Blue River is a unique little desert town. Although, it has had a difficult time perking itself up. There was a lovely river that flowed right through the center of town. One side had a sloped, grassy bank, adjacent to the residential neighborhood. It was quite lovely. The other side was more steep and rocky, lined with a street. It abutted the business district with restaurants, a theater, and other entertaining establishments. Also, it was a State border town, nestled into one State, with another State right along vacant land on the edge of town.
What I do is this. As soon as I wake up, I prepare myself with a normal morning routine, and then I sit down and write a story about whatever comes to mind. More often than not, it is a surprise.
The industry that supported the town was mostly agriculture, and there were a couple of factories, and a small flour mill. It’s not an uncommon situation. It had a boom time when there was a lot more travel and commerce coming across the country. Then, when the Corporations and their government sold their economy to another country, things started to dry up. This was happening everywhere, and people stopped moving around. Less business, fewer people, fewer trucks, and fewer vacationers looking for a nice stop along the way.
A unique feature of Blue River are the two highway entrances on either side of town. The whole town looks like it could be one, big rest stop. You can pull into one side of town. Get some fuel, enter the main drag, choose a variety of things to do, from food stops, to entertainment, so motels of every price range. Then, when your rest is complete, you continue on down the main drag to the end of town, where the breakfast places are, stop and eat, or get something for the road. Then, you re-enter the highway at that far end of town. Pretty cool really.
That’s the idea, anyway. The problem is, no one knows where the place went. That is to say, when you ask people about Blue River, they look at you strangely, as though they never heard of such a place. A man was in a nearby town in a neighboring State. He asked a clerk at a gas station what State he was in, because he was sure he had to pass through before entering this State. The clerk acted befuddled. They had never heard of Blue River, it was as though the place never existed.
That man turned around on the expressway, he thought he must have missed the exit. As he moved along, he not only drove much further than the State line where the town was, he didn’t even see any exits in that vicinity. His mind was boggled. He pulled over to the side of the road. Had been on the wrong highway?
Pulling out his phone and glasses, he opened up the map app to see his location. Widening the map, he could see that there were no other highways coming through that part of the State. He was sure this was the route he took in the past, the time he had stayed there on his way across the Country. Then he searched for Blue River directly in the search bar. The only Blue River he could find was in another State, on the other end of the Country. He was perplexed. He wondered if he had a dream, or if it was a story he had read, or a movie he watched. He shook his head and went about his life.
A family had been on vacation and stopped there. On their way back through the Country, they had decided they loved it and would return. They did not find it. They stopped at a little convenience shop in a neighboring town and asked the proprietor about it. The man told them he was so tired of people asking about Blue River that it was driving him crazy. He thought his ex-wife was pranking him, and he asked them to leave.
The point is, that no one seems to have ever heard of the place. Why are so many people sure that they had been there? Why was there a farmhouse in the middle of a field surrounding the highway, where the owners have erected a locked, gated entrance, with a sign that reads. “There is No Town Called Blue River. No Trespassing!”? Why do so many truckers talk about the mystery of Blue River as they are driving along that route, and just as quickly forget about it, and then claim it does not exist?
It appears to be the situation, that once a person visits Blue River, it ceases to exist, for them. Blue River is not an oasis in the desert. Because it does exist, once.
The End
775 Words
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