The Strange Story of...

The Strange Story of Happyville

                Missy groaned. Sleeping in the back seat of the car was hard on your back, but it was still better than driving all night, like her twin sister, Mindy. The sisters were on a road trip during their summer vacation from their classes at MIT. They were driving from their shared apartment in Massachusetts to New York City. They planned to spend a few days exploring the city, then head back home.

              Sitting up, Missy realized that the car was stopped. She looked at her sister in the driver's seat. Mindy's head was tilted way back, her mouth was wide open, and she was snoring loud enough to wake the dead. Missy gave her a small whack on the side of the head. She stopped mid-snore, grunted, then opened her mouth in a loud yawn. Then she opened her eyes and looked at her sisters.

              "Good morning, Sleeping Beauty." Missy chirped.

              "You couldn't have let me sleep five more minutes?" Mindy growled. "It's only--"

           She looked at her watch, and frowned. "Well, that's weird." She showed her watch to Missy. While the sunlight streaming in through the windows was a clear indicator that it was early or mid-morning, Mindy's watch was frozen at 11: 42 pm.

           "Maybe you dropped and broke it when you went to sleep last night," Missy offered.

          Mindy nodded once, then shook her head. "No, that can't be right. I don't remember going to sleep last night. I just kept driving so we could get to New York faster. I remember because I turned down the radio so the music wouldn't wake you up. And the clock on the dashboard said it was--" Realization spread across her face, and she looked at the frozen watch face. "11: 40."

       She looked out the car windows. "Missy, where are we?"

       Missy looked outside, too. They were by the side of a dirt road, and all around them were trees, grass, and flowers. It was actually very beautiful; the trees were tall, green and leafy, the grass was a perfect shade of green, and the flowers were all in full bloom. But, she realized something was missing. What was it? The wind, she realized. There's no wind blowing. Not even a tiny breeze. Everything is frighteningly still.  

      Seeing no other solution, the two got out of the car and started walking up the dirt road. The car was out of gas, so they took their purses, wallets and suitcases with them, because Mindy had rationalized that if the next town was a few miles away, then they would have to keep their most important items with them. As they walked, Missy became more and more uncomfortable. Along with there not being a breeze, it seemed like they were the only living things aside from the plants; there were no birds in the trees, no insects or bees buzzing around the flowers, no gentle breeze to stir the tree branches.

       After fifteen minutes of walking, the sisters came to a town.  Like the landscape, it was beautiful. The buildings were all straight, tall, and painted a cheery white. It was laid out in a way that reminded Missy of a village in a train set that she'd had when she was younger. The dirt road stopped abruptly and turned into a black paved road that ran the length of the town. Tiny stores lined the sides of the street, each building with two stories. Signs in the windows of the bottom stories declared that they were tiny stores, each one declaring itself as a bakery, a pizza parlor, a butcher's, a barber shop, a clothing store, a book store, and practically any store you would find in such a small town.

     The second stories, Missy theorized, were the apartments where the shop owners and their families lived. At the end of the street, the three tallest buildings formed a semicircle that ended the road in a circular courtyard. Closer inspection revealed the three buildings to be a school, a town hall, and a church. At the center of the courtyard was a tiny green park, with a little swing set, a slide, and a seesaw.