Trolley Graveyard | even if it is the end

I kept thinking that if I just worked hard enough, that if I finally did the right thing, things would get easier. There was something out there, I thought. One day I would turn a corner, open a door, and in a flash of radiance everything would become clear. It had to, I reasoned. All the effort couldn't be in vain. None of the goals they wanted me to push toward mattered to me, none of the placebos worked more than a day or two, and when the buzz inevitably wore off I was back to wandering around the darkness with only the knowledge that one more thing had failed. I could find all the places, take all of the pictures, and still - I'd only catch fleeting glimpses of it in the sunlight through the leaves, in the slender vines gently pushing buildings back into oblivion. It was why I went alone so often, because there was no one else to distract me from my search.

Since I didn't know what else to do, I put together a massive puzzle - a labyrinth made of all the old hallways and deserted corridors, a spiral of words that I hoped someone brighter than me would be able to piece together one day. All the story fragments, all the images - they all fit together somehow. If only I could see how, if only I could make it work. It wasn't about money or fame or power, it was something that transcended all that - but I couldn't get there, I could only see it shimmering on the horizon like a mirage. As long as it was there, I would never be able to rest. Maybe it was why I loved things left to the quiet of their own dissolution - I envied them.

This wasn't something I did to entertain you or to make a name for myself. It's a plea for an answer, a last-ditch attempt to finally pry away all of the layers of garbage and lies we've wrapped ourselves in... and see something real, even if it is the end.

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Vintage electric streetcars at the trolley graveyard; photograph/text by Matthew Christopher of Abandoned America.