Welcome to the Town of Else

No one drives to Else on purpose; it's the kind of town you end up in when your GPS dies and your secrets get too heavy.

Martin Halperin had been driving for seventeen hours straight. The afternoon sun cast long shadows across the cracked Arizona highway, distorting saguaro cacti into accusatory fingers. His phone buzzed again—a text from his sister. Third one today. He silenced it without looking.

"Rerouting," announced his GPS. "In one-quarter mile, turn right."

Martin ignored it. Right meant east. East meant facing what he'd done.

The dashboard clock read 6:17 PM when the engine first sputtered. By 6:23, the car had surrendered completely, leaving him stranded in a place where distance seemed to fold in on itself. Walking felt like moving through honey—slow, viscous, inevitable. Heat radiated from the pavement in undulating waves that warped the horizon, making the sign ahead seem to float like a mirage: WELCOME TO ELSE – A PLACE FOR PEACE.

The town materialized like a developing photograph—first outlines, then colors: faded turquoise, sun-bleached crimson, dull neon gold. From beyond the storefronts came a low, persistent hum—not quite electrical, not quite human. The sound of remembering, or forgetting.

The diner appeared like a beacon, its windows reflecting the dying sun. A woman stood behind the counter, her face oddly familiar though Martin knew he'd never seen her before.

"You look like you could use some pie," she said, sliding a plate toward him before he'd even settled onto a stool. "And water. Lots of water."

"Thank you," Martin said, his voice a brittle whisper from disuse. "I'm Martin. My car broke down about a mile back. Is there a mechanic in town?"

The woman smiled, but her eyes remained distant, as if focusing on something just beyond him. Her nametag read NINA.

"Most folks get here when they need to," she said. "You staying?"

Martin glanced at his watch. The second hand twitched over the same second, never advancing.

"Just until my car's fixed," he replied, but the words felt thin, translucent—like lies always did in his mouth.

Nina nodded, a knowing half-smile playing at her lips. "Else Inn's got a room. No charge for the first week. After that..." She shrugged. "Most people don't ask about charges anymore."

The pie tasted of blackberries and something else—familiar yet impossible to name. The humming sound grew louder, almost soothing. He thought of the papers he'd signed, of Julie Something—who'd taken the fall. The memories blurred at the edges, like a photograph left too long in the sun.

"This is a strange town," he murmured, more to himself than to Nina.

She leaned forward, her fingers splayed across the counter. Martin noticed they were trembling slightly, though her expression remained serene.

"Else isn't on any map," she whispered. "And there's a reason for that."

The diner door opened. A tall man in a bolo tie entered, his shadow stretching impossibly long across the checkered floor. His eyes fixed on Martin with an intensity that felt like recognition.

"Well now," said the man, his voice smooth as river stones. "I see we have a new arrival."

The man introduced himself as Mayor Redley. His lips curved into a smile thin as a paper cut—like an actor performing a scene rehearsed a thousand times.

"You'll stay at the Else Inn," he said. Not a question but a command, his hand resting on Martin's shoulder with practiced authority. "Nina, show our guest the way."

As they walked, Martin noticed shadows stretching independent of the sun's position. His own shadow lagged a half-step behind. The humming grew louder near certain buildings, softer near others—the audio equivalent of a persistent afterimage.

"How long have you lived here?" Martin asked Nina.

She paused mid-step. "I... I came from somewhere green," she finally said, words sounding rehearsed. "There were mountains, I think. Or maybe just one."

The Else Inn stood three stories tall, its brick façade weathered to the color of dried blood. Inside, the lobby featured a grandfather clock with no hands and a registration book filled with names written in identical handwriting.

"Room seventeen," Nina said, handing him a brass key. "Don't mind the humming. It gets louder at night, but you'll stop noticing eventually."

Martin's room smelled of dust and lilacs. He set his duffel bag down and removed his journal—a leather-bound book where he'd documented every step of what the university had labeled an "internal matter." Evidence of his innocence. Or at least, evidence of his technical innocence, which wasn't the same thing at all.

