“So,
what did she say?”
“She said that for this time around,
we’ll have to plant our crops on the east fields.”
“Really? What about the tins of food
in the warehouse, aren’t those any good?”
“No, the old woman said that those
tins contain toxic molds that would kill us if we were to eat them.”
“Okay,
I’ll round up the others and tell them.”
The year is 2017, but to the people
of Marlboro, Wisconsin, a small hamlet nestled deep within the post-settled
wilds of the Great Lakes region comprised of no more than 40 people, the year
has stagnated and stopped in 1917. Miraculously, the people of Marlboro have
not been found out by the outside world and remain a small band of people lost
in a crumbling period in history invisible to people who never would have known
of their existence. The people, as dilapidated and forgotten as the hamlet may
be, have managed to survive this long thanks to a mysterious old woman who
lives in the house at 42 Waterfront Street.
Nobody in the hamlet has seen this
old woman, say, for a woman in her mid 40’s by the name of Dolores Bay. Much
like the other people in the hamlet, Dolores has relinquished her trust to this
mysterious old woman; but unlike the others, Dolores has seen her. At least
three times a week, Dolores goes to the house on Waterfront Street to ask the
old woman when is a good time to plant or harvest the crops, whether is
something is safe to consume, or even what the weather will be amongst other
things. Some of the townspeople believed that she was psychic or even a
spiritual entity with knowledge far surpassing that of the people. Whatever the
case was, or no matter how difficult the problem may have been, not once in the
entire time has she been called upon has she been wrong. Thanks to her, the
people have stayed alive as long as they have. However, the one thing she asks
of the people is that they do not leave the hamlet.
Even though it may seem ideal to
leave such a place, Dolores has relayed this message time and time again, to
ensure that the people not leave. The reasoning the old woman gives is that
they are not ready for the outside world, and that it will corrupt them and
feed them lies, drivel, and spread skepticism amongst each other. Instead, the
people stay in the hamlet and continue to lead their lives, but to what ends?
The hamlet itself was full of
disintegrating structures that only housed vermin and disease, waiting to
strike upon the people. The people of Marlboro have worn the same dust-covered
clothes they have worn for years and only get by on meager portions of food
that barely contain enough nutrition for a human being. The children have
nothing to look forward to, the elders have nothing to look back on, and
everyone in between is concerned with survival for survival’s sake. In short,
it was a degrading American town that could not manage to progress as quickly
as the rest of the country, and as a result, it stagnated itself into a pit as
dusty as the road that cut right through it.
Nonetheless, the people continued with
their daily lives scrounging, scavenging, and harvesting whatever they could in
order to make ends meet, all the while, sending Dolores up to the old woman to
see what could be done about food, water, medicine, or whatever else the people
needed. The old woman never left her house, and Dolores acted as the diplomat
between her and the people; giving her their questions and demands and
wondering if there was anything they could do for her.
The
answer was always no, except to stay in the hamlet.
On a bright summer day, Dolores
returned from the house on Waterfront Street and the people flocked around her
to hear what it was the old woman had to say about the local food and water
supply.
“I’m sorry everyone, but neither the
water nor the food is fit for consumption,” Dolores said.
“Oh come on, that water in the pond
has lasted us a long time now, and the food we found in the corner store is in
pristine condition,” a man said.
“I know you’re upset Harvey, but she
said that the mercury levels in the pond are too high, and the food in the
store is oxidized and dangerous to consume.”
“Well that’s just great, now where
are we supposed to find food and water? Some days I think that old lady likes
to screw with us.”
“Now, now, she has told me that
about a mile east there is a pond which contains water safe enough to drink as
well as some trees bearing fruits that will keep us nourished. We just need
someone to make the trip over and bring us back some of the food and water.”
A couple in their mid- 20’s named
Carter and Betsy Ardham stepped forward and offered to make the journey. Carter
was given two buckets to carry the water in and Betsy was given a burlap sack
to carry the fruits in. The two began their trek through the woods to this land
that promised food and water, and travelled close by one another.
While the Ardhams made their way to
the pond, the townspeople disperse, except for Harvey, who wanted to talk to
Dolores about the old woman.
“Dolores, listen, you know and I
know that our lives here are miserable, and what’s keeping us back is that damn
old lady who tells us not to leave here, yet makes our lives as bad as
possible,” Harvey said.
