Road Stop

A highway attendant at a nearly deserted rest stop watches a weary couple while recalling an uncanny relic of early autonomous cars: an old self-steering sedan that drifts slowly along the road with its occupants dead or frozen inside. Everyday talk about convenience, automated kitchens, and nostalgia for hands-on labor underscores the attendant's unease as the slow-moving car appears and passes without stopping. The narrative contrasts ordinary service routines and small human interactions with the lingering malfunction of obsolete technology, creating a quiet, uncanny meditation on dependence, isolation, and the social costs of automation.