He wrote the date at the top of a fresh page and began to record his arrival in Else, but found himself struggling to remember specific details. What time had his car broken down? What had the welcome sign said exactly? The memories felt smudged, like fingerprints across wet ink.

Without warning, sleep swept him away before he could finish the sentence.

***

In the morning, Martin discovered two unsettling things. First, his phone wouldn't power on despite being plugged in all night. Second, the journal entry he'd started had faded to near-illegibility, the ink pale as a watermark.

At the diner, he met a teenage boy with indistinct features who couldn't seem to recall his own name. "Been here three months, I think," the boy said, stirring endless circles into his coffee. "Folks just call me Kid. Weird thing is—" he leaned closer, voice dropping to a whisper, "—sometimes I catch my reflection and don't recognize my own face. Like it's still... settling."

Days blurred together. Martin found himself unable to recall why he'd been driving through Arizona. Something about papers. A signature. A young woman whose face grew hazier with each passing hour.

On his fourth day in Else, Martin encountered Mayor Redley at the edge of town where a stark black line—like fresh asphalt—cut across the dirt road.

"Curious about our boundaries?" Redley asked, materializing with uncanny silence.

"What is this place?" Martin finally asked.

Redley smiled, eyes reflecting nothing. "We're the place people find when memory gets too heavy to carry. And we'll hold it for you—so long as you never ask for it back."

The humming grew louder, vibrating in Martin's molars.

"Everyone here is running from something," Redley continued. "But here's the beautiful part—you don't have to remember what it is. Step across that line, though..." He gestured to the boundary. "Every memory returns at once. Most people don't survive it."

That night, Martin dreamed of signing papers—his hand moving as if underwater, the pen leaking black ink that spread across the document like a living stain. A young woman stood across the desk, her face constantly shifting, never holding one expression long enough for recognition. Just sign here, and this all goes away, someone was saying. Just one signature, and it never happened.

He woke gasping, the sheets twisted around his legs like restraints. The digital clock on the nightstand displayed impossible numbers—8:61, then 12:07, then 3:Ə3. The humming had become a presence in the room, almost a voice now, whispering words just below the threshold of comprehension.

In the bathroom mirror, behind his own image, for the briefest moment, he thought he saw another face—younger, female, eyes wide with betrayal.

He dressed with trembling hands and fled into the pre-dawn darkness, where the stars overhead seemed arranged in patterns he'd never seen before.

***

Nina found Martin sitting on the curb outside the diner at first light, watching as the sky performed an unnaturally slow transition from black to indigo to a sickly orange. The sun seemed reluctant to rise, as if time itself was stretching like taffy.

"Bad night?" she asked, her voice carrying that peculiar Else quality—simultaneously concerned and detached, like a therapist who already knows the answer.

"I'm forgetting things," Martin whispered. His hands looked foreign to him now—were his knuckles always so pronounced? Had that scar on his thumb always been there? "Important things. About why I came..."

Nina sat beside him, her shoulder not quite touching his. The humming intensified between them, creating a pocket of vibrating air.

"That's the bargain," she said softly. "Else takes what hurts. First the details go—names, faces. Then the emotions fade. Eventually, even the shape of what happened blurs until there's just... peace."

Martin pressed his palms against his temples. Within his mind, memories flickered like damaged film—his office at the university, a stack of papers, a young woman crying. Please, Professor Halperin, they'll believe you. You know I didn't do this. The face kept shifting, wouldn't hold still long enough to recognize. He tried to focus, but the details scattered like mercury from a broken thermometer.

"I did something," he murmured. "Something terrible. I shouldn't forget that."

Nina's expression tightened almost imperceptibly. "The town knows what you need better than you do." Her fingers trembled as they reached for his wrist. "But listen—Else remembers what you don't. And it doesn't forgive."

