Trucker Storyteller

Same stool I always sat on, same waitress pouring the same weak coffee.

A couple other drivers were nearby, swapping stories about weird things on the road.

You know, little stuff like accidents that almost happened, or weird signs in the middle of nowhere.

Since then, I avoid that whole stretch west of Harper's Pass.

Don't care how tired I am.

That week, my route had me running south from Columbus, Ohio, dipping through the edge of Kentucky and into the thick of the Appalachian Corridor before heading east into the Carolinas, a familiar loop for me.

I'd run some version of it probably fifty times.

By then, I'd been on the road over eight years long enough that the cap felt more like home than my actual place.

Long enough that the road didn't surprise me anymore.

It was just past midnight when I pulled into a rest area along Route 23.

Nothing fancy, just a busted-up patch of gravel off the highway, half-hidden behind a sharp curve and a leaning pine tree.

One overhead light flickered like it was barely hanging on.

Below it stood an old vending shelter, the kind with peeling stickers and machines that still took quarters if they worked at all.

There weren't any restrooms.

No trash cans.

Not even a bench.

It looked like a place the state forgot about a decade ago.

There was already one truck parked way down the far end when I pulled in.

It didn't look like anyone was in it, no running lights, no cab below, just a lone dark rig sitting dead still in the gravel.

I only glanced at it at first.