Time Suddenly Seen as Suspicious, Developing... UPDATED

Things keep happening in Nowhere, as they do in various places. This has many folks in the vicinity of Nowhere, West Texas scratching their heads about the nature of time and how it relates to that glowing area just outside of town where time is in some sort of a twist.

Folks have been avoiding it since stories emerged of Bill-Jake Ross going in there and emerging wearing a Member's Only jacket and those weird louvered sunglasses that went out of style so long ago. He'd never been known to shop thrift stores, so that in itself was a fashion mystery. He spouted some nonsense and pointed toward a thing some said resembled a silver car or spaceship before it disappeared and Bill-Jake emitted noises that sounded like distress. There were words but nobody bothered to listen those since he was not wearing the latest in disguise/armor/uniform technology. Nobody much cares about his natterings anyway, since he did the polite thing and disappeared after just a few days of running around acting like an idiot. He committed a few petty thefts of electronics and got a few loads of buckshot sent his direction before he buggered off in his car, leaving his wallet and all personal belongings.

The Car

A search party was assembled at Pete's back porch smoker and it was decided that the best method of searching for Bill-Jake would be to send smoke signals, scented like his favorite food— barbeque— which would draw him like a giant, unwelcome skunk to a bag of cat food (with an open can of dog food inside). To this end, all of the smokers in town were assembled at the park and world record amounts of food were made, which occasioned a town fiesta, followed by a town siesta. Bill-Jake, rude jerk that he's always been, didn't show up for his own party. It was widely agreed that this snub alleviated the town of any further obligation to look for him.

But still, there are anomalous goings on in the area. There was the event of last week in which Bill-Jake's abandoned residence, coincidentally, grew tentacles which snatched a few people, pulling them inside the foyer before the house disappeared. There was little investigation into the event, since it coincided with the pressing business of assembling all of the smokers within a fifty mile radius in the town center of Nowhere.

This was, in some ways a rather convenient time for those folks to disappear, however, which is seen as evidence of one of two things. Some folks say it shows that those parties were in on whatever Bill-Jake was up to. Others see it as proof of alien interaction, obviously. A third possibility is that their disappearances being timed such was a fluke of luck that saved a lot of labor as it made possible the combination of all of the search parties into a bigger search party which drew folks and smokers from all over the region. The local smokers already assembled in city parks welcomed an influx of smokers from all over the place which rapidly overflowed such that all of the streets and alleys of Nowhere were lined with barbeque smokers. So many smokers that a traffic jam was seen for the first time ever. Like, nobody moved for an entire week. This led to a great cook-off and mariachi extravaganza the likes of which has never before been seen in the region.

The people who disappeared were also assumed to be fond enough of barbeque that the search party would encompass all possible methods of searching for them into a probability sandwich of great delicacy. The smoke cloud smothered the town for days in its sooty, delectable grip, and all of the attendees ate themselves into a food coma, so the search was considered successful. That none of the missing persons have yet been located will probably occasion more fiestas of finding, soirees of seeking, seances that will devolve into self reflection, coffee klatches of personal kvetching, and such, until all matters of the disappearances and tentacled intrusions are forgotten as they now are. That was all rather a long introduction to the topic of time incursions, which are set to be debated and outlawed by the city council. That should end this problem. The fact that everyone has continued to use their calendars as usual and celebration of birthdays is ongoing, time, clearly, is functioning like clockwork.

                       Weird Goggles

Update: Time has begun to break down now that folk have donned those fractal glasses found in a crate at the edge of town. It was near the Prada store, which could be evidence of providence, or just as likely, a subtle trick to fool folks into this exotic fashion faux pas. Of course they do have their charms, such as their groovy design and their interesting perceptual effects. At first the hues of things took on many-colored glowiness, which everyone agreed made Nowhere more appealing, and then more stuff happened. Nobody is sure what to make of these appearances of objects which look to be of ancient providence, before writing was the privileged way of recording thoughts. These are objects snatched from the very pre-history of time, dreamtime contemplations made material in such a way that they speak directly to the subconscious at the level of subaltern mere-echoes of deepest stirrings. So vivid is the tug that it has engulfed all of Nowhere in its exotic current that the town is bespectacled, chill, and contemplating a name change to Bluebird of Paradise, West Texas. People would probably be asking themselves what part a certain practitioner of Weirdness recently departed to Walla Walla might play in this, and it certainly would be play, but nobody much cares to look a gift goggle in the other side of the eye. These objects, however, are clearly of magical origins. How is this connected with the goggles? What is the intent of the objects? Why have some of the local "characters" gone missing? How is any of this real? All of these questions beg answering.