That afternoon, Martin wandered the streets with increasing desperation. Each storefront looked both familiar and subtly wrong, as if rearranging when he wasn't looking directly at them. His shadow seemed unfamiliar—too sharp, too diffuse, occasionally mimicking movements he hadn't made.

The library stood at the corner of what might have been 3rd Street, the sign now displaying symbols rather than letters. Inside, dust hung suspended in air that smelled of old paper and something sweeter. The librarian watched Martin with unblinking eyes, continually reshuffling blank index cards.

Between the stacks, Martin discovered a narrow door with an antique brass keyhole. No handle, no sign indicating its purpose. The humming emanated from behind it, so intense his fillings ached. He pressed his ear against the wood and heard what might have been voices—hundreds of them, whispering in overlapping patterns, like a crowd speaking in unison.

"That's private," said Mayor Redley, suddenly beside him. Martin hadn't heard him approach, hadn't felt the air shift to accommodate another presence. "My memory archive. Not for browsers."

"Memory archive?" Martin's mouth felt dry.

"Every town needs its records." Redley's smile was practiced, perfect. Too perfect. Like a mask that had been worn so long it had forgotten it wasn't a face. "Would you like to see inside? People usually do, sooner or later."

A key materialized between Redley's fingers—not drawn from a pocket, just there, where nothing had been before. The lock turned with a sound like distant screaming.

The archive was smaller than Martin had expected, a room no larger than a walk-in closet. The walls were lined with shelves containing ordinary objects: watches stopped at different times, driver's licenses, wedding rings, cell phones with cracked screens. Each item bore a small paper tag.

"Physical anchors," Redley explained. "Memory clings to objects."

Martin's heart hammered as his eyes found his journal on a middle shelf beside his university ID. Beneath them lay a photograph he didn't remember being taken: Martin on his bed at the Inn, staring vacantly out the window. The tag read:

"Arrived 6 days ago. Chose peace. Still deciding."

And beneath it: "His past is dark. Don't let him remember."

"What is this?" Martin's voice emerged as a rasp. "What did I do?"

"Not what did you do, Martin. What did you allow to be done? Who did you sacrifice to preserve yourself?"

The room pulsed with the humming sound. The air thickened until each inhale felt like drowning.

"Julie Winters," Martin whispered, the name surfacing from the depths of his dissolving memory. The young professor who'd challenged his research conclusions. The subsequent investigation that revealed data manipulation. The university board meeting where Martin had quietly, deliberately let evidence implicating him be attributed to her instead. His signature on the document that ended her career while preserving his pension.

The world tilted. The humming became a roar.

"You let another take the fall," Redley said, his voice somehow audible through the cacophony. "You watched her lose everything. Then you ran. And now you're here, where people come to forget such things." His hand closed around Martin's shoulder. "The question is: do you deserve to?"

Martin stumbled backward, out of the archive, through the library, into the street where the air tasted of copper and regret. The sun hung fixed in the sky—had it moved at all today? Had today even happened yet?

At the edge of his vision, a figure watched from across the street—a woman whose face kept shifting between familiar and strange. Every time he tried to focus on her features, they blurred and rearranged. Was it Julie? Was it Nina? Was it himself?

The black boundary line at the edge of town called to him like gravity. It seemed to throb with each step Martin took toward it—a vein of darkness pulsing against the parched earth. The humming grew complex now, resolving into fragments of forgotten conversations, bits of laughter, someone crying. His own voice, repeating: I had no choice. I had no choice.

Had the sun moved at all? Time in Else had become something malleable, a substance that could be folded and stretched like warm taffy. Martin's watch displayed three different times depending on how he angled his wrist: 3:17, 9:44, and a symbol that wasn't a number at all.

Mayor Redley waited at the boundary, as Martin had somehow known he would. Behind him stood Nina, her features subtly shifting—sometimes sharp and accusatory, sometimes soft and pleading, sometimes eerily similar to Julie Winters'. It was as if her face couldn't decide which emotion to reflect, which person to become.

