A flat well-tread path through the prairie leads to Despair. Footprints and tire tracks hint at fellow travelers hidden by haze. In the distance: blue hills. The Despairians yell to make themselves heard.
Many live in the Blue Mountains. The cities crumble.
No one cares to speak to another. No one agrees on improvements.
A tour bus regularly drops visitors off at the end of the road. They walk all the way to the hills and arrive disappointed asking, “Why did you take us where, there is nothing to see?”
Despair pays a high price to ensure that the bus stops.
“Tourism is all we have,” says the Guide. “We see the visitors before they fade.”
Those who have lived in Despair longest reside in the capitol Worthless — a modern ruin with collapsing brick walls. Inside it smells of moldy carpet. Worthlessians write critical reviews and critiques of places they have never been, meals they have never eaten, products they do not use, and books they have never written.
“We find the flaws, which others must know,” says the Guide.
“I came to Despair like any other tourist dropped off at the road to the Blue Mountains,” writes the Guide in his memoir. “I continued on determined to have the full experience of and see what lay at the end of the road. I walked and walked, tired and hungry, but I persevered. I arrived at Despair and eventually came to this Worthless city and one day became it’s Guide.”
The Guide's memoir received numerous very poor reviews.
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