“Harvey, I know that life here is
not ideal, but you can’t argue with the fact that as long as we’ve been here,
and as long as our parents have been here, that old woman has kept us alive,”
Dolores replied.
“But you don’t know that, for all we
know, we could be tricked by her into eating the craps while she has a feast
all to herself. After all, all she does is sit in that house while we are
busting our asses trying to make do with what little we have. Not once have I
seen her leave that house, which could mean that she has everything she needs,
if not more, to survive.”
“Harvey, I’ve been to that house
well over a hundred times, and she doesn’t have a thing to claim to herself
except the four walls that surround her. What then would her motivation be for
sending us on this wild goose chase of survival if it meant nothing to her?”
“I don’t know, but look at us, we
are destitute, and why is that? Because we take advice from some crusty old
woman that only you have met. Without her, we’d be so much better off.”
“Without her, we’d all be dead,
besides, there is more to that old woman than you’d think.”
“Oh yeah, what is it?”
“I cannot tell you, I mustn’t tell
you. If I told you the truth about that old woman, nobody would be able to
handle it.”
“Uh-huh, I thought so. Just another
blind follower to an idea,” Harvey said as he walked away.
However
stubborn Dolores came off as, she was right about keeping the truth hidden from
the people of Marlboro, despite how immoral it might have been. The people of
Marlboro were a paranoid bunch, and if the truth did get out about the old
woman, then it could well mean the end of Marlboro, even though everyone else
forgot the hamlet a long time ago.
Sadly, the truth comes in many different forms; it can come in the form of animals, books, ideas, but for the people of Marlboro, it came in the form of a loud-mouthed journalist from New York City. Given his assignment while in Madison, Wisconsin to cover a baseball game, this particular journalist, who goes by the name of Fred Dawson, travelled to Western Wisconsin to uncover the veiled hamlet.
Fred Dawson, by all accounts was the
kind of man you would meet at a bar, see that he’s an interesting guy, then
find out how incredibly annoying he is five minutes later. He is best described
as boorish, rude, nosy, no idea of personal space, and one of the most
irritating people anyone could meet in their lives. Needless to say, he was the
ideal journalist.
As he was driving from Madison to
Marlboro in his bright red Toyota Camry, he happened to pass by the Ardhams who
were gathering the water and fruit for the hamlet. Fred pulled up next to them
and spoke to them in a New York accent that only they couldn’t recognize.
“Hey, would you folks know where
this village called Marlboro is?” he asked.
The Ardhams did not listen to him as
they were too busy gawking at Fred’s car as if it were a machine from another
dimension. The reactions held by Carter and Betsy held awe in the vehicle and
how it was newer, faster, and cleaner than anything they had ever seen before.
Fred, on the other hand, saw it as another car on the market, and was thinking
about trading it in for a newer model
To get the attention of the Ardhams,
he repeated his question a little louder, which successfully worked. Still in
shock over the car, the Ardhams told Fred where Marlboro was and as quickly as
he arrived, he was gone, leaving the Ardhams with only a cloud of dust to
remember him by. They didn’t know what to think and looked to each other for an
answer, but found none in their expressionless gazes. Neither knew what to
think and returned to the task of gathering food and water.
Meanwhile, Fred arrived at Marlboro
less than five minutes later. He pulled up in the middle of the hamlet as
people began to walk up to the car and surround it. Like the Ardhams the car
and its other-worldliness too entranced them. When the door opened and Fred
stepped out, the rest of the town was surprised when they saw that it was a
human.
“Howdy, how’re you folks doing? The
name’s Fred, Fred Dawson,” he said, oddly delighted.
At once Dolores stepped forward, a
little shaky to approach Fred, but when Fred made direct eye contact with her,
Dolores stopped dead in her tracks. When she recovered she asked in a limited
tone of voice who he is and why he was there.
“A little birdie told me that up in
this neck of the woods, there is an abandoned village around these parts.
However, I now know that it’s not abandoned, and this is going to make quite a
scoop,” Fred said.
“Well Fred, you’re welcome to stay
in our hamlet, and if you want to, you’re more than welcome to stay in our
motel,” Dolores said.
