The driver finally makes his way past the blinking marquee and illuminated steeple as the sea of revelers tapers off at the rear. The darkened side streets, abandoned as before, now feel comforting. The driver and his pickup soak in their cool shadow. He thinks how the real ghost-towns are those of solid buildings populated by the living dead, and not those long-ago abandoned and left to rot.

A procession of ghouls: this type of derision reserved for the mindless, God-fearing town-folk comes easy to the driver, but he is surprised that it does not bring with it the usual glee. Instead, he feels the waft of loneliness, the one he first detected hanging over the town square. It trails his car like the remnants of skunk, and now it’s taken up residence in the cab.

“Ah, good ol’ loneliness. I don’ get many companions, so ah’ll take ya as y’are.”

The driver comes to a roundabout with five roads leading off it. Each one looks like the same dead, dark street from which he came. Since he is still the only car out, he slows to a creep at its center.

“Which way, which way?”

The circle appears to be a mini-hub of commerce, as there is a launderers, a car dealership, and yet another church coming off its center. It is hard to tell whether they are shuddered permanently, or just for the weekend. The way the dust settles on the outskirts of desert towns, it takes only a few days to achieve the effect of what numerous years of neglect would do to a downtown building.

They look forlorn, but in a way that is strangely suiting. The driver convinces himself he’s on a Hollywood back-lot, and then he can’t imagine these dusty buildings any other way. Even daylight would seem to rob them of their purpose. They remind us that we need the old, if only to show us that in the end, time conquers all.
It’s a perfect, if overdue, farewell to Barstow. The driver spots a sign for the highway just in time. He knows it to be a highway marker from its reflective green brilliance. Next to the worn cobblestones of the church wall, the sign glows in a halo of newness. It is poetically brief, with white letters printed on bright green metal: “Highway Entrance Ahead.”