A parade was proceeding down the street, full of color and noise. The people on the sidewalks were going about their business, as if parades were an everyday thing. Turning down a quite side street, the sounds faded behind them, and Arlo looked back just in time to see a huge mechanical rabbit laboriously hopping through the intersection. It's driver and passenger were being tossed ruthlessly around in the cab, but were obviously having a great time.
Time, Arlo was noticing, was very abundant in Lakeland. Didn't any of these people have jobs?
When he asked Daniel what the occasion was for the parade, Daniel replied: "Whatever day today is... Wednesday? It's 'Wednesday... Day'! A national holiday, of course."
As Arlo and Daniel made their way over to the square, Daniel seemed to be enjoying his position as tour guide for the town's new guest, and pointed at the various things that he knew would be seen as unusual to an outsider.
Arlo noticed that sometimes a car would pass that seemed to be humming to itself, or singing- the emanating melody's tempo speeding up and slowing down to match the speed of the car. Fast cars emanated a fast song. A slow tempo meant the car was creeping along.
Daniel tried to explain it. "A kid named Jasper figured out how to make... how to bend light. I admit I don't understand exactly how it works yet, but basically he's bending gravity, and I guess that gets into the bending of time itself. So he bends the... 'time', in front of the car, and under it, so the car moves forward without ever touching... here comes one, look!"
Arlo did look, and for the first time noticed that the car was hovering off the ground, singing past at a moderate tempo and floating like a leaf in the wind with eerie precision.
"See it Arlo?" Daniel had unreserved excitement in his voice. "No wheels... I guess the way to visualize it is, the car is off the ground, so it's falling, but just... not yet. It's sooner above the car, and I guess 'later' underneath."
Daniel was laughing. "I know I'm not very good at explaining it, I think I might have that backwards, but it means that gravity is bent under the car so it floats... that's better isn't it?"
Daniel held out his arm and floated his flattened hand over the sidewalk. "The damn things were too quiet though, so just like the bells on a sleigh, Jasper invented the car's little hum... it's little songs- basically so the pedestrians can hear you coming."
Reaching the edge of the square, they curved their way up a path through a flowering lawn, and climbed the few stairs up to a massive porch attached to an old house. There were a few people there talking quietly at their tables, and Daniel went to a refrigerated case and gestured towards it's contents. "Homemade wines, moonshines, and these faucets here are beer and ales."
Arlo wasn't much of a drinker, but Daniel easily persuaded him to try a clear peach moonshine with honey that turned out to be quite good, and they found a table by the porch rail overlooking the shaded street.
With the care and attention of a trained Observer, Arlo listened as Daniel told the story of Lakeland's revolutionary departure from ordinary life.
Daniel told the tale of how it began 17 years earlier: how the engineers at the lake's hydro dam had initially been informed of the closing of Fictionarium, after which Don Felger had insisted that they continue to collect money from the town for electricity- money that he had been keeping for himself for years previously. But they didn't work for Felger, they were SB engineers retained there from the original colonies in Area 12BX, and they rebelled, giving the electricity away for free to all of Lakeland.
Soon after, the people of Lakeland became aware of the situation and instinctively realized that the production of food would have to become the priority since the SB had just abandoned them here. They turned every lawn, every vacant lot into gardens, the farmers teaching everyone the best methods to grow the most produce. Massive fields of hemp were cultivated, as the SB laws prohibiting the use of hemp were now moot.
Neighborhoods organized cookouts to feed the people who were in need, and every menial task suddenly became an act of rebellion, a way for everyone to prove to the SB that the people didn't need them anymore. The trash trucks kept picking up trash because they were now doing it for their friends and community. The people traded time for food, and discovered quickly the ease with which a society could live when unencumbered by the obsolete, pretended laws and presumed authority of the Science Board. While some traded with their time, others used precious metals and jewelry as a currency, while many began using the crypto-currencies mined digitally from the internet.
The first year of Lakeland's abandonment, their 'special period', was not easy. Food and seeds were always good trade items, but eventually it became clear that friendship was the main commodity in Lakeland. Everybody knew somebody who wanted to share what they had, and the most valuable thing on earth, they found, was to have a feast with their neighbors and share the bounties generated by the planet through this interdependent system of friendship.
"Why does Hill Valley still have to pay for electricity now, if the engineers rebelled?" Arlo was starting to feel a little abandoned now too. "Why didn't you... or Lakeland, tell Hill Valley about all of this?"
"We tried!" Daniel set his jar on the table so he could use both hands to emphasis, since he liked to use hand gestures to better decorate his words.
"The engineers didn't have control over Hill Valley... Felger did. They couldn't control that. They could send the juice, or they could just cut it off, but they didn't want that... to cut you off. We all... the town of Lakeland, arranged a parade, a huge event. We were going to roll into Hill Valley and liberate the whole lot of you, but the Hell Valley PD was there at the City Limit waiting for us... we had to turn the whole thing around. It was a custom-made parade for your town, but Felger wouldn't allow it, or anything else that might break the spell. Every time we tried to contact the Valley, your newscasters twisted it to sound like an attack with their high-grade lowliness and... TV sorcery."
Daniel sighed and picked his jar back up. "Felger couldn't let Hill Valley find out what was going on for real, he would lose all that income. Mainly though, it was the control. He couldn't bear to lose control of the population. He wants his culture of humans to obey his commands when he snaps his fingers. He's really an evil bastard, as a matter of fact."
Arlo smiled. It was refreshing to finally talk to somebody else who knew the real Don Felger, and someone who was willing to describe the old creep with such damning clarity.
They sat on the porch trading Felger stories for a while, then Arlo began telling about some of the recent developments over in Hill Valley: the traffic lights, the librarian's DMV rant, and the police and media corruption making the news. As Arlo spoke, a mischievous smile began to form on Daniel's face.
Picking up his empty jar, Daniel stood up quickly. "We're going to have a parade. It's time... this is it. It's time for another parade to Hill Valley." Reaching to pick up Arlo's empty jar, Daniel's smile had grown into the friendly face that it was designed to be. "I'd like to ride with you... in the OLO mobile. As official Observers... we can observe the enlightenment of a brainwashed civilization… we're going to do our job!"
Daniel leaned a shoulder forward slightly and raised an eyebrow for dramatic effect. "What do you say, Arlo... you in?" Arlo looked pale, as if having a parade was the most terrifying thing he'd ever heard.
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Intro @therealpaul/introduction-to-the-fictionarium-a-fictional-tale-of-ordinary-life-s-looping-programs
CH 1@therealpaul/ordinary-world-daily-life-suited-for-someone-else-fictionarium-chapter-1
CH2@therealpaul/lady-destroys-dmv-office-with-verbal-kung-fu-living-in-fictionarium-world-2
CH2.ptII @therealpaul/beaulah-s-epic-dmv-rant-part-ii
CH3. @therealpaul/original-story-fictionarium-chapter-3-the-lights
CH4 @therealpaul/fictionarium-chapter-4-the-news-three-primary-types-of-tin-foil-hats-discussed
CH5. @therealpaul/fictionarium-chapter-5-the-screwtape-emails
CH6. PART I @therealpaul/fictionarium-chapter-6-lakeland-part-i
CH6. PART II @therealpaul/fictionarium-chapter-6-lakeland-partii