“Thank you, but looking at that
hotel over there, it doesn’t seem like it would be a safe place to stay in.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that, we
checked in with the old woman about it a few days ago, and it is in good enough
condition to stay in.”
“Old woman, who’s this old woman?”
“Oh it’s just some old lady who
lives on Waterfront Street and thinks she can see things that we can’t and tell
us what’s safe to eat and what isn’t, even though she never leaves her house,”
Harvey said.
Fred looked at Harvey, Dolores, and
the other townspeople in disbelief until he came to the realization that what
they were saying wasn’t a joke. When the news of this shaman of an old woman
sank into Fred’s mind, he couldn’t help but laugh to himself. The idea alone
was ridiculous to Fred, but was even funnier when he realized that the entire
hamlet was in on it.
“Okay, I’ve read some pretty weird
stuff about native South American tribes worshipping some unga-bunga gods. I’ve
read about various cults all over the world, worshipping made up religions, and
I’ve even read about this one guy in Iowa who trashed his apartment after he
claimed to have gone to hell, but out of all the stories I’ve heard, this one
takes the cake,” Fred said.
Dolores looked puzzled at what Fred
said, but knew that she had to defend the old woman in the midst of Fred’s
claims.
“This isn’t a story, the old woman
has kept us alive for this long and we live by what she says. Why, just last
week she told us to stay out of the house on Braker Road, and one day later,
the whole thing collapsed and destroyed everything inside of it,” Dolores said.
“Haven’t you heard that correlation
does not always equal causation? Any of these buildings look as though they
could fall over at any moment, but just because some old lady says that they
will doesn’t necessarily mean that they will crumble by her word,” Fred said a
little testily.
At that moment, the Ardhams came
back to Marlboro, dripping with sweat and struggling to carry the food and
water. Fred looked at them, as they were panting and exhausted, and thought of
them as the perfect counter-point to the old woman.
“Oh yeah? By the way, I saw these
two earlier lugging those jugs of water and that sack of apples as if they were
mules. Is this what your old woman wants? For you to work yourselves to the
bone for basic survival?” Fred said.
“You know, he’s got a point, how
come this old woman makes us go out of our way for necessities, while she stays
in that house of hers?” Harvey joined in.
Dolores saw the unrest that was
spreading from Fred to Harvey and to the rest of the townspeople while they
were questioning the old woman. They threw their suspicious glances towards one
another and asked why this is so. Sensing the potential danger from the crowd,
Dolores knew that she had to step in and quell the unrest.
“Folks, please, appeal to your sense
of reason and think about this. The old woman may have led us through some
backwards ways for survival, but she has never been wrong once. Remember last
year, when she said not to leave our crops out in the open and to keep them
inside. Even though it was a lot of effort on our part, they were safe and
protected from that storm that hit us the next day.
“I understand that as time has gone
by, you have grown impatient with the way things are, but keep this in mind: if
it hadn’t been for her, we most likely wouldn’t even be alive today,” Dolores
announced.
“You call this living?”
“That old lady makes us scrounge for
our food as if we were insects.”
“You only say that because you’re
the only one who has seen her.”
The townspeople grew even more
impatient at Dolores’ words and began to take a liking to Fred, who didn’t even
care about the people so long as he had an idea for an article on his hands.
When Fred had them right where he wanted them, he asked Dolores where the old
woman lived. Dolores did not trust him and decided to not reveal her address.
Instead, she warned:
“If you know the truth about that
old woman, if could mean the death of every man woman and child in this hamlet.
So I suggest that you put that thought out of your head now, or you’ll all be
sorry.”
Fred’s gaze softened a little bit to
show that Dolores’ words made an impact on him. He ordered the people to calm
down and take heed to Dolores’ warning.
“You know what Dolores, you’re
right, I’m sorry I doubted you. If exposing the truth to these good people
means the death of every one of them, then I won’t pry, because I don’t want
any innocent blood on my hands. Come on now, everyone, we should go,” Fred
said.
Dolores
was surprised to see Fred surrender this easily to her words, for this, she did
not trust him in the slightest…and she was right to do so. As mentioned before,
Fred was the ideal journalist, he knew how to get his way and was known for playing
people better than he played poker. Deep inside the crevices of Fred’s mind, he
had a plan to expose this old woman for what she really was, not only for his
assignment, but to show Dolores that she was wrong as well. When Dolores and
the townspeople disbanded, since night was falling upon the hamlet, Fred saw
this as an opportunity to engage in his quest for the ugly truth.
