42 Waterfront St.

“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.