be possible, logically.  These neighborhoods are only so large, and sooner or later I should see other people.  But I had seen nobody, except those two freak shows from earlier.  I sighed, and stopped the car.  I rested my head on the steering wheel.  Honestly, if I got in the way of some cars, all the better.  They could direct me out.

            I sat for a while, settling deeper and deeper into depression and despair.  I thought about turning music on, and I could just wait until sunrise, but I didn’t even want to do that.  This had been such a long day, or at least, almost getting hit and now being lost had been a harrowing experience.  I looked up at one point, and noticed the road was illuminated by streetlights, but none of the houses were lit up.  The lights of society twinkled quietly, as I sat watching.  What must it look like from up in the air?  A canopy of emerald leaves placidly covering rows upon rows of sweet little houses… each a home to a different family.  And miles and miles of roads interconnecting all of them.  Really, if you look at it in the right way, it’s all connected by these roads… I could go anywhere I wanted by driving far enough…

            Those peaceful thoughts almost shocked me out of my depression, but instead it only made me angry.  No, I really couldn’t drive anywhere I wanted to, because I was lost on those same roads in this idiotic neighborhood.  I punched the dashboard of my car again, and made up my mind to keep driving.  Somewhere, I would find something.

            A thought jumped into my mind.  What do they say about mazes?  Follow the left wall?  Well, maybe I could get out of here if I only made left turns!  I decided to try it, because why not?  I didn’t have any other plans.

            Everything started off pretty well.  By only taking left turns, I soon saw streets I had never seen before.  I passed new houses, new roads, new everything, until I realized something completely stupid.  This wasn’t a maze.  This neighborhood was supposed to be set up in block format.  So how was it that I wasn’t going in a circle?  Something was seriously wrong here.

            No matter where I went, no matter where I turned, now I was getting to new places.  Even though I only took left turns.  And now, even after about five or ten minutes of driving, I was starting to pass places I had already seen again.  I was returning to where I had been again.  I was starting to feel a crushing weight, like my very existence had turned to lead.  What I wouldn’t have given for some music…

            But that was gone, too.  My car’s radio didn’t pick up any stations, and my phone (which I just remembered I had) stopped working a while back.  I was cut off from the world, trapped in this place…

            But how? My rational mind cried out.  This is a neighborhood, regularly traversed by your friends and family.  It is the epitome of American living, and I somehow managed to get lost in it… for hours…  The clock on my car showed midnight.  I must have fallen asleep… Oh… what was even going on…

            I pulled my car over again, and decided just to sleep.  I gave up to it, now, and laid my head down on the passenger seat.  I soon realized how uncomfortable that was, and sat up to adjust how I would sleep.  Looking out the window to the streetlight not far ahead, I saw a lone figure.  He was hunched and thin, and he clasped his hands in front of himself…

            I blinked, and he was closer.  I didn’t see him move, but now he was on the sidewalk, a good ten feet from where he was before, and walking languidly towards me.  For such a hunched old man, he walked with grace.  I groaned inwardly as he sidled up besides my car and knocked on my window.  I rolled it down, and turned my interior lights on.  A sharp orange glow flooded both our faces.  His plastered smile still remained.

            “You’ve met with a terrible fate, haven’t you?” He repeated.  The uneasy sleep I had been attempting to reach fled away faster than I expected, and only at those words.  There was something innately off about them, something inexplicably dark.  The tone chilled my spine again, and I perked up to listen to the old man.  This time, I was open to what he had to say.

            “What kind of fate do you mean?” I asked him.  I was tired.  I was depressed.  I was slowly going insane.  Maybe.  But now, I wasn’t even sure what was going on anymore.  I was ready to sleep.

            The old man’s smile changed ever so slightly at this.  It became less plastered, and more sincere, almost sad.  Like he was feeling something poignant, or bittersweet.  His eyes opened minimally as well.  Not enough so I could see them, but enough that his change of emotion was apparent.  When before he had been intimidating or threatening, now he was becoming gentle.  For the first time, I wondered if perhaps he even had eyes.

            “Do you have faith?” he asked me, out of the blue.  I was taken slightly aback.

