Rock Ridge School was an oddity of the old world, or rather, the world they all used to live in. There was no high school in Rock Ridge. Rather, they had a single school to educate children from preschool up through twelfth grade. As to whether this was strictly legal was questionable before they all came to wherever they were, but now it hardly mattered. There was only a handful of children in Rock Ridge anyway, and all of them attended school regularly.
There were about a dozen children in this school. A few boys of varied ages, all well-behaved in their tiny suits made by Mrs. Appleton. All the girls were dressed in skirts and tweed jackets which had been sewn by the same. The ages of the children ranged from Elle (pronounced “ell-ee”) Langerson at age 17 down to Eugene Langerson (her younger brother) at age 4.
Every week day at 8am, every student could be found at their desks, attentively waiting and writing down notes on images displayed from books that were older than they were.
Today, Abby Jenson sat on the front row next to her sister, Anita. Abby was ten years old. Anita was fourteen. Both were beautiful young girls with wavy brown hair, soft eyes, and lovely smiles.
Mrs. Appleton stood at the blackboard in her own tweed skirt and blazer pointing to the large, chalk letters she’d written. The blackboard she used seemed emblematic of the era in which the school was built. The walls were of brick and mortar and the two-story exterior seemed vaguely fort-like. Brutalism didn’t quite describe it, but it was brutal in tone, with a small battlement to one side and wooden doors that looked as though they could withstand a small bomb. The flagpole was out front and center, proudly displaying the colors of Rock Ridge, but not of America, where the school (and the town) had previously been located. No one knew where the American flag had gone; they came to this new place and no one could find another flag to replace it. Mrs. Appleton was asked to make a new one, but the fabric store’s endless supply didn’t contain any blue fabric. When asked why she couldn’t just dye something blue, she said, “The only subject I never taught was chemistry.” This explanation didn’t merit much response, so the townspeople let it go.
The halls of this school were much the same as the exterior. One felt that greasers and teeny boppers in the 1950’s used to stroll down these halls in leather jackets and pink embroidered skirts. The girls giggling at the boys and the boys giving pleased smiles of knowing in return. This old fashioned spirit seemed to remain here. The halls were spotless, immaculate, and empty.
In the second story classroom that the dozen children of Rock Ridge now occupied, the students sat in neat rows, only spoke when spoken to, and raised their hands to ask permission to use the bathroom.
Abby Jenson did so now.
“Yes, Ms. Jenson?” said Mrs. Appleton.
“May I go to the little girl’s room?” said Abby.
Mrs. Appleton sighed heavily, removed the bathroom key from her aluminum desk, and reluctantly handed it to the little girl.
Abby walked into the empty hallway through streams of dustless sunlight bouncing off spotless gray lockers. She put her hand to her head and scratched, mumbling. She walked past the little girl’s room to the biology lab. This room had six, two-person counters, cabinets of supplies, an autoclave, and a small cabinet that contained food for the school animals. Among these foods, was a terrarium of live mice, intended for the big, green snake whose enclosure sat across the room from them..
Abby put on a glove, reached in, and pulled out a white mouse. She crossed to a counter, hopped up on a stool, and put a clamp on his tails, giggling as he squirmed to escape. She flicked on a bunsen burner, picked up a metal loop from the counter and heated it until it glowed red. She quickly pushed the red hot metal against the mouse’s fur, hearing it squeak in pain as it tried to get away. She heated the loop again and burned the mouse. She did it again, then again, then again, then again. The thing turned and began to gnaw at his own tail to get away. At this, Abby found another clamp, grabbed his nose with it, and lifted him over the fire. His hair turned black in the flame and she smiled. The stench of burning mouse filled her lungs with a sweetness that placated her softly. She moved the mouse’s face over the flame and saw his mouth char back into itself. Finally, the mouse ceased to breathe.
She flipped off the bunsen burner and dropped the mouse onto the table, sending ashes across it. She dusted them onto the floor and wrapped the charred corpse in a paper towel. Abby took her parcel to the little girl’s room and flushed him away. She then sat on the toilet, leaned back, and smiled in a sort of cleansing relief. She sighed and came out to wash her hands.
“Ms. Jenson!” Mrs. Appleton had come into the bathroom without Abby hearing her. “You have been gone entirely too long! You will be making up the time in detention if you do not wash your hands and return back to the classroom immediately!”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Appleton. My stomach is–”
“Excuse me? How dare you talk back to me, young lady! Wash your hands! Now!”
Abby did as she was told, followed Mrs. Appleton to the classroom, and returned to her seat.
“Now, class, let us finish our lesson on atomic structures and the periodic table. All of you should have this memorized by now…” Mrs. Appleton droned on as if nothing had happened.
Anita slipped Abby a note while Mrs. Appleton’s back was turned. “Did you go to the lab again?” It read.
