The Steve Laube Agency

Photo by Josef Hoflehner

Possible answers:

MONEY
MOVED
MOTEL
MOPEY
MOVER
MOWED
MOSES

______________

The Roadside Riddle by Steve Laube

The sign had been meant to say “MOTEL.” Everyone knew that, even now, years after the T and the L had vanished, leaving the word stranded as a riddle posted against a bleak landscape.

People used to stop there when the motel was still open. Then the recession came, the bank closed, and the school consolidated with a town fifteen miles away. One by one, the lights went dark.

The owner had meant to replace the missing letters right away. He’d even stacked them in his garage. But life has a way of postponing such things until they no longer matter. Eventually, it was too late. All that was left was an empty building and a sign that no longer explained itself.

Children growing up afterward made games of it. They guessed what other words would fit. “MONEY,” someone would say. “MOSES,” said another, squinting at it as if it were an epiphany. Teenagers took photos beneath it, pretending to hold up the missing letters with their hands, laughing as if the joke were new. “MOWED” was popular in summer. “MOPEY” added an eighth name to the collection of Snow White’s dwarfs.

But to those who remembered, the missing letters suggested the town had “MOVED.” Moved past its promise and now the decrepit sign served as a form of apology: “Sorry. We existed once, and we cared enough to leave a note.”

Travelers still slow down there sometimes, uncertain. They see the sign, hesitate, and glance toward the decaying shell of a building next to the thin road. There’s nothing to see, but ahead lie many miles of quiet and the echo of something that used to be.

Such can be the melancholy of memory. One can let its shadow settle and mourn what has already gone. Or one can wistfully smile at the recollection and look ahead to the promise of a new day, a new adventure, a new sunrise.