lazily.
There were, of course, no people.
A small pre-transistor radio played something that would have underscored romance in 1953. Four barber chairs. Combs and brushes and razor strops and all that. Bottles with green stuff inside. A fishbowl of wrapped candies next to the cash register. Each station was labeled: Art, Steve, Harry, Rudy. But there were no people to match the labels.
" Hey Art Steve Harry Rudy!" Bud called out resentfully. "Shave an’ a haircut!" He knocked the "two bits" on the back of a barber chair.
Then his eye fell across something on the floor near one of the chairs. It was a little flat fuzzy cloud of brown and gray and blond and a little red—hair clippings. Humanity!
Bud knelt down a picked at a tuft with his fingers. The whole scattered pile came up off the floor along with the tuft. And so Bud realized that it wasn’t human hair at all, but rather human handicraft. It was something artificial, made of fibers meant to look like hair, as in a cheap wig. The pile hadn’t grown from the casual discards of a barber at work—in this case, Steve. It had been manufactured, and set down for effect. Because a real working barber shop of 1953 would have hair on the floor.
Just like the comic books. A prop.
Forgetting that he didn’t do crazy, he said aloud: "Jetz! Timeless Town is just one big prop ." He remembered the tiny plastic village next to the tracks of his electric train set, soon retired in deference to slot-riding race cars.
He heard Tom advise him to avoid jumping to conclusions, even if they jumped at him first.
He stood and tapped one of the big bottles, glass-sided canisters. The green stuff shuddered in response. It wasn’t plastic. It moved. If it hadn’t , he thought, I think I’d spend an hour lying on the floor next to the pseudo-hair.
He went back outside and crunched a few dead leaves under one of the trees. Real. He gouged a fingernail into the tree trunk. Real. He pinched his own arm. Real.
Then he jumped back, startled, as a human voice erupted through the barbershop door!
" And that was the Sonny Vallis Strings with this year’s big hit, ‘I Surrender.’ In the news, General MacArthur will be meeting with Secretary Dulles to clarify some remarks... "
Bud walked away rapidly. He didn’t want to hear any more. He didn’t want to listen to a human voice without a human mouth behind it.
He realized his heart was starting to pound. It was one thing to be thrown out a window by the Black Cobra, but this— this was messing with Reality!
"Let’s say no one shows, no one. I can hotwire any of these cars. I can drive out of town to—to wherever. To Shopton! It’s not like I’m fenced in," he reasoned. But how far away was Shopton?
What if the cars were props, too?
A thought suddenly struck him. He chuckled at himself for overlooking the obvious. License plates!
He went down one side of the street, then back the other side, looking at the plates on the parked cars. It was, again, disappointingly unhelpful—so prosaically normal in some ways, so off-center in others. The plates looked authentic. But the renewal stickers all read 1953 or 1954. And as to the states—many states. A dozen different states, at least. No majority. Timeless Town seemed to be located in a generic state of the United States.
Most of the car doors were unlocked. The seats inside were worn, sometimes ripping; a few looked new, though. He looked at the steering columns and found, as he expected, flat plastic pouches strapped on several of them with registration cards inside. The cards looked new—as they would be if they were current and valid in this year of 1953. They bore names like James Hylman Heyes and Bonnie Sue Devlin and Carl Norris Winters. Very normal names.
"So where are you James, Bonnie Sue, Carl?"
And, as a matter of fact, Rose Reb?
And indeed, as a matter of fact, Bud Barclay?
"Okay. Good grief, maybe I do do crazy!"
He glanced at the shadows, then at his watch.
There were, of course, no people.
A small pre-transistor radio played something that would have underscored romance in 1953. Four barber chairs. Combs and brushes and razor strops and all that. Bottles with green stuff inside. A fishbowl of wrapped candies next to the cash register. Each station was labeled: Art, Steve, Harry, Rudy. But there were no people to match the labels.
" Hey Art Steve Harry Rudy!" Bud called out resentfully. "Shave an’ a haircut!" He knocked the "two bits" on the back of a barber chair.
Then his eye fell across something on the floor near one of the chairs. It was a little flat fuzzy cloud of brown and gray and blond and a little red—hair clippings. Humanity!
Bud knelt down a picked at a tuft with his fingers. The whole scattered pile came up off the floor along with the tuft. And so Bud realized that it wasn’t human hair at all, but rather human handicraft. It was something artificial, made of fibers meant to look like hair, as in a cheap wig. The pile hadn’t grown from the casual discards of a barber at work—in this case, Steve. It had been manufactured, and set down for effect. Because a real working barber shop of 1953 would have hair on the floor.
Just like the comic books. A prop.
Forgetting that he didn’t do crazy, he said aloud: "Jetz! Timeless Town is just one big prop ." He remembered the tiny plastic village next to the tracks of his electric train set, soon retired in deference to slot-riding race cars.
He heard Tom advise him to avoid jumping to conclusions, even if they jumped at him first.
He stood and tapped one of the big bottles, glass-sided canisters. The green stuff shuddered in response. It wasn’t plastic. It moved. If it hadn’t , he thought, I think I’d spend an hour lying on the floor next to the pseudo-hair.
He went back outside and crunched a few dead leaves under one of the trees. Real. He gouged a fingernail into the tree trunk. Real. He pinched his own arm. Real.
Then he jumped back, startled, as a human voice erupted through the barbershop door!
" And that was the Sonny Vallis Strings with this year’s big hit, ‘I Surrender.’ In the news, General MacArthur will be meeting with Secretary Dulles to clarify some remarks... "
Bud walked away rapidly. He didn’t want to hear any more. He didn’t want to listen to a human voice without a human mouth behind it.
He realized his heart was starting to pound. It was one thing to be thrown out a window by the Black Cobra, but this— this was messing with Reality!
"Let’s say no one shows, no one. I can hotwire any of these cars. I can drive out of town to—to wherever. To Shopton! It’s not like I’m fenced in," he reasoned. But how far away was Shopton?
What if the cars were props, too?
A thought suddenly struck him. He chuckled at himself for overlooking the obvious. License plates!
He went down one side of the street, then back the other side, looking at the plates on the parked cars. It was, again, disappointingly unhelpful—so prosaically normal in some ways, so off-center in others. The plates looked authentic. But the renewal stickers all read 1953 or 1954. And as to the states—many states. A dozen different states, at least. No majority. Timeless Town seemed to be located in a generic state of the United States.
Most of the car doors were unlocked. The seats inside were worn, sometimes ripping; a few looked new, though. He looked at the steering columns and found, as he expected, flat plastic pouches strapped on several of them with registration cards inside. The cards looked new—as they would be if they were current and valid in this year of 1953. They bore names like James Hylman Heyes and Bonnie Sue Devlin and Carl Norris Winters. Very normal names.
"So where are you James, Bonnie Sue, Carl?"
And, as a matter of fact, Rose Reb?
And indeed, as a matter of fact, Bud Barclay?
"Okay. Good grief, maybe I do do crazy!"
He glanced at the shadows, then at his watch.
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