Abby nodded her head.
Anita slipped her hand to her sister’s and held it for the remainder of the class.
***
Amanda, walking through the aisles of the all night super store, was wearing her usual pink muumuu. It hung loosely over her folds and concealed her as much as she thought any piece of clothing could. Not that it mattered much. This was the only piece of clothing that she ever wore in public because it wasn’t stained and it covered her panis. She waddled past the refrigerated section and scooped up a large armful of bacon into her cart. She grabbed two gallons of whole milk, a few blocks of cheese, and a flat of puddings. The store was largely empty right now. It usually was on the first of the month when she got her check from city hall. The sole person she passed was an employee in the cereal aisle wearing a red vest. The employee looked at her derisively as Amanda dropped 6 boxes of sugary cereal into her cart and waddled away toward the single cashier.
She huffed and panted as she lugged her milk, cheese, and other items onto the conveyor belt. Amanda paid for her food and waddled out of the store wordlessly. The two employees looked at the items Amanda had cleared. There was an entire section of bacon missing and she had left almost no sharp cheddar cheese on the shelf. They walked to the back room, counted to ten, then walked back out. The shelves were now full again, just as they had been before Amanda had walked in. They pulled out the mops and brooms and cleaned the place as they did every day. When they were done, the store looked sparkling, pristine, and eternal.
Amanda climbed into her little green car and turned over the engine, huffing as she did so. When she arrived at her trailer, she left the food in her car and screamed at the neighbor boy to carry them in. She threw him a $5 bill on the ground and struggled up the steps to her front door. She plopped down on her couch with a loud creaking as the boy with the rat tail carried in bag after bag of food for her.
She reached to her end table and took a puff from her rescue inhaler. “Damn asthma!” she huffed between breaths.
The boy was carrying in her last bag of groceries when she waved him over, brown sack still in his hand. She reached into the bag and pulled out a bag of cheese crackers and shooed him away. She opened the box and tossed it aside to a pile of other boxes and wrappers that littered the floor around her. The shag carpet had worn to the particle board beneath, making a path from the door to the kitchen to the bathroom. She hadn’t fit through her bedroom door in quite some time.
The boy had been holding his breath when he entered each time. She could hear him panting as he walked away now, leaving the door slightly ajar. The smell of the place was unbearable. Mildew, rot, cockroaches, and the undeniable and unique stench of sweat and yeast infected skin folds. Amanda barely noticed anymore. When she itched, she shoved a back scratcher into the offending folds. When that stench of that became unbearable, she’d go outside and try to wash herself.
Before they came here, Amanda thought she had a relatively nice place for a woman who had… who had… She couldn’t remember. She felt that she was lucky to have what she had. She knew she’d been… Dumped? Raped? Beaten and left for dead? What was it? She felt some great feeling of victimhood, but couldn’t recall why. Trying to access the memory was like trying to remember the name of someone you’ve only met once. It was always on the tip of her tongue, but it never came out when she tried to speak the offense. But as every person in this town, she knew there was a memory there. She just couldn’t remember what it was.
She stood up from her couch with great rolling and effort to waddle down her back steps to her fenced yard. It too was strewn with garbage. She picked up the hose from where it lay on the ground by the kiddie pool and sprayed into it until it was about halfway full. She picked up a bottle of dish liquid and squirted a generous amount into the pool, stripped off her muumuu, and let herself fall backwards into the water. She picked up a long handled scrub brush and a plastic cup and began to bathe herself. She never could get the folds of her back well, but he got under her belly, between her leg folds, her privates, and beneath her enormous and elephantine breasts with much hard work.
She paused. A crushing feeling was on her chest and she didn’t know why. This had happened before but it always went away if she sat very still and took big, deep breaths. She did so now and started to shiver from the freezing water. But the crushing feeling didn’t go away as fast as it had last time.
When it finally subsided, she grabbed the hose again, rinsed herself off, and waddled back inside, her muumuu in hand. She found a mildewed towel and dried herself where she could then redonned the muumuu.
When the bathing ritual was over, she took another box of cheese crackers from the kitchen and resumed her place on the couch. Her neighbor boy was looking in through the window. She screamed, “Go away!” He just sat there, looking at her with curiosity.
She got up and went to the door as fast as she could. “Unless you have my pills, you get off this property now!” she screamed at him. As she came out of the door, she saw his rat tail disappear around the corner.
She pulled the blinds on the window he’d been looking through and sat back down, only to feel the pressure on her chest again. “I just want to be alone,” she mumbled between bites of cheese crackers.
The tv rolled in black and white static in front of her and she stared at it long and hard for a bit. The pressure in her chest released once more and she found her VCR remote. She’d had a copy of some old comedy loaded and rewound from the night before.
She continued to eat and stare at the tv, laughing thickly at every little joke she’d heard a thousand times, if not more times before.
