Work Text:
Ahead of her, is a long unbroken ocean of tarmac. Three lanes the way she had walked to get here, and another three lanes for going back the other way. If Elle Robinson was concerned about breaking her parole, she might have heeded the signs informing pedestrians they will be fined for walking here. She continued down the long, straight path of the bisected suburb. Each side of the freeway is lined by a sleeve of privacy fences to keep the road noise out. It gives her the illusion she's alone out here. Who knows? Maybe she is.
It's not like she expected to be welcomed home. She just had nowhere else to go and she really thought they would save it.
The giant unblinking eye of the cul-de-sac has been permanently sealed shut, but Elle is still able to find where Ramsay Street used to live by feel. That's how it is when you're from somewhere. She drifts, a spec of dust, to where her father's house used to sit. Follows the invisible path to her old bedroom. She noticed there was writing on the tarmac. Someone had left a message here once, but now only the skeletonized edges of the paint remain. She can't quite make out what it used to say. The road carries on ahead, an artery that leads right out of the state if you were to follow it to the end. The streetlights shine, a string of pearls around the throat of the city. Her shadow triplicates.
So this is it, she thought, spreading out her arms and touching nothing but air, the cost of progress. Streets with livable houses, a hotel, a school, a retirement village, a police station and a world class hospital - all crushed for a freeway no one drives on.