Town of Nefarious, Wyoming: pop. 4957 ---953
"Come Sick, Leave Healthy"
At the turn of the 1900s, Nefarious had been a boom town. Seltzer Springs brought in wagons full of health seekers to use the springs, eat peculiar food, and spend money.
Alas, the Springs started to dry up along with the tourists. Around 1993, the population itself dwindled. Then one day, few boys were playing in the empty waterbed when they screamed in delight, ran back to the mayor, Ol' Doc Kinkaid, who confirmed their big find. He took to kids to his house and locked them in a closet. "I'll let you out when the city council men get here."
The council men came quickly as there had been little to do lately.
The boys told them and led them to the creek bed. "Look, Mr. Jenkins! Look!" And there it was: the bones of an immense prehistoric boa, 50 feet long with the circumference of 8 feet. Silence fell. There was more to be found as they walked along the dried stream, lined with dinosaur bones.
In the quiet dining room of the widower Jasper Fillings way out of town, all men along with the boys sat around the dining table and a plan was hatched. "In two weeks time, we must re-construct our miserable little town to make it look like it did back in 1890s. Stores must occupy the empty old stores....and anyone known to be a gossip and who has relatives who are gossips must be confined." He paused and shook his head. "How, I don't know."
He continued. "Phones ripped out, Facebook and such shut down...secrecy is the key. Boys? You wanta help or be locked up in the old boarded up classroom out in the Old school?"
The town without the gossipy group threw muscle into renewal. Quilts were ordered from China, tags removed, with new tags added "Hand-sewn by Louisie May Smith". Rusty tools and blacksmith shop were restored. Jars and jars of jams, preserves, and candles were ordered. The labels were stripped off, and new ones put on: Mrs. Nefer's Homemade.... My...Oh, the work. Nefarious appeared to be frozen in the late 1800s.
The gossipy type were sent on a 21 day cruise to Hawaii on the Holland American vee Dam.
Finally, the paleontologists were summoned. Two wise men, then four, then more: all agreed that this was the biggest titanoba ever found, and joy overflowed as they walked down the creek bed.
A lackadaisical bearded old man was paid to sit in an old chair with his feet propped up on the sidewalk railing. Curious tourists with full shopping bags asked him how long had he been there.
"Heck if I know," he answered and then aimed some tobacco spit at the nearby spittoon. Sometime he hit the mark, sometimes he did not.
Please forgive me if there is a town/city named Nefarious. I checked every where and this did not seem to be anywhere. If there is, I do beg for ytsour forgiveness.
This is a re-post of Wednesday Words given as a challenge for bloggers to shake up their writing, to take a break from WIPs, try different genre. A dear Blogger, Delores, started this challenge a few years back, passing the baton onto other talented bloggers. Her computer betrayed her and she has taken a much-needed break from blogging. A BREAK, Delores!
P.S. We visited Branson, MO, a few years ago. Branson is famous for its quilts and homey products, I was eager to look at them. They were lovely, but when I looked for the source, I found a tag, "Made in China". Then I saw a sign which read, "Homey Quilts, made by Branson designs."
