Title A Stretch of Highway Two Lanes Wide Series --- Author Sarah Pinsker Cover Art --- Publisher Fantasy & Science Fiction - 2014 First Printing Fantasy & Science Fiction - 2014 Category Science Fiction Warnings None Main Characters Andy Main Elements Science Fiction Website sarahpinsker.com

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This story was oddly fascinating. A Canadian farmer in the near future is injured and his arm needs to be replaced by a prosthetic that is controlled by a chip in his brain. But for some reason, his arm thinks it is a stetch of highway in Colorado, and Andy can pick up on this through the feedback from the chip. When he looks upon his arm, he sees the road, heading towards mountains, cows feeding in the fields. When he uses the built-in sensors to detect temperatures around him he also picks up on what cars have recently passed over the road, or what the weather is like half a continent away.

I found Pinsker did an excellent job of describing this patch of road, and of explaining to the reader what it was like to be Andy, feeling the cars driving over his body as he connects with this distant highway. It was very bizarre, and while there isn't a plot per-se, I still recommend this story to read a tale about a human experiencing what it is like to be an inanimate object.

The road is also a metaphor for Andy, who has stayed behind on the farm while all the kids he grew up with left for the big cities. Because even while we ask "where does this road go", the road itself never goes anywhere.