Sometimes, settings leap out at me so clearly that I have to write something about them down, but then the plot doesn’t go anywhere, and I am stuck with an interesting setting wanting a plot. The fragment here entitled “The Road” is part of a hypothetical series of stories set at a high-fantasy truck stop, a last-chance service station on the road to an archetypal (and surprisingly multifarious) quest location. For unknown reasons I am fascinated by places like this one, entirely mundane establishments serving as a relentlessly practical mirror image of the spiritual sites they support, and I wanted to have one of my own. Still waiting for the plot to strike me on this one, though.
* * *
There is a Road; there has been a Road here as long as anyone can remember.
The Scrivnarium 