Like a first season Twilight Zone episode, the protagonist finds herself the only person, the only living being, left in her world, a small settlement she somehow can’t escape.
Immediately we have questions. Is this some sort of experiment? Were the others abducted by aliens? Were the folk abruptly evacuated while she was gone and no one had a chance to tell her? But why no cell phone communication from anybody? How could everybody just go without anyone letting her know about it?
However, our questions aren’t July’s questions. She spends time vacillating between remembering her teenage passion for Sam, recalling past conversations with school chums and family and wandering around, trying to see if anyone is left. Sessions with an unnamed therapist hint that she’s not quite all right. But we don’t know if her damage is psychological, conditional, neurological or the result of some mental and/or physical trauma.
July’s voice fills the pages with details as she relates to the reader all the local joys of her town and school and innocent interactions with friends. She offers to show the hidden secrets of the place to newcomers, which reveals a friendly nature. On the surface, she’s a wholesome, ordinary adolescent girl without a care in the world. The disappearance of the townspeople has rattled her but she’s too busy searching for clues and signs of habitation to show any hint that she’s going mad from the isolation.
When a miracle happens, she’s startled and so are we. Now she has a choice to make and the questions as well as new possibilities flood her brain.
The author balances the spookiness of July’s unique situation with the bright sunlit beauty of this town. There’s no hint of a sordid past, no mention of unsolved murders or local nutjobs roaming the streets. This isn’t Stephen King’s fictional Maine that holds rot at the center. This is just Mayberry…with almost everybody mysteriously gone. It’s a quiet tale that may be science fiction or sociological study. It merely takes you by the hand and invites you to step into a world that has abruptly shifted sideways.
Immediately we have questions. Is this some sort of experiment? Were the others abducted by aliens? Were the folk abruptly evacuated while she was gone and no one had a chance to tell her? But why no cell phone communication from anybody? How could everybody just go without anyone letting her know about it?
However, our questions aren’t July’s questions. She spends time vacillating between remembering her teenage passion for Sam, recalling past conversations with school chums and family and wandering around, trying to see if anyone is left. Sessions with an unnamed therapist hint that she’s not quite all right. But we don’t know if her damage is psychological, conditional, neurological or the result of some mental and/or physical trauma.
July’s voice fills the pages with details as she relates to the reader all the local joys of her town and school and innocent interactions with friends. She offers to show the hidden secrets of the place to newcomers, which reveals a friendly nature. On the surface, she’s a wholesome, ordinary adolescent girl without a care in the world. The disappearance of the townspeople has rattled her but she’s too busy searching for clues and signs of habitation to show any hint that she’s going mad from the isolation.
When a miracle happens, she’s startled and so are we. Now she has a choice to make and the questions as well as new possibilities flood her brain.
The author balances the spookiness of July’s unique situation with the bright sunlit beauty of this town. There’s no hint of a sordid past, no mention of unsolved murders or local nutjobs roaming the streets. This isn’t Stephen King’s fictional Maine that holds rot at the center. This is just Mayberry…with almost everybody mysteriously gone. It’s a quiet tale that may be science fiction or sociological study. It merely takes you by the hand and invites you to step into a world that has abruptly shifted sideways.