Scattered around the Roxboro Ghost bike – one, five, ten, fifty feet away – are pieces of litter. Trash. These are discarded pieces of peoples’ lives that have been forgotten due to their uselessness. Once, they served a purpose: a napkin cleaned, a bottle of liquor temporarily soothed pain. But now, they’re forgotten and have become one with the environment surrounding the bike. There is an element of temporality with the value of these objects, as their value was derived only from their usefulness. When they were no longer able to do something for their owner – when the travel-sized bottle of rum could no longer bring relief to its owner, for example – they were discarded.
The location where these objects now find themselves in turn point to the relationships between agents of the ghost bike’s environment; they are now evidence of the links between elements of the ghost bike’s surroundings. Specifically, a human had to discard all of these pieces of litter at some point. These links do not end there, though. Instead, the objects continue to be weathered by the elements, interacting with other beings, both living and non-living, as they move in the space around the ghost bike. For example, the napkin is no longer pristinely white and uncrumpled, but has been beaten into a different form and color. These pieces of litter are evidence of interactions within their proximal space.
But, what does this say about the ghost bike? Has it been discarded like the pieces of litter around it, forgotten and useless? Surely the ghost bike still serves a purpose and has not been forgotten, even if it is also receiving a beating from the elements much like the litter. The bike defies the litter-prevention sign found further back in the residential area behind. However, while the bike is still intentional and useful, it nevertheless is evidence of not one, but multiple interactions, that have occurred and that are still occurring at that intersection of Roxboro and Chateau. It is evidence of the initial collision between a cyclist and an automobile, but it is also evidence of continuing interactions between the beings as they move about and through the space – pedestrians, cars, wildlife, and the elements.