[Creative Nonfiction] The Road I Thought I Knew

Read the third-place entry for our week of April 13, 2025 prompt, The Local Unknown

The Road I Thought I Knew
by Ashni Patel

The asphalt burns through my soles. No sidewalk—just a sliver between rushing traffic and grass. A truck barrels past, its vacuum nearly pulling me into the road. My heart hammers. For seven years, I’ve driven this road. Always racing. Always blind.

Today, I walk.

I glace at “Indian Period: Tribes, Trails, and Villages”, as I trace the Assunpink Trail. In Lenape, Ahsën'pink means “stony, watery place”. Before asphalt and strip malls.

My map dates to a 1777 North American Atlas, but the Indian trails are far older. Pre-Columbian. Etched into this land long before 6000 B.C. Ancient pathways now in laser-printed form.

A woman in a maroon SUV slows to stare. No one walks here unless they’ve broken down. I flinch as a sedan swerves too close, horn blaring.

Spices fill the air—cardamom, ginger, garlic, oregano. They tangle like the languages spoken in the shops. East and West crammed side by side. A pizzeria, a dosa house, a vape shop.

Medical plazas line the next stretch. Chiropractors, oral surgeons, dentists. Modern healing behind tinted glass.

I turn left, gasping with relief as I barely cross the busy road. Offices give way to open soil. Corn hisses in the wind. My ears ring in the quiet. Ahead, a bridge.

It trembles as a minivan whips past, inches above Middlebush Brook.

Below, water slides over stones, catching light in amber flashes. This same stream has flooded my basement three times—an enemy I’ve cursed.

I lean over, fingers breaking the current. This is the stony, watery place.

Through wavering heat, I spot a lone fox watching from tall grass, its rust-colored coat vivid against green. Our eyes meet before it slips into shadow. My pulse jumps.

A Hindu temple, daycare center, and llama petting zoo stand to my right. Incense and manure mingle with the earthier smell of the crops. My map shows nothing of this fusion.

Deer burst from a row of Appalachian oaks, close enough that I see the moisture in their nostrils. I scream, embarrassed, as I stumble back. They freeze, then bolt, hooves drumming the earth as they flee.

I follow the narrow lane, then turn onto the Old Dutch trail. The Wycoff House rises on the horizon, its wood silvered by centuries of sun and rain.

Wycoff isn’t Dutch but Frisian, for “settlement on a bay.” In Lenape, the same syllables mean “high ground”. Same sounds, same land—different tongues.

I climb the short hill and reach out for the anchorbent frame. It reeks of preservation chemicals. The white oak feels warm, cut from trees the Lenni-Lenape tribe might have passed at this very spot.

The flaked sign reads, “Visiting Hours: Saturday 10-2 p.m.”

I’m twenty minutes too late.

I’ve walked just over a mile but crossed centuries. Paved over, forgotten, renamed. Sold off by the acre.

Tomorrow, I’ll drive this road again, but something beneath the wheels will hum. The trail has always been here, the stony, watery place that long preceded me.

A Note From Our Guest Judge, Alastair Humphreys

I know well how frustrating it is to walk a landscape not designed for pedestrians! And also how much you see and smell and connect when you're on foot - even on a route you drive frequently (especially on??)

About Ashni Patel

Ashni is currently on a quest to read more and write better. You can find her on Substack: https://substack.com/@ashpatx

This piece was written in response to the prompt The Local Unknown.