Rest Areas

**REST AREA — SHORT**
 When you crisscrossed the highways and byways of the U.S. of A. for a living/choosing/
 avoiding of the real world, you became well acquainted with the nation’s rest-area network. As 
you traveled to and from, you learned the ones that were pristine and the ones that were 
unclean. What I really liked, though, were the ones with elaborate maps spread across 
signposts at least five feet wide. I liked the green metal roofs overhead and the network of 
spiderwebs that lay claim to every corner. There was something comforting about it. They felt 
like the last non-digitized places of information in the world, forgotten relics of a time when 
people actually had to follow these elaborate little multicolored lines to find their way to a 
place.
 Osceola National Forest, where I stood now stretching my legs after three hours in the driver’s 
seat, had such a sign. The board there splayed out a giant map of Florida, and I suddenly 
realized that for all the pillaging and plundering of the land around the major hubs, there was 
still a lot of wild left in the state. It made me feel good to see so many forests, swamps, lakes, 
and rivers. I liked that Florida still had bite. I liked that there were things here that could kill you. 
That wasn’t the case in Connecticut unless it was the other drivers on the interstate that got 
you, and it wasn’t the case in Iowa, where your biggest threat was a tractor-induced accident. I 
loved those places, but they didn’t have dinosaurs still roaming the roads and cruising the 
coastlines. That was true no more so than here to the west of Jacksonville, a city that—outside 
of the inhabitants of the state—very few people could accurately pinpoint on a map.
 The corner of the map caught my eye, and I found myself staring at a poster with a little girl on 
it who couldn’t have been more than eight. She wore a smile in the picture and looked like any 
kid you’d see on a playground on a sunny day in Anytown, USA.
 With one unsettling caveat.
 Giant red letters above her face read:
 **MISSING.**
 **Rosa Martinez**
 **DOB: 12-25-15**
 I realized, while looking at Rosa, that I never looked at the faces anymore on the posters, and a 
queasy feeling ran through my body.
 When did I stop doing that?
 Why did I stop doing that?
 The font troubled me. It was aggressive and felt like it was pushing its finger into my chest. 
There were so many of these posters, and when you saw things so often, you turned a blind 
eye. Maybe the first few got to you, stirring that sense of justice that we all feel at one time.
 Why do bad things happen to good people?
 All that bullshit.
 And then life interrupted. It set your self-righteous, superhero-induced fantasy on the back 
burner—a burner that had no source of fuel, like a broken stovetop—your ire quelled by the 
next exit ramp because life required you to stay fixed to the present to survive it.
Why did we stop looking at the Rosas of the world?
 I watched a cavalcade of school buses pull into the parking lot, and a stream of students piled 
out, accompanied by teachers who had to corral them like cattle to get them across the street 
safely. I found myself looking at the faces as they went past and trying to smile, but also 
acutely aware that a forty-year-old white man standing by himself smiling at children would 
likely draw some seriously negative attention from their caregivers. I looked back at Rosa and 
wondered where she was right now.
 Who was looking for her?
 Did they still try?
 Did they still have hope?
 Then a sickening feeling hit me. There was probably no one looking. Then another feeling hit 
me, and I realized that I should have gone pee before I stopped and started staring at this 
board. Finally, I realized that I sure as shit wasn’t going in the bathroom until all those kids were 
out.--