This is the story of Evergreen Flats. Conflict does not exist in Evergreen Flats. Everything goes according to plan in Evergreen Flats. Always. All the time. Without exception. That is until a traffic light breaks...
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Evergreen Flats, an autonomous walled-off town where every day began once upon a time and ended happily ever after. Never was there conflict or inconvenience, only a place where smiles were as common as air. A paradise isolated from both world and time: wholesome music from the diner jukeboxes, pompadour-wielding billboard models, drive-in dates which led to wedding plans, an Americana filled with sitcom and romance and joy and affection. Even death was painless and predictable—each citizen spent eighty-five years, five months, twenty-five days, five hours, fifty-five minutes, fifty-five seconds alive. And at the end of it all, they'd die in bed peacefully, surrounded by all their family and friends. To witness death was like seeing a peg slide perfectly in its hole, for it was the signal that everything they did was right and true. Sadness, despair, anger, greed, none of it existed. Truly, Evergreen Flats was a utopia of absolute order. And the Wall which bordered it kept it so...like the arms of a father. In the town of Evergreen Flats, tears were never shed.
Until one afternoon when a traffic light broke.
It happened at the intersection of Street 13 and Road 21, in the commercial district. Blue skies and landscaped gardens tied together the morning like a dry-cleaned suit on a well-groomed man, a man like Tom Smith who had been cruising down Road 21 in his shoebox Ford—firebird-red. His wife and two kids also accompanied him, and with the buttermilk doowop tones of KYAO 85.0 FM the day was shaping up to be as grand as any other. But that was before they approached the light.
There was no green. No yellow. No red. Only black. It didn't feel right.
At the moment they were alone in their confusion. Very few motorists occupied the road at this time. The pedestrians also were too entranced in their perfect lives to notice.
Tom looked to his wife Marianne. Bouffant coiffure. Skin like ivory. White-polka dot on red dress. Lipstick sweeter than a five-cent Coke. Makeup and mirrors composed a large part of her life. But now...
Water streamed down her eyes and muddied her mascara. MY EYES ARE MELTING! she thought. Yet she strained a smile, her only link with sanity. She thought about a future where nothing was right, a concept too terrible to even entertain—barbers giving uneven haircuts, cheeseburgers with two and a half tomato slices instead of three, cashiers handing back incorrect amounts of change, and (god forbid) cancelled Tupperware parties! Today the traffic light, tomorrow the sun! Marianne wished she was eighty-five years, five months, twenty-five days, five hours, fifty-five minutes, and fifty-five seconds old just to avoid the nightmare.
Marianne turned around and looked in the backseat where Susan and Anthony sat. Those bundles of cuteness were the pride and joy of her life. Or had been. She wasn't sure what to think about anything.
Big sister and little brother locked eyes with a woman they no longer recognized. To them, the surface of reality dissolved, exposing the alien truth that had always lain underneath. For the first time in Susan's life she experienced intestinal cramps. For the first time in Anthony's life he went cold all over. The only thing still familiar to them were their shared emotions; just as one felt happy when the other was, so too did they feel each other's fear. The social connection. This, and only this, kept Susan and Anthony from going blind with sheer terror.
