– you can’t travel a mile without passing a lake. you’re not really sure where all these lakes have come from, you’re miles from any river or source of water, but no one seems to question it. every so often you pass a lake and find that, seemingly overnight, it has turned into a swamp populated by turtles and who knows what else.
– you live between two cemeteries. most of your friends do too. during the night you can hear tapping on your window, it quickly turns to hammering; you walk over to your window and find it covered in hairline fractures. when you wake up the next morning your window is as smooth and unbroken as a piece of silk.
– there’s a pothole on the road that leads to your school. everyone knows to swerve around it. you swear that everyday it gets a little deeper. no one listens. one day the quarterback doesn’t show up to bio, during lunch you watch as a crane pulls his car out of the pothole that is now a giant chasm. you told them this would happen.
– there are five diners in your town. they are all open 24 hours a day seven days a week. no one who goes in past twelve comes out. One day you peer through the dusty glass at the hostess. She smiles at you toothily and winks with all 278 eyes. you don’t go back.
– you have your exit memorized. so does everyone. your friend is from oklahoma. you ask her what her exit ways and she looks at you strangely and says she doesn’t know. you begin to wonder that maybe memorizing this combination of letters and numbers isn’t as normal as you thought.
– it is an unspoken rule: don’t pump your own gas. of course this is technically untrue, it’s illegal to pump your own gas so it must be spoken about somewhere. perhaps trenton. one day you pull up to the gas station and find it empty. you are about to get out of your car when you notice movement out of the corner of your eye. the gas hose is shaking in it’s holder. something black and oozing leaks out of the nozzle. you turn your car on and drive away. it follows the movement of your car until you’re out of sight. the next time you go to get gas the attendants are back and look at you oddly when you ask where they were yesterday.
– no one questions the gardens. one day they aren’t there and the next they are. huge and towering they cover anything in their path with bulging white roots and poisonous looking flowers. one day a pumpkin patch bursts through the floor of the gym. you still have to play handball, dodging pumpkins the size of pickup trucks as you sprint towards the other teams goal.
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