Chapter 11: The Highway

Everybody has their stories about traveling on The Highway, and they're all worth listening to. That's because every one of them is different. No one ever seems to take the same journey as anyone else, even when seeking the same destination.

And while some segments are so plain and deserted as to not even be worth mention, others are memorable beyond belief.

Here's my list of the ones I'll never forget.

The first place that really threw me was our fourth segment where we drove into a place that seemed all bright light, mirrors, and reflections. The light seemed Omni-directional, casting no shadows at all.

Suddenly all I could see were a million Sally's in every direction. While that's certainly an appealing sight, the ones ahead all seemed to be coming head-on at us, while the ones to each side moved along with us like my own personal army. There were even reflections overhead.

The funny thing is that I couldn't spot the mirrors. It was as though the very surface of air itself reflected and multiplied the images. And just as each next one ahead of us seemed about to crash into us it would merge as though driving through a mirror, although there seemed to be no actual surface there.

I had to very carefully navigate us across using the Map to keep from getting distracted or lost.

Then there was the segment where, instead of driving out onto solid road, we were suddenly on a white, fluffy cloud.

I panicked for a moment, even as I watched other clouds drifting back and forth transporting other Highway travelers in regimented formations. Looking over the edge downwards only showed thousands of feet of empty air above a verdant surface.

It wouldn't have been so bad if I'd been on foot, but Sally weighs in at a tad over three thousand pounds — not that I'd ever mention a lady's weight publicly — and that's not counting my own one sixty-five addition. But somehow we were being supported just fine.

When my panic subsided a bit I remembered that your average fluffy cloud, on Earth at least, actually contains the weight of around one hundred elephants of water. And at six tons per full-grown elephant, even a small cloud already weighs far more than Sally and myself put together. That let me decide for this cloud that our weight was insignificant. Once I realized this I was able to enjoy the ride.

I will say that even riding on a cloud can't improve much on Sally's own excellent ride.

One world we entered appeared to be in the midst of an immense war, with shells falling all around us. It was a wild dash across the segment, dodging both the falling shells and the little machines out there repairing the shell craters on The Highway as fast as they occurred.

We got through without a single scrape or dent, but Sally's speed, excellent handling, and metal body made this a far better experience than attempting it on foot would have been.

I wondered why the Map had even directed us through this. My best guess is that it knows what we can manage, and doesn't give us anything we can't handle together.

The very next segment was a bureaucratic nightmare.

We arrived, screeching to a halt, in the middle of a traffic jam. The reason for this were border gates ahead — right on The Highway!

We crept slowly forward until we reached an inspector who demanded my passport, proof of vehicle ownership, and a completed form that had been shoved in the open window as we'd arrived here.

Fortunately The Highway provides for its travelers. He — or she, or it, I'm not sure just what this inspector actually was — meticulously inspected everything I handed over. My passport, which I'd wisely packed, and Sally's registration and title, were satisfactory. Even so, he, or she, or it, still insisted on searching Sally carefully for what contraband I can't imagine, before stamping my passport and lifting the barrier. This allowed us to inch forward into the traffic jam in ahead.

It took us a full hour to make it to the other end of this segment, where we went through the entire process once more, including another through search, before we could proceed onwards to the next segment.

I now have a transit visa, along with accompanying entry and exit stamps, in my passport to a place I hope never to return to again in my life.

The most memorable segment we traversed can only be described as the Murkwood brought to life. A curious way of describing a place more associated with not-life.

Huge dark trees pressed against the edge of the Highway strip, their canopies actually reaching overhead to block out most of the sky. Thick with vines and creepers, you couldn't see a foot off to either side. Yet this jungle was alive with every kind of animal sound you could imagine — and some beyond imagination, and some quite close.

But it was the eyes, large and small, all brightly reflective even in the near nonexistent light, that stared by the hundreds, that were the most unnerving. They blinked occasionally, if you watched a particular pair long enough, and overall it gave eerie a whole new definition.

The trees swallowed up every sound we made on the thick loam of this segment. At one point I hit Sally's horn just to have my own sound, and it sounded weak and pale in this sound-deadening place. The only thing worse, I'm convinced, would have been if this place had been completely silent.

I've always thought, and nobody has ever said otherwise, that all Highway segments are equally sized. That's clearly not true.

Or maybe it is true, but our sizes change. After all, The Highway remakes you as it sees fit. So far, thought, both Sally and I seemed to be exactly the way we'd been from the beginning. But would I even know if I was suddenly different? After all, part of any transformation must include modifying you memories to make the new form seem normal. I just don't know.

Or maybe it's that distances are just measured differently in different places, which is the word we use to separate of the multiverse from simply different worlds in our own universe. A place is very different from just another world.

Here the distance to cover was over a mile by Sally's odometer, and we were given an hour to traverse it. There's no point in arriving early since the portal isn't ready yet. If you go through any of the portals at the ends of a segment at the wrong time, you end up in the wrong place. Your Map may automatically adjust to guide you to your destination regardless, however, that revised journey may also be a whole lot longer or more difficult than originally shown.

Well, actually there is a good reason to arrive early. I've added a whole new definition of creepy to go along with my newly revised eerie.