Styx and Slippery Stones
by Derrel Whitemyer
Name’s Christopher Jax but people call me Jax. It’s been a week since I escaped from Ma n’ Pa’s Borderland by fleeing across a small bridge behind the Styx Diner. I’ve returned on occasion on my Suzuki S83 aka 1400 Intruder but never to cross back over and only to stay long enough parked under some nearby trees to have a bag lunch. It’s hard to believe the stream flowing beneath the bridge once separated the Borderlands from our world and was once part of the river Styx. Today finding a Mark Twain character skinny dipping in one of its pools would be more likely than finding the Borderlands on the other side. Speaking of which, tomorrow I’m riding back and going for a swim. Beyond the bridge is an iron gate; beyond the gate a narrow road. Debris on the road’s surface and the condition of the gate show neither has been used in years. There’s no sign the Styx Diner was ever there; only the ruins of an old adobe mark where it once stood.
