Sometimes in life, we are all faced with a choice. The choices may be as simple as choosing whether you want your ice cream to be chocolate or vanilla. Other times the choices are big enough that it can easily alter the course of the rest of your life. As for the choice I was about to make, there's nothing in life that could have ever prepared me for it.
I was driving home from visiting my parents. I had just recently moved to a new town, nearly an hour away from the house I shared with them nearly my entire life. The drive home, following endless highways and down winding paths of the forested backroads, time seemed to fly by in a matter of minutes. I was in somewhat of a hurry to get home because out on the road, my phone had no service. Yet another choice in my life I had incorrectly made, my cell phone carrier.
Instead of finding music to stream on my phone, I was forced into listening to a radio station that played classic rock. I didn't mind the static cutting into the songs from time to time. I was too focused on driving, tuning the radio out half the time. It was nothing more than background noise, as to not leave me alone with my thoughts.
As I continued driving, eventually I found a sign with my town's name, Appleton, directing me to turn. I slowed down as a caution to traffic before making my way down the road. The sign directing me to turn said Appleton was seven miles this way.
The road was nothing but a straight line, replacing the several turns of a standard backroad with hills and dips that prevented a steady ride without adjusting my speed. Eventually, I came to a fork in the road. I was confused, this wasn't there before. I slowed to a complete stop before the fork. There was a faded sign planted in the ground just beyond the road. It was a little difficult to make out what it said because of the faded colors, but from what I could make out, it said Appleton at the top with arrows point both left and right.
Which way was I supposed to go? My thoughts went to my phone, believing I could pull up my GPS. That's when I remembered I had no service out here. I sat my phone down on the center console and thought for a second. Maybe I had previously gone down this way to head out of town? But to my memory there was only one way that lead out of town, not two.
I shrugged, assuming they both lead to the same place. I decided to go left. It was nothing more than a guess.
I continued down the road. It went straight for a little while before making a slight right turn that curved around for a while. In this, I became skeptical. Had this entire thing been nothing more than a round about, leading me back to the same road but emerging from the right side instead of the left in which I had previously come from?
Rest assured, this was not the case. I ended up coming into a clearing that lead to the edge of Appleton. In that, I made my way home, to my apartment.
The next day at work, I asked a co-worker, who I knew was familiar with this town, what the fork in the road before town was about. He laughed for a second.
"Oh, you've never gone down the right path?" he asked
I shook my head,
"Well, when this town was built they had to put together a road to this place," he explained. "They thought they'd come up with a clever idea to have another place to turn incase you, for whatever reason, needed to back to town. They didn't want you doing U-turns, so they figured, why not make a road to go back into town."
"What happened to the right side then?" I asked.
"They never finished it. That's why if you go down the right side, you see a sign that reads DEAD END."
I was driving home from visiting my parents. I had just recently moved to a new town, nearly an hour away from the house I shared with them nearly my entire life. The drive home, following endless highways and down winding paths of the forested backroads, time seemed to fly by in a matter of minutes. I was in somewhat of a hurry to get home because out on the road, my phone had no service. Yet another choice in my life I had incorrectly made, my cell phone carrier.
Instead of finding music to stream on my phone, I was forced into listening to a radio station that played classic rock. I didn't mind the static cutting into the songs from time to time. I was too focused on driving, tuning the radio out half the time. It was nothing more than background noise, as to not leave me alone with my thoughts.
As I continued driving, eventually I found a sign with my town's name, Appleton, directing me to turn. I slowed down as a caution to traffic before making my way down the road. The sign directing me to turn said Appleton was seven miles this way.
The road was nothing but a straight line, replacing the several turns of a standard backroad with hills and dips that prevented a steady ride without adjusting my speed. Eventually, I came to a fork in the road. I was confused, this wasn't there before. I slowed to a complete stop before the fork. There was a faded sign planted in the ground just beyond the road. It was a little difficult to make out what it said because of the faded colors, but from what I could make out, it said Appleton at the top with arrows point both left and right.
Which way was I supposed to go? My thoughts went to my phone, believing I could pull up my GPS. That's when I remembered I had no service out here. I sat my phone down on the center console and thought for a second. Maybe I had previously gone down this way to head out of town? But to my memory there was only one way that lead out of town, not two.
I shrugged, assuming they both lead to the same place. I decided to go left. It was nothing more than a guess.
I continued down the road. It went straight for a little while before making a slight right turn that curved around for a while. In this, I became skeptical. Had this entire thing been nothing more than a round about, leading me back to the same road but emerging from the right side instead of the left in which I had previously come from?
Rest assured, this was not the case. I ended up coming into a clearing that lead to the edge of Appleton. In that, I made my way home, to my apartment.
The next day at work, I asked a co-worker, who I knew was familiar with this town, what the fork in the road before town was about. He laughed for a second.
"Oh, you've never gone down the right path?" he asked
I shook my head,
"Well, when this town was built they had to put together a road to this place," he explained. "They thought they'd come up with a clever idea to have another place to turn incase you, for whatever reason, needed to back to town. They didn't want you doing U-turns, so they figured, why not make a road to go back into town."
"What happened to the right side then?" I asked.
"They never finished it. That's why if you go down the right side, you see a sign that reads DEAD END."
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