The End Of Things. And bobolinks?

Today I am at the end of the world. It is a place called after a prince who became a king and then became a potato.

There is nobody here. It’s a half hour drive to buy a loaf of bread if you are lucky. It’s a full hour plus to be certain of the bread. And an internet signal that is slightly weaker than a distressed honey bee trying to toss a caber; a lot of activity achieving nothing.

The roadways have been closed with giant boulders, all leaving one option at a junction, and that choice takes you right back to where you started. Entrance and exit barriers are all raised. The ticket offices are closed, the attractions lie dull and motionless. And silent.

The long empty road runs to infinity in front and behind, a long streak of grey as far as the eye can see. There’s a triangular sign warning that the speed limit is 9 km an hour. Not 8. Not 10, but 9.

Volleyball nets packed away, swings hang loose blowing slightly in the breeze. The flag is wrapped round the flagpole, the maple leaf will not see the light of day until there is some daylight to see but there is rebellion in the quiet yet tuneful chink chink chink of the metal clasps drumming on the flagpole with the rhythm of the wind. The music is gone but not forgotten.

At the marina, there are sun bleached posters for pickleball and line dancing.  Four oldies  have been abandoned, overlooked on the checklist  by their relatives and left behind.  The buggies are parked at the side of the pontoon, on the pontoon itself sit the gang of four, in collapsing deck chairs, wrapped in warm blankets.  I know that tomorrow there will be three, then two then one. It’s like watching the end of Beaches in slow motion.

We have made friends with a  black squirrel, a chipmunk – well we think hes a chipmunk but watching Alvin gave us no idea of scale- wee brown guys with two go faster white stripes? Alvin had led me to believe that his chipmunks were the size of small dogs, or large rabbits. Maybe they  and these ones are stunted by the lack of ....everything.

We are also friends with a small green frog we meet every morning as we walk the streets looking at the empty houses,  fire pits covered over, buggies cling filmed in blue tarpaulin, chairs tied onto the verandah, windows closed, blinds down nobody at home. We are intrigued by the ancient hearse on the front lawn, and by a stuffed white Alsation stuffed on the back of a sofa, waiting.

There are a few folk hanging around, they are either inflatable or  have pumpkin heads and rags for clothes and are looking a bit weatherbeaten. I don’t think they are going to last. The end of the month will be it.

I am looking for a bobolink.  Having no internet, I have no idea what it is but I am determined to find one. He sounds fun.

The waves though never cease to pound the concrete beach.

Yesterday I found a dance floor. Deep in the vegetation my feet realised they were on Terrazzo, the black and white tiles are now shades of grey but still easily seen.  There once was a hotel here, over a million visitors  in the hundred years the building occupied this site beside the lake. A small placard has a couple of pictures and the interesting snippet that the ladies used to walk to promenade on their way down to dinner, wearing the latest fashions. Spinsters ( not ladies obviously) would sit and read books  while the young men played jazz and cards, never the twain met. They also had a three hole golf course.

I wonder what they did to cope with the excitement.

This morning, the sun is shining. The  dream catchers lie still but it has a sense of expectation. I wonder what the dreamcatcher is hoping for. The big one that  hangs from the wooden roof of a house on Elm Street looks busy. I bet who carved that street name on the tree  was having a laugh.

We are on  a pull through site, that suggests that we are expected to pull through.

I guess many don’t.

I think we are at the end of the world while at the end of the world if you see what I mean, both physically and chronologically.

There are no pictures, The hard working internet bee cannot cope.

But with no internet and no human interaction I am writing. And I am reading.

I am reading books by Antti Tuomienen.

I think I might have read too many.

I used to be Scottish. I am now dystopian.

Caro Ramsay     27 10 2017.  Even that date. It's too much.