There’s this abandoned homestead on Highway 100 between the 64 junction and Chickasaw that I pass every time I drive to my parents’ house in Saltillo. Every time I speed by, my mind goes into overdrive thinking about what used to be there. What kind of house, what kind of people, what kind of stories. Where did the house go? Where are the people now? All that’s left are these two little brick walls framing the entranceway. The 911 numbers are intact. There are even light bulbs in the fixtures. It’s all been sitting there like this for the four years I’ve been driving from Saltillo to Memphis. I’ve invented a hundred stories to explain what’s happened to the house that used to be there. All of them are sad.
I wonder sometimes about the remnants we leave behind. The residue. The stories we start and stop and abandon and pick up and move elsewhere. The things that are destroyed by nature and fate. The things that evaporate. The things we think don’t leave a trace but that, in fact, drip stains everywhere. Stains other people have to step over and around. Stains other people whisper in hushed tones about. Stains other people use as excuses to invent stories.
I worry that some day the world will become saturated. I wonder how it is that it hasn’t yet.
And I marvel.