Merilyn, from Seattle:

Fifty years ago, when John Steinbeck approached Seattle after decades living away from the Pacific, what he called his ‘home ocean,’ wrote that he “remembered Seattle as a town sitting on hills beside a matchless harborage—a little city of space and trees and gardens, its houses matched to such a background. It is no longer so. The tops of hills are shaved off to  make level warrens for the rabbits of the present. The highways eight lanes wide cut like glaciers through the uneasy land.”

The highway is twelve lanes wide now, and we can hardly see the earth for houses. We certainly can’t see the matchless harborage: skyscrapers block the view. Wayne counts twelve building cranes rising above the downtown highrises. The rain pours down. The traffic is going nowhere. Clouds settle like tired Sasquatches onto office tower roofs.

“Let’s just drive on,” Wayne says. He would rather be moving. Something about sitting behind the wheel of a car sucks the curiosity out of him. He’s not venturing through new territory, he’s locked in a video game, earning points for every car he passes. Sitting still is not sitting well with him.

“How about going into Fremont?”

“What’s that?”

“The Artists’ Republic of Fremont. It’s the old hippie part of Seattle.”

“An artists’ republic?” he says, lighting up. “I thought Plato kicked artists out of the republic.”

We ease off the interstate and down past small, cottage-like houses pressed into the hillsides. I watch for the sign that says, Entering the Republic of Fremont, the Center of the Universe, set your watch back five minutes. Or the one that advises, Entering the Republic of Fremont, the Center of the Universe, set your watch forward five minutes.

“Maybe somebody stole them,” Wayne suggests. He seems to like the idea. “Or maybe they disappeared into the temporal shift when everyone changed their watches.” He likes that idea even better.

(excerpt from Breakfast at the Exit Cafe)