I'm hitchhiking on the Garden State Parkway heading south from Kenilworth. It's the usual rush hour traffic. Since pedestrians and cyclists are verboten on this stretch of road I spend most of my time walking among the trees and avoiding cops. By the time I reach Clark and Woodbridge I notice that the traffic has really started to pile up and people are fighting each other in the road. Behind me I can see lots of police cruisers and ambulances using their lights to no avail. I get lucky and continue my journey.

There's a big bridge that crosses a river on the Parkway. I forget the mile marker but it's right before one of the major toll plazas of the Parkway. It's much later in the day and there are fewer cars on the asphalt. They're all parked on the shoulder and median left empty and abandoned. Every now and again a car will roar past into the distance blowing the tolls. No one takes notice of me. At the top of the bridge I look down into the water and the marsh finding corpses floating in the water and laying among the reeds face down. Must've been recent because the smell didn't reach me and reckon about a thousand people were waiting for the crows.

The toll booths are empty, the coin buckets are full of leaves, the roof is rusted and lots of dirt has piled up along the east side. Eventually I find a skeleton in one of the booths. Still I continue my walk. One thing for people who aren't from New Jersey to know is that the Garden State Parkway isn't the most well-lit roadway in New Jersey. Most portions are very dark but the density of traffic and number of headlights diminishes the effect. I don't feel tired at all and I blame my curiousity. Overhead I can see the faint light of the Milky Way, a rarity in New Jersey considering the excessive and egregious light pollution. It's almost like being out in Hartsel, CO. Not having a watch I don't know what time it is and the moon isn't up so it must be pretty late and a new moon yet there isn't even the lone state police cruiser zipping down the highway. This energy doesn't last long and I fall asleep in a pile of leaves.

At daybreak I'm awake and refreshed by my brief nap. The world seems different and quieter to me. Now the roadway is broken up, weeds and grass are pushing their way through towards the sun. The cars I find on the shoulder and median now are rusted out and overgrown by shrubs the tires having disintegrated long ago. By the time I reach mile marker fifty the roadway is succumbing to the encroachment of the Pine Barrens and the plants.

Cars have become small greenhouses. Trees sticking haphazardly out of broken windows and sunroofs. Bumpers and doors laying on the ground and being covered by ivy and pachysandra. My journey isn't as lonely as the first hundred miles were because the woods are alive with animals. Usually a deer or a squirrel are enough to give a Jerseyan a thrill of "ooh wildlife". Above me is a cacophany of birds, the sound of their shit hitting the dead leaves fills the forest covering up the footfalls of deer and coyote. These creatures aren't coming after me but they're keeping a good distance, watching me from around the trunks of trees and wondering why I'm invading their territory. My travels take me along the deer paths since the road is no longer traversable.

The second day leaves me at an unusual clearing. Some search shows that I'm in spitting distance of Wildwood and Cape May. The bridge over the canal in Cape May is still intact. I can smell the dead fish smell of the salt marshes on the wind, much stronger than I remember in waking life from my recent visits. I decide on going into Cape May because I have to walk down a long road and then cross a bridge that may or may not be intact.

Cape May is a jungle, completely overgrown. Every now and again I catch a flash of light through the leaves but it's just something painted white that hasn't completely flaked away. Before I'm even near the center of town I'm sloshing through ankle-deep salt water.