Whenever I walked into town from school, there was a rout I almost always took. It went from down the hill that my school was built on, passed the alternative school, and into the neighborhood surrounding the downtown area. It passed by the antique shop and took a sharp turn by the II Sisters Video store, and the Foursquare church. From there, I would walk to the intersection that the hardware store (and its big red clock) stood on.
The day of the week decided where I went from there. On Mondays I'd cross over to the block with the flooring store, the pizza place and the co-op on it, and head to the Community Cultural Center for my weekly dance lessons.
On Thursdays, I would head North passed the library to Triangle Park where the farmer's market was held
Over the years this route hardly ever strayed from. When I did it was always a little strange to me. Perhaps I was a little obsessive compulsive about it.
Once, a friend of mine with pink streaks in her hair, and I took a different route. Her rout. It curved around a different part of the hill, and took interesting turns around other stores and buildings that I was unaccustomed to.
After that my usual route tended to seem somewhat surreal. The streets for always dusty, but now th!!@_ere seems to be bits and pieces of all kinds of odds and ends all over the road and sidewalk. There were washers and pop tabs and strange reflections of light that disappeared when I got close. The sky was overcast, making the lighting of the entire valley rather eerie, and I felt like I was walking through a dream.
One time when I walked past II Sisters, a metal washer appeared before my feet. I picked it up and strung it on a cord when I got home. I still wear it sometimes. . .

I still walk that route on Mondays and Thursdays, and I still talk to my friend with pink hair, though her hair isn't pink anymore. Sometimes I still find metal bits and winking lights still tease me. It rains in the spring more now, and I have difficulty crossing streets do to increase in traffic, but I still walk down the route I always take.