New Flash Fiction: Getting Nostalgic over Linter

Yes, we are a day early (have to be on the road and out of communications reach for the next couple of days) which kind of ironic because today's story – Nostalgia by Mark Mills – has a time travel element. The author is Mark Mills, an English Instructor at Northern Kentucky University who has been published in Tor.com, Short Story America, Pill Hill Press, RuneWright, Aurora Wolf Press, Bards and Sages Quarterly, among other places, he is also a regular Grievous Angel contributor.


Nostalgia
by Mark Mills


Mark Twain never said, “When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because things always get there 15 years late.” Witty remarks of unknown origins are always attributed to Twain, Oscar Wilde, George Carlin, or Lincoln, so the misattribution shouldn’t come as a shock. What makes this bon mot notable is that it clearly refers, not to Cincinnati, but Linter.

Perhaps through some sort of geological fault, or perhaps only through magic, Linter exists 15 years behind the rest of the world. Upon entering the city limits, middle-aged parents grow fresh and young, antiques lose their value, and children cease to exist.

Residents rarely stray. Often an angry teenager will storm out of home, drive across the town borders to find himself divorced, corpulent, and balding. Older residents are more cautious. To venture outside is to gamble that you can shave a decade and a half from your life-span. The county coroner stations an ambulance a few yards beyond the main road exiting the town for the poor souls who risk it and rot into goo.

The federal headquarters of the post office and IRS have set up special provisions for late fees and overnight deliveries but the government is for the most part uninterested – Linter has nothing to do with UFOs, Satanic cults, or banking, no need for a conspiracy. It is the private sector that proves a threat.

Linter is a small town, barely two thousand folk make their home there. It can barely hold back the forces with a one and one-half decades advantage. Their cell phone reception is laughable. 

Armed patrols roam the surrounding woods and sentries stand before the town’s single highway exit to hold back the tide of grieving lovers and sobbing parents. Once a women was stopped while carrying a sack of 18 dead cats. A man from Wyoming has been deterred only at gunpoint from towing in his wrecked Corvette. But the town is not without pity. If the searcher’s need is great enough – and if there is enough room – they are allowed to pass.

# # # # #

But, even with a 15-year detour, time never rests. Parents can only look upon their living children and count the days. It makes no difference for cat or Corvette, the inevitable revisits. At that point, the survivors limp away or, if too noisy, are forcibly ejected. But some grasp at hope, for it is rumored that somewhere in Linter is a coal cellar that when entered, grants access to another 15 year reprieve. Yes, you’ve heard the stories but no one has ever found it. One miracle may be more than anyone deserves; anything beyond is simply presumptuous.