It was 9:00 at night and it was as
dark as could be, but with the help of a miniature flashlight Fred kept in his
pocket, he was able to navigate through the darkened landscape. When he arrived
at the rickety house on Waterfront Street he saw that the door was slightly
ajar and asked if anybody was inside. Nobody answered. Fred let himself inside
and when he was inside the foyer, he saw that there was absolutely nothing
inside the house. It looked as though it had been looted clean; there wasn’t
even so much as a piece of cloth. The only thing that was there were the four
walls, the floor, and the ceiling.
Fred checked the other rooms in the
house and he found no other possessions, and no old woman whatsoever.
“What is this? Some kind of sick
joke?” Fred said to himself impatiently.
He decided that he would give up his
search after looking in the basement. He shone his flashlight across the bare
concrete walls until he came across something that stuck out from the rest of
the scenery. It gave him a shock at first, but when Fred saw what it was, he
was astounded by it.
When Fred inspected it in its
entirety, he thought that this could be an award winning story; a Pulitzer
maybe. What Fred saw was a computer drive, about as tall as him and as thick as
a milk crate, it was covered in various buttons, dials, switches and little
lights. To Fred, who had seen plenty of computers before, this was something
far more advanced than anything he had seen before. The sheer complexity of the
computer juxtaposed with the depressing scene Marlboro presented led Fred to
have a few questions. But the first thing that crossed his one-track mind was the
prospect of fame and wealth. But before any of that could happen, he had to
prove this discovery to the people of the hamlet.
Taking a few quick pictures on his
camera, Fred immediately left the house, but was disappointed that he didn’t
find the old woman. Nonetheless, he was still pleased that he found something
worth mentioning. He went back to the main center of the hamlet where he saw
the other townspeople gathered around a bonfire, eating and drinking the apples
and water the Ardhams brought back. It clearly wasn’t enough and it had seemed
as though the old woman had duped them again; this was the perfect opportunity
for Fred to show off his discovery.
“Hey, everybody, over here, you’re
going to want to take a look at this,” Fred said eagerly.
“What is it?” A random person in the
crowd said.
“I took the liberty upon myself to
go into that house you said that old lady lived in and do some investigating.”
Dolores’ blood ran cold when he said
this and she knew that he was brash enough to reveal the truth in front of
everyone. Like she said, the exposure of this truth could lead to the death of
everyone in the hamlet, and that she had to keep the truth safe at all costs.
But she knew that at this point, the truth was going to come out one way or another,
and there was nothing she could do about it.
Harvey, on the other hand, could
barely wait to see what it was that Fred discovered. He had waited for so long
to finally discover who this old woman was and he was prepared for anything,
especially the worst.
Fred continued to announce his
discovery and exaggerating it in places it didn’t need to be.
“When I walked into that house, I
didn’t know what to expect, but when I did, I saw that there was absolutely
nothing inside of it, except for the walls, floors and ceiling. However, when I
ventured into the basement, I saw this, the only thing in the house.”
Showing the photograph to everyone
around the fire, people murmured amongst themselves on what it was until Harvey
yelled out:
“What the hell is this? I told you
all that this old woman was pulling one over us, and Dolores here was…”
At that moment, all eyes turned to
Dolores in anxious anticipation in what this was all about. She was nervous to
say anything since there was nothing she could say that would fully appease the
people, nor satisfy any of their questions they hurled at her.
“Yeah! What have you been hiding
from us Dolores?”
“The old woman tells us not to leave
the hamlet, but for what purpose? We’re here, day after day, year after year, and
for what?
“Dolores, we are dying in this
hamlet and this old woman is nowhere in sight; who exactly is it we have been
following if not an old woman who has some sick desire to see us suffer?”
Each question regarded either the
old woman’s absence, Dolores’ misdirection or the computer in the basement.
Dolores had to try her best to fight off the onslaught of questions, but Fred’s
incontrovertible evidence left her no choice but to tell the truth. She thought
that if the people of the hamlet were going to perish, then they may as well
know the truth since there was nothing she could do to return the status quo.
