Jasika Nicole

It is never maintained.

I think it's possible that no one has driven on this road since the day it was laid.

The asphalt is cracking in the heat, crumbling away back into desert.

Under the asphalt, the sand.

The road abruptly ends.

Not at any particular place.

I haven't seen a single thing someone might need to access along its entire length.

No, the asphalt just ends.

Perfectly square.

And then the scraggle of landscape takes over.

An orderly handover.

I must have missed the next road.

I do a laborious three-point turn, which is humiliating because I used to maneuver a vehicle so much bigger than this one.

I drive back slowly, watching both sides of the road, searching for what I missed.

And then I see it.

A bit of dirt more level than the other dirt.

Not a road or a track or a path, but just a suggestion.

that someone else once went this way and so you could too if you were foolish enough I am nothing if not a fool and so I turn and bump my way painfully across the rough terrain my car was designed for supermarket parking lots and weekend trips to wine country it was not meant for this kind of exploration

But to my surprise, it holds up and faithfully gets me to where I'm going.

I've been given no indication of what I was looking for, but she told me I'd know it when I saw it.