"It won't just come back, Martin," Redley said, his voice carrying that same impossibly patient quality. "It'll crush you."

Martin looked down at his hands—how strange they seemed now, like borrowed appendages. Were these the hands that had signed Julie's academic death warrant? They looked too ordinary for such betrayal, too mundane for such consequence.

"What happens if I stay?" His voice emerged hollow, distant, as if someone else were speaking through him.

Redley's smile crawled across his face like something parasitic finding its home. "Peace. Eventually. The memories fade completely. You become... one of us." He gestured toward the town where shadows now stretched at impossible angles, buildings seeming to lean toward each other as if sharing secrets. "We take care of our own."

"And if I cross the line?"

"Everything returns at once. Every detail, every emotion, every consequence of what you've done." Redley's eyes reflected nothing—perfect black pools. "Most people's minds snap under the weight. Those who survive... disappear. We never see them again."

Nina stepped forward, her trembling more pronounced now. "The town keeps everything alive," she whispered, her voice fracturing into harmonics that matched the background hum. "Every secret, every lie, every betrayal—Else remembers for us. That's the price of staying."

Martin closed his eyes. Behind his lids, he saw Julie Winters' face finally coming into focus—young, brilliant, devastated as the committee announced their findings. He saw himself walking to his car afterward, relief and shame battling within him. He saw himself starting the engine, driving west, running from a truth that was now dissolving like sugar in hot water.

"I need to remember," he said, the words tasting of metal and honesty.

Redley's expression didn't change, but something ancient stirred behind his eyes. "I thought you might say that."

Martin stepped across the boundary line.

The world inverted.

Every memory cascaded through him simultaneously—his childhood bedroom's peeling wallpaper, his mother's voice singing off-key, his first kiss tasting of chlorine, the weight of his father's casket, Julie's voice cracking as she said they'll believe you. Not just remembered but re-lived, each emotion at full intensity.

He screamed, but no sound emerged. Time shattered into fragments. The humming rose to an unbearable crescendo, then—

Silence.

***

The next morning dawned clear and bright in Else. Nina wiped down the counter at the diner, humming softly to herself. The bell above the door chimed as a new customer entered—a weathered man in his forties, clothes dusty from walking, eyes holding that familiar look of confused relief she'd seen so many times before.

"Car broke down about a mile back," he explained, settling onto a stool. "Strangest thing—I was following my GPS, then it just died." He rubbed his temples. "Can't exactly remember where I was headed now."

Nina smiled her practiced smile. "Most folks get here when they need to. Can I get you some pie?"

"That would be nice." His eyes drifted to the window, watching as Mayor Redley crossed the street outside—a tall man with a grave expression, wearing a suit that seemed slightly too large for his frame.

Only Nina noticed how the new mayor sometimes stood motionless, his gaze fixed on nothing, lips moving in silent conversation with ghosts only he could see. How he would sometimes write names in a small notebook, then cross them out with increasing pressure until the pen tore through the paper. How he sometimes whispered "Julie" in his sleep, the name carrying the weight of all Else's collected regrets.

She'd heard that the old Redley—whoever he had been before—had simply vanished yesterday, leaving his clothes and possessions behind. It always happened that way when they chose to remember. The town needed someone to hold its secrets, to remember what others forgot.

"What's your name?" Nina asked the newcomer, already knowing his answer wouldn't matter. In a week, he'd probably forget it anyway.

"Call me Redley," he said, his voice carrying a strange new authority. "I think I'm supposed to help people forget."

Outside, the Arizona sun blazed white-hot against a sky too blue to be real. The new mayor stood at the center of Main Street, his shadow stretching behind him like a dark twin—moving before he did, smiling when he didn't.

And beneath it all, Else continued its gentle humming, collecting secrets, holding memories, waiting for the next arrival who needed to forget.