“Enough fooling around Dolores, I’ve
been alive for about as long as you, and I want to know, without beating around
the bush, what this is all about. What is this machine? What are you hiding
from us? And most importantly, where and who is this old woman?” Harvey shouted
over everyone else.
Dolores stood up, ready to announce
the unbearable truth in a steady yet nervous voice.
“That machine is the old woman.”
Nobody could believe what she said,
but listened keenly as Dolores continued.
“My parents designed this machine to
instruct the hamlet what to do about our condition. If we couldn’t progress as
fast as the rest of the country, we had to at least make do with our survival,
and that was the singular purpose given to the machine. However advanced the
machine is, we only asked it simple questions such as where to get food and
water and how to prolong our lives. Yet, we relied on it too much, we didn’t
ask how we could improve our lives, nor did we ask it what we could have done
for each other. We became dependent on it, we were reduced to the status of
newborn children, we couldn’t take care of ourselves, and the machine kept us
in this hamlet because it knew that we would never be able to comprehend what
lay outside.
“As time went on and survival became
the only thing we were focused on, the computer came to know us better than we
knew ourselves. We became scared little creatures who lost our way if the
computer didn’t provide us with one. What was built as a monolith of knowledge
became a mere supervisor, a babysitter for us, telling us what we should or
shouldn’t do. However, it doesn’t make a difference by this point, I now
realize that whatever action we take now will have absolutely no meaning
whatsoever.
“So, with that said, do whatever it
is you feel you must, but don’t say that I didn’t warn you,” Dolores said.
The townspeople looked at Dolores,
unaware of what to do now, until Harvey took advantage of the vacuum of
opinion. Despite hearing everything Dolores said and knowing the truth, he
decided once and for all that if they were to truly be free, the computer must
be destroyed.
“Did you hear that? She said that
our lives are being ruled over by some machine. I don’t know about you guys,
but I’ve had just about enough of this ‘old woman’ and if we’re going to be
free, then we have to show it that we won’t submit to it any longer. So grab
something from the shed and follow me,” Harvey said.
Harvey’s brief speech fired up the
townspeople, including Fred, and went to the aforementioned shed to grab and
axe, shovel, pick, or whatever else they could find. Once everyone had a weapon
in hand, they arrived at 42 Waterfront Street, under the guise of Harvey to
carry out their revenge against what it was that kept them alive. Despite the
door having no lock and even being slightly ajar, Fred took it upon himself to
chop the door down with his axe. When the door was in mere splinters, the people
of the hamlet ran in, led by Fred and Harvey and made their way to the basement
where the computer was.
Standing in front of the machine,
the angered people, and Fred, bore their tools in the hopes of instilling fear
into the computer; inevitably, it had no effect since it was a machine, capable
of knowledge, but not emotion. Raising a sledgehammer, Harvey provided the
first blow to the computer, in its screen. The resulting crash resulted in a
flurry of sparks and glass shattering into fine shards. When the initial strike
was finished, everybody else surrounded the machine and gave it strikes and
blows, which caused it to emit smoke and make sounds it was not supposed to
make.
After a minute or so, a couple of
people moved it away from the wall and tipped it over. However, when it fell
over, the computer let out a series of sparks, similar to the way a person
would bleed if cut in the jugular area. One of the sparks caught itself onto a
dry and splintery load-bearing wall and soon grew into a fire.
The fire quickly travelled up the
wall and since the wall was dry and splintery, the flames were able to spread
quickly. Once the wall was enveloped in an orange conflagration the people
began to make their way outside. Everybody made it outside safely, but the fire
had quickly enveloped the entire house as it became engulfed in a raging
inferno in about 6 minutes. As the house was burning, the people looked in awe
at the fire and loudly cheered for the destruction of both the machine as well
as the house.
After a little while, the house’s
infrastructure gave out and the house collapsed unto itself, releasing a cloud
of smoke and ash. Dolores who saw the whole thing from far behind the crowd,
could only watch in silence as the people destroyed the only thing that had
bothered to keep them alive for so long. Thanks to Fred and the brashness of
Harvey, the computer, the rationality, and trustworthiness of the hamlet was
dead…and in due time, the people. Dolores was not angry at the people, she knew
that it had to come to an end one day, but knowing that they were completely
free and subject to their own responsibilities was a thought that terrified
her.
She addressed the crowd and asked
them:
“Do you all understand what it is
you’ve just done?”