***
When Marshall Matthews woke up that morning, he rolled out of bed quietly around noon. As usual, he’d been up until past midnight mapping stars and the town’s movement through space. He’d taken up residence in a seemingly unoccupied house in a neighborhood near downtown. It was a nice little house which was dwarfed by the two story houses around it. He only needed one room, so he had turned his second bedroom into his office.
When he rolled out of bed this morning, he stood up, faced the mirror which was covered by a sheet, and blinked stupidly at it for some time while his eyes adjusted. He stretched, yawned, and moved to the bathroom to shower. The mirror had also been covered in here as well.
He finished his morning routine and walked out onto his front lawn to greet Mrs. Johnson in the noon day sun. “Good morning!” he said cheerily with his coffee in hand. Mrs. Johnson waved back.
He decided to walk to city hall today to file his findings from the night before. He passed the little grocer that shut down on the corner just before they’d all come here. It’s shelves were still stocked, but there was always an armed guard to prevent anyone from going in to take food from it. “Why should anyone have unrestricted access to food? Shouldn’t we try to make this like normal?” Elena Ripley had said at a town meeting. She had somehow persuaded the town to never take advantage of the magically unending food supply. Marshall was unhappy about that, but he was vastly outvoted. Besides, it had been a lynching night. Reason was not to be heard on those evil days.
“Morning, girls!” He waved his briefcase in the air at the line of young girls across the street in their tweed uniforms.
“Morning, Mr. Matthews!” they replied in unison. Mrs. Appleton looked particularly sour today.
“Hi, Mrs. Appleton!” Marshall couldn’t resist forcing her to acknowledge him when she looked like she was in a bad mood.. She nodded politely and increased her stride.
He passed through the park and the people there with their dogs. The usual small group of old men with their cold coffee and veteran’s hats turned and gave weak waves to him in front of hunched over smiles.
The sun was out and the birds were chirping. This town felt perfect today.. He went inside and up to the records office. “Hi, Elena. How are you today?”
Elena smiled and returned his greeting. “New calculations, eh? Guess we haven’t moved much, huh? Pity.”
Marshall frowned at that. “No. I didn’t say that. We’ve actually moved quite a bit. In fact, our progress seems to be accelerating since that object appeared on top of the statue in the park.”
“Hm. Well, I wouldn’t want you to get your hopes up and skew your findings,” she said in a condescending way that one might speak to a child.
Marshall didn’t have a response for this. “Hey, uh. Can I use your copier?”
“Oh, the thing’s jammed up right now. I’ll take your papers and send you copies when–”
“What’s wrong with it?” Marshall cut her off. He had been in a good mood.
“It’s just jammed. I’ll get Old Man Jenson to fix it for me later today when he gets in.”
Marshall didn’t respond to this either. He walked over to the copier, turned it on, and saw the error message she must have been referring to. He opened the indicated compartment, cleared the jam, and the machine spat out what it had been trying to copy before. He handed the papers to Elena and said, “Here you go. Were these important?”
Elena’s mouth drew thin before she smiled and said, “Yes. Thank you.”
Marshall made three copies of his notes. One for the records office and two for himself. He left a dollar bill on her desk when he was done. “For the toner and paper.”
Elena took it and silently deposited it into her desk drawer without looking up.
Marshall looked over her briefly. Her posture was tense and she didn’t seem interested in making eye contact or speaking. “How are you and John these days? I haven’t been to many town gatherings because of the stars. They’ve been changing a lot lately.”
She made eye contact finally and smiled politely. “We’re doing well. Just peachy. How are you, Marshall? Did you ever ask that Gina girl out?”
“No. Not after you told me she was married…to her husband…who she lives with.”
“Oh, pity. You know, you young people in this town confuse me. If I was trapped in an immortal state with all your youth and beauty, I’d live it up. You know, before we all came here, me and John used to host–”
“I think I’m happy with my lifestyle choices. Thanks.” He left an awkward silence after this and tried not to look embarrassed.
“Ok.” She shrugged and leaned back in her chair. “So where do you keep those extra records, anyway?”
Marshall blinked at her and walked out.
Later that evening, Marshall had an intruder. He was dozing on the couch. It was nearly 2am and he had just finished mapping the movements of tonight’s stars. A bowl of ramen and an unfinished beer sat on the coffee table in front of him. He shot up when he heard footsteps.
A wiry, black-haired boy stepped into the light. The boy didn’t make eye contact. He just stood there, eyes to the floor.
“Hi, Samuel,” Marshall said. “How you been?”
“Pretty good.”
“You know. You can look at me. I’m not like the others here.” Marshall took a step forward and Samuel took two steps back. “What is it? You haven’t come to see me in a while.”
“Something is changing. I’m starting to remember things. I’m scared.”
Uncertain 