I was on the way from noplace to somewhere, fences long toppled, signs mostly illegible (or is it ineligable? I can't ever really remember) due to grafitti, rust, chem storms and acid rain. Having a paper map these days is a crap-shoot of guesswork. If you're originally from the area, maybe you have hand-me-down knowledge that this stretch of unremarkable black-top was once Highway 95. Or that the big, burnt-out church is at the corner of Pine and Queen streets. But more often than not, travelling through noplace, heading doggedly for the horizon, the towns are nameless, the street signs long gone.

But like I said. I was on my way from noplace to nowhere. And I found a trail. Coulda been an animal track, something cut into the brush by scavvers or traders. But nope. There, beside the trail-head as plain as you like, a sign board, letters burned into two planks, naming this place the Haldimand rail hiking trail. 

I had to laugh. 'Hiking.' For people without a hundred ways to die in a given moment, pointless activities whose goal was exercise and bringing folks closer to nature, in a time when all of that was optional. 

Fuckin' Yuppies.