“Yeah, we’ve just liberated
ourselves from that bucket of bolts that ruled over us,” Harvey claimed
brashly.
“Ms. Bay, I’m sorry, but I had to do
this, besides, it’s 2017 America and you people were no more than hermits in
this backwoods town, away from the progress and civilization. When I saw how
destitute you folks were, I went beyond my journalist protocol and felt a moral
obligation to help you out. You may have survived under that machine, but you
might as well be dead since you were so miserable and destitute.
“But now that you’re free you can do
whatever it is you want without being told you can’t. You can eat and drink
what you want without any opposition,” Fred said to Dolores/
From the crowd, a woman’s voice
reminded everyone of the food they had in the warehouse that the old woman told
them not to eat. All at once, the crowd moved to the warehouse filled with the
forbidden comestibles and grabbed as much as they could. The old woman told the
people not to eat that food since it was old, rotten, or contained some deadly
and poisonous mold. Yet, the people, disregarding the word of the old woman,
engaged in a gluttonous orgy, eating and drinking whatever they found on the
shelves. That is, everyone except Dolores, who still believed in what the old
woman said.
As Dolores saw everybody gorging
themselves silly, she knew that they had all made a big mistake and would pay
the ultimate price. She decided to walk up to Fred and Harvey who had already
finished two bottles of wine and while intoxicated, were enjoying the company
of one another.
“Oh come on Doloresh, don’t be shuch
a tight-ash. Enjoy the freedom,” Harvey said slurred.
“Yeah, let’s face it, you don’t got
to listen to no computer no more. You can do whatever you, uh…want,” Fred said,
just as drunk.
Dolores wanting nothing to do with
the scenery, and seeing that close to ¾ of the food was consumed decided that
this could be the last time she will see Fred and Harvey. There was a lot she
wanted to say to them, to everyone, but since she knew that they were all
doomed from the first bite they all took, she decided to let them have their
fun. Yet, there was one last thing she had to say to them:
“You two, and everyone else here
might as well enjoy what little time you have left since you’ve paid for your
freedom at an unbelievably high price. I hope you’re happy for the short time
you remain alive,” Dolores said and walked away.
“Sheesh, what’sh her problem?”
Harvey said still drunk.
“Don’t worry about it, she’ll get
over it soon. Anyway, we still have plenty left to eat and drink, after all,
you know that saying, ‘enjoy today for tomorrow we die,’ or something like
that,” Fred said.
“Amen
brother, amen.”
When the next day came, the sun rose
over Marlboro and Dolores awoke to the unsettling quiet of the hamlet. On most
mornings, she would often hear the people walking about doing their tasks for
the day, but on this morning, she heard no such thing. Going outside, she saw
the thin strand of smoke rising from the ashes of what was once 42 Waterfront
Street, and she couldn’t help but think that underneath the rubble was the
proclaimed old woman who had kept them all alive. The strongest and smartest
being in the hamlet, now deceased by the people whom it was created to protect.
Without saying a word, Dolores walked to the main part of the hamlet, where she
found out why it was so quiet.
In the midst of the chirping birds
and the buzzing insects, there lay every member of the hamlet, including Fred,
sprawled out on the ground, deceased. Their faces bore no expression of pain
nor suffering, perhaps the molds had killed them quickly; whatever the reason,
Dolores did not know. All she could do was walk around the bodies of everyone
and wonder where she would go from there.
The scene was no quieter than it
would have been without any people to break the silence. With the dead bodies
in front of her and the smoke from the old woman’s house behind her, Dolores
was free from the old woman and free from everybody else, but was struggling to
come to terms with this newfound freedom. To her, it was a jarring and
unnerving feeling, to have the knowledge that she is now fully responsible for
every little thing she does and only having her instinct and common sense to
guide her. No more old woman to tell her what’s safe and what’s not, no more
Harvey to dissuade her of her beliefs, and no more Fred to prove anything wrong
to her; she wasn’t so sure if she liked her freedom. Yet, with her freedom, the
first choice Dolores made was not to leave Marlboro since she knew fully well that
she would not be welcome in a world that has long since forgotten her.
With the noon sun up in the sky,
Dolores went back to the hamlet center and had a nice feast of the apples and
water that the Ardhams had gathered the other day.
