nanowrimo 2k9

Woodvale was a depressed town, if you havn’t picked up on that yet. There were shadows of prosperity, still reaching into the corners, but the big houses in the hills were mostly abandoned, and too far out of town to be of use to even squatters. Most of the people subsisted off of what they could grow or hunt but they stilwl held on to the suburban dream, endlessly mending their clothes and talking with affectations in a pathetically sweet way.

There was a library there, they had managed to get funding for it in happier times, it was staffed by a local volunteer, a nice woman who had nothing better to do with her time and found it peaceful to organize volumes of dead trees. The library was as new as everything else in the fading town. Since it was so new, it was still a small branch, mostly hoarding periodicals and overstocks of bestsellers from the few years before. Nothing too much special, no rare volumes, no special collections. If there was something unavailable a local could fill out a stack of paperwork and when the occasional mail did make it out to the big road a few weeks later a package would arrive, but they were usually overdue at that point, and anyone who bothered to fill out the paperwork stopped caring afterwards. Even when they did get there on time, another notice was required to be sent through the post as a notification. Unfortunately, their post was shared at a central dispatch with all the other rural routes and small truck stops in a 50 mile radius, so the notices had to go out their, be sorted and then returned again. So, basically, nobody bothered getting books. There were other options in this futuristic cyber time, but the infrastructure had not made it past the cities and were not going to be showing up any time soon. Added to that, most of the houses just had enough power to run a fridge and a couple of desk lights, they all had to share a limited supply from the center of the town. The library was no exception, but since there was no fridge, they were able to afford to line the halls with inexpensive ikea lights, something like 6 bucks a piece. They weren’t very bright, and most people brough their flashlights if they were going in the afternoon, and occasionally would actually bring a book under the light. There were a few desks, but they were covered with periodical squatters. Old folks mostly. Libraries all have that in common. The old folks had moved in because it seemed like a safe cheap place to retire on a fixed in come, but as the supplies dried up, they became increasingly dependent on the trucker smugglers passing through. The same plight that had affected nickles was spreading out to larger settlements, and these towns seemed to be drying up more and more. People were restless without their supplies and vices, but there was no guarantee going to the next larger stop, or god forbid, getting on the freeway would be any solace or bring any luck. Most people there were firmly put, roots planted, and not much desire to see anything else. And so the drought spread. Isolated now between even their neighboring towns, the roads fell into greater ruin, and the truckers brought fewer infusions. The people were left to their mending, gossip, and shitty paperback novels.

The bar was a different kind of piece of work. It was more of a saloon, a heavy black door kept it sealed shut, the building was painted completely black, save for the faded weather worn flyers for ladies night, or disco night, or whatever crap they used to do when people were passing through. They still had live music when the locals managed to show up with their instruments. The floor looked like it had never been cleaned, but used to be covered with sawdust. Boot scrapings cut through the mold, and there were mats under the bar seat, but the floor with the lights on looked like an experimental mold colony. It stretched to all the corners and was only tamped by the metal lining around the base of the walls. What passed for a stage was mostly kept clean by the prints of old scuffles and fist mergers.

The bar itself was oak, lined with flourescent lights. The water taps were lined with a non-toxic chemical that made the ice cubes and mixers light up under the flourescence. It also kicked the mold on the floor into psychedelic patterns that were nauseating to look at when sober, let alone when people were depressed, shitfaced and listening to a bunch of drunk yokels fighting while trying to play in a band. This was pretty much the only entertainment in town, and managed to supply a lot of gossip to all the bored housewives who’s manicured lawns and gardens were handled by super intelligent robots that ran on roadkill blood.

Additionally, there were laser sentrys that enforced the driving code, there used to be a lot more cars that drove on the back rural and suburban roads, but the laser sentrys destroyed them all, and thats why the town was also infested with destroyed cars.

The original town developers had been smart, though and had not actually put the sentrys any where near the gas stations or the main roads through town, becuase the sentrys knew that was the only way they could get supplies.

Also, there was a toxic swamp at the outskirts that bred mutated poisonous frogs the size of nutria. Nutria are 10 pound rats that eat everything they see. Giant poisonous frogs mostly ate the smaller, but equally mutated rats. They could also glow in the dark when they wanted. They were pretty fucking cool.

All in all, Woodvale was a land of contrasts.