            “What- what do you mean?  Like, religion?” I wondered at him.

            The old man was silent.  “Not quite.  Maybe.  Do you have faith in yourself?  Do you believe in your strengths?”  This whole day just got weirder and weirder.  Honestly, I wasn’t even angry anymore.  I was beginning to accept it, actually.  This old man was… helping me.  I was starting to understand…

            “I guess so,” I answered.  “I don’t know.  Why?”

            “Are you happy with the life you’ve lived?” he queried.  Normally, a question like that would have made me defensive or terrified, but now, I wasn’t so sure.  I just felt… relieved.  Vaguely.  There was still something more I needed… Directions?  No.  It wasn’t about that anymore.

            “I guess so…” I replied quietly.  I was an indecisive person, normally, so this wasn’t really any different.

            “Are you really sure?  Do you need more time?” he inquired.  Somehow I knew what he was talking about.

            “Just tell me how it all happened,” I said.

            The old man’s smile sagged, but not in a bad way.  It was natural now, like a father proud of his son, or a teacher proud of a student.  “Come over here.  I’ll show you,” he responded.

            I stepped out of the car and walked over to the old man.  He put his hand to my forehead, and I closed my eyes.  It was then that real understanding came to me.

            At first I saw nothing, but then I began to relive that day, starting from when I left my house.  My van puttered out of my drive way, and I drove carefully through my small town towards the neighborhood where the party was at.  Nothing interesting happened until I was about to turn into the neighborhood.  This was when I had almost been hit by a guy doing thirty over the speed limit.  Except, as I was seeing it now, something different happened.  I knew I was seeing the truth, and I wasn’t surprised at all.  Now, when I turned into the neighborhood, the black pickup truck did hit me.  It rammed right into my side.  I don’t know how I hadn’t seen him before, or how the timing had been just right, but that was that.  A car accident.  Fatal.  It wasn’t long before I succumbed to my wounds sustained by taking the brunt of the hit.  And now I knew what had really happened.

            The old man took his hand off my head.  His smile softened even more, and I sighed.  So.  That was it.  I was dead.

            “Why didn’t you show me earlier?” I asked lowly.

            “Everybody has to accept it on their own time.  There’s no escaping it, but some people don’t want to believe it.  So, they get stuck here, repeating it endlessly.  Stuck in time,” the old man said.  “Have you accepted it?” he added.

            I thought about it.  I didn’t really have much choice, at this point.  It was either stay here in this labyrinth for all eternity, or move on to whatever was next.  I could hang around, just for a little longer, and ponder what it all means.  I could think about my family and my friends one last time.  I could look at my life, and think about whether or not I had lived a good one.  I could think about whether or not I was ready to accept my early death.  But, if I started, would I ever stop?  No, probably not.  I needed to accept it, and move on.  So I did.  And I felt strangely relieved.  I could just let go of all my problems, and go to sleep.  I sighed, quietly.  I was at peace.

            “I’ve accepted it,” I said.  I was ready to accept my own death, and really die.  There was nothing left for me to do.  The stars shined brightly above, and the trees cast smooth, dark shadows, even at night.  The houses around me were silent, waiting.  Slowly, the streetlights around me began to turn off.  I stepped into the driver’s seat.  The old man climbed in through the passenger door.

            “Have I really been here since that first turn?” I enquired as I started up my car.  The engine droned peacefully.

            “Yes,” the old man replied simply.  There was nothing else to say about that.

            “What do I do now?” I contemplated out loud.

            “Drive straight ahead.  That’s how you get out of here,” he replied quietly.  He turned and looked at me, and the in the darkness, his smile remained, unfaltering.  “You’ve met with a terrible fate, haven’t you?” he said, one, final time.  But, now, it was sincere.  The tone had changed.  Or perhaps I had changed.  I did not get any feelings of intimidation or malice anymore.  He turned away from me and faced the road ahead. 

           It was surprisingly dusky on the tree-lined suburban street ahead, as if all light was slowly being extinguished.  But it was a comfortable blackness.

            I eased onto the gas, and we drove away, into the darkness.