On July 12th, 4:00 PM EST, the Trans-Canada Highway wheezed three times, choked, and died.
Nobody noticed for a few minutes. Then a doctor pulled over. 911 was dialed and CPR was attempted – to no avail. A few helpful Samaritans offered assistance, one was hit by a car, and soon emergency services were hard at work and half the traffic was slowing down to gawk and the other half was honking at them.
The cause of death was unknown – old age, cancer, a virus, choking to death – though seemingly pneumonic. Whatever it was, it spread fast. By the next morning the Autobahn was out, and come lunchtime it was official. The roads were dead.
The obvious thing to do was the decent thing. They had to be buried.
Ten million bulldozers, two billion shovels, seven hundred million wheelbarrows, and a trillion frothing sweats later, the corpses of the world’s roads were interned with love, and with care, and with sore backs. Some priests were located to say a few words here or there of some kind or another, but when it came down to personal testimony nobody had much to say. There were billions of acquaintances and work colleagues, but not a single friend, and no family.
“I knew them, but I didn’t KNOW them,” was the refrain. “And god, they were such a pain on the way to work,” was another. So was “traffic.” A lot of gawkers, fewer mourners.
Part of that might’ve been the problems. They started up fast.
First of all was getting around. It was a tricky business, and suddenly was based almost entirely around legs, which most folks deeply distrusted. There were few manuals for that sort of thing, and the manufacturers were irresponsible and legally untouchable.
To begin with people started relying heavily on the sidewalks, but they were just WALKS now, not beside anything at all, and it wasn’t just walking. There were joggers, running, strollers, and on occasion maniacs that drove on them, desperate for a road rush and caroming their cherished four-wheel-drives down four feet square of cement. The police chased them with red cheeks and flapping pants, caught up to them at hydrants, at telephone poles, at other cars. They’d book what was there if it was still breathing and tag it if it wasn’t.
All of this made the walks tricky, and a lot of folks renounced them, or walking altogether, or both. They took to beds and chairs and couches and sulked there, dreaming of tires.
When the despair was too much to bear, some people took the obvious way out. They’d dig a pit, drive their vehicles into it, and their friends would bury them both alive in the manner of ancient Sumerian kings. Several celebrities entombed themselves with entire fleets in this manner, that they might drive in the next life. The Tomb of Seinfeld was a wonder of the world within the week, and looted by grave robbers, treasure-hunters, explorers, and amateur archaeologists before it hit September.
At some point the question of food arose. None of it was moving anywhere, except maybe by ship, or plane. And neither of those could move anywhere once the fuel itself stopped moving.
Some of the farmers would be okay, but most of them needed supplies, and those couldn’t move anywhere, and so on, and so on, and so everyone realized pretty fast that this was going to be it for a lot of humanity, or at least anyone living in an industrial setting.
It was at this point – or near enough – that several people tentatively proposed replacing the roads. They were shouted down almost instantly. “Oh, they’ll just die again, what’s the point,” was the refrain, closely paired with “waste of taxpayer’s dollars.” Everyone who advocated nonsensical arguments against that sort of thing was shut up very firmly and soon everyone was free to get back to more pressing matters, like starving to death.
After the question of food came the question of graves. A lot of people were starving to death, and the ones left over to bury them were fairly weak and spindly. Cannibalism was a natural solution to both problems, but the nourishment on an emaciated skeleton person is pretty scarce and besides nobody really had the energy for that sort of thing.
The obvious solution, discovered in good time, was to bury the bodies with the roads. This was embraced by all, with some even bumping themselves off a few days in advance so they could be reunited with their beloved vehicles on the byways of the infinite just a little bit faster.
Nobody had the energy to chisel rocks anymore. Luckily, a half-buried tire made a wonderful headstone.
And after the question of graves came not much at all, because everyone left was awfully busy and couldn’t spare the time.
The roads waited a few years until they were sure everyone had forgotten, then snuck off.