RUST magazine: Rust#20

to make sure we’re as harmless as we look,
then vanish back into the hills. You know, if
there really is nothing there, why guard it so
fiercely? And if there is, by doing what
they’re doing you can only assume that
they are shielding something. As far as I’m
concerned, it’s the recipe for Coca-Cola or
the president’s private harem or some such
thing. Then again, they could just be
playing with us.
ing for something in
you tend to find things
never expect...’
THE DISAPPEARING ROAD
Nevada will always stay in our minds as the
state of the disappearing road. For the next
few hundred miles we follow highways that
cut through a world so vast it feels like it has
no beginning or end. Even time seems to
stop with the evening twilight. The silence is
impossible, as though you had plugs in your
ears. It’s easy to imagine all sorts of things
out here, even flying saucers.
Tonopah is a small mining city in the
middle of a blank space on the map. Stories
of people wrapping themselves in tin foil to
repel radiation from AREA 51 are not
uncommon. Individuals who lose their
minds and walk out into the desert only to
be found months later by a hiker or surveyor
in an advanced state of decomposition, are
routine for the coroner.
When we cross back into California
everything changes. Flat desert gives way to
undulating farm country whispering with tall
grasses. Soon we climb into high mountains.