He looked down at the corner of 2nd and Pearl where Mrs. Taylor, the newest resident of Grover Gulch, should have been standing. However, the spot in front of Ernie’s Grocery Mart stood vacant, still waiting for the promised customer that Grover was sure he had delivered the previous evening. He straightened, scratched his gray beard, and checked the rest of the miniature community.
      In an alley between Quincy and Jasmine, miscreant youth admired sunbathing beauties around a backyard pool through a hole in the fence. Neither of the young boys noticed Officer McDougal at the far end of the alley watching them the way a hawk would eye a pair of field mice.
      This was exactly as Grover remembered it.
      The I.R.S building on the corner of 5th and Main billowed gray cotton smoke; a finishing touch on the soot charred, faux red-brick model. Flames burned forever in still-life behind the tiny plastic windows. A small group of tax men, slightly toasted, lamented the tragedy from across the street. The Grover Gulch Fire Department, meanwhile, stood engaged in the rescue of a tree bound kitten several blocks away on Hazel.
      This was exactly as Grover remembered it.
      In the wooded hills outside of town, Union and Confederate troops crouched, fired, and fell in a Civil War reenactment around the ruins of an old farmhouse. On the other side of the ridge, Greg Douglas, the ever vigilant hunter, watched the deer trail from his blind, completely unaware of the twelve point buck standing behind him.
      These, too, were exactly as Grover remembered them.
      But when the model railroader looked back at the northeast corner of 2nd and Pearl, Ernie Miller was still one customer short.
      “Well, isn’t that odd.”
      He returned to his workbench at the bottom of the basement stairs and checked the cluttered surface, rifling through the paints, brushes, plastic cements, crafting knives, and the plans for Grover Gulch that were still only ideas on paper. He searched through the pieces of the partially completed work train, ever vigilant for the elderly woman with the two-wheeled shopping cart in tow.
      But the missing Mrs. Taylor, remained missing.
      He pulled the log book from the shelf above and flipped through the handwritten pages that told the many various stories of Grover Gulch. His memory might not have been what it used to be, but there, in his own hand, was proof that Mrs. Taylor had been placed in front of Ernie’s Grocery Mart. The undeveloped roll of film in the camera no doubt held a corroborating photograph.
      Grover walked back to his beloved town, which sat nestled on a peninsula that jutted out into the center of the room. As before, Ernie’s Grocery Mart was still a customer short. He looked back at the workbench, mentally retracing his steps from the previous night. He had carried her to this spot once her paint was dry, delighted that her base was wide enough to keep her upright in the palm of his hand as he walked. Grover pinched the imaginary figurine between his thumb and index finger, as he had done with the real one less than twelve hours earlier, and placed her where she should have been. It felt right, the memory in his muscles confirming what he thought all along.
      Soft footfalls creaked overhead, and Grover made his way back to the stairs.
      “Henrietta?” he said, calling up to this wife though the ajar, ground level door. “Henrietta?” “What?” The reply was closely followed by her appearance in the doorway. She was a stout woman, adorned in her Sunday best. “What is it?”
      “You haven’t moved anything down here, have you?”
      She cocked her head and furrowed her eyebrows. “Why would I do that?”
      Grover nodded, and raised his hand to close the subject. “Just asking.”
      He stepped away from the stairs, and heard Henrietta walk back into the kitchen mumbling, “What a question. I’ve never touched this trains before.”
      The white steeple of Grover Gulch Baptist, prominently set on a hill overlooking the town, seemed to jump out at him afresh, and he moved in to investigate the church, just in case. Everything was as he’d left it. The minister greeted parishioners on the front door steps, while around back a group of men shared a six-pack and their latest fishing stories.
      “Reverend,” Grover said, acknowledging the minister with a nod. But he still had his own lost sheep to find, so he returned his attention to Ernie’s Grocery Mart.
      His eyes began to search 2nd, which ran the width of the peninsula, and he tried to imagine where else he might have placed her. There were a handful of pedestrians and motorists, the most prominent of which was Charles, the newspaper vender, raising the morning edition of the Gulch Gazette over his head at the corner of 2nd and Hazel. Grover imagined him shouting the headline, “Mrs. Taylor missing! Search for grocer’s customer proves fruitless!”
      “You haven’t seen her pass this way, have you Charles?” Grover asked, enjoying the fantasy that the tiny HO scale figure actually lived. He smiled when Charles gave no response. He wasn’t really expecting one. With a wink, he said, “Well, you let me know if you see her.”
      He carefully scanned 2nd again coming back the way he came. Then, he moved on to Pearl where he started with Walter’s Gas near the far edge of town. The station’s sign boasted “full service,” but Walter seemed content to nap in his chair despite the motorist in the convertible who waited by the pumps with a raised fist.
      “Still waiting, huh, Vince?” Grover said, as he continued to search Pearl. “If I were you, I’d just get out and pump my own gas.”
      Of course, Vince never would, nor would Walter ever wake from his nap. But that was entirely beside the point. It was the fantasy of it all that Grover loved; the paradox of creating life in miniatures that didn’t live; the beautiful balance between constancy and creativity.
      His gaze meandered along Pearl to where Mr. Wheaton swept the side walk in front of his hardware store. There were parked cars, pedestrians, a stray dog, and Ernie Miller still waiting for his promised customer.
      Two blocks later, at the Pearl Street Crossing, the search for Mrs. Taylor came to an end. She appeared to be walking to the farmer’s market near the wooded hills outside of town, but her shopping cart hadn’t quite cleared the tracks.
      “Oh, no, Mrs. Taylor,” Grover said, an affectionate scold in his voice. “That’s not a good place for you to be.”
      He lifted the wayward piece and placed her back in front of Ernie’s Grocery Mart where she belonged. Finally, everything was back to the way it should be. But Grover looked back at the Pearl Street Crossing and scratched his beard. What would have possessed him to have put the old woman on the tracks? More importantly, why didn’t he remember doing so? He could think of nothing, unless he had played at having her walk to the farmer’s market, and then got distracted at the worst possible moment. But why? Quincy had the tendency of moving grandpa’s people around, but Grover was always content to place them once and leave them there. Mrs. Taylor certainly hadn’t moved herself, had she? It wasn’t possible, yet…
      In a brutally honest moment, Grover questioned his own sanity. The mind could certainly be a cruel trickster at his age, and though he sought to give his creation a life of its own, perhaps, this time he’d overdone it.

Chapter 2

      The following morning, a flash lit the farmer’s market beyond the Pearl Street Crossing. Mrs. Taylor, once again out of place, was steps away from the roadside fruit and produce stands. Grover set the camera down on the portion of Pearl Street that curved off the board and into oblivion. He studied the scene, bemused. His index finger searched for answers in his beard. None came, so he returned the wayward shopper to Ernie’s Grocery Mart and documented everything in the log book.
      However, this time there were others out of place.
      Another flash illuminated Walter’s gas station, minus the convertible. Grover followed the street through the camera’s view finder to where the car was now driving past Ernie’s Grocery Mart. He considered removing Mrs. Taylor from the shot as that was not where he’d found her, but decided against it.
      He then followed 2nd to where Charles, newspapers and all, had switched corners. Flash. He looked up from the camera, down at Charles, scratched his beard, then returned to his workbench. Out of habit or compulsion, he set to writing these oddities in the blank pages of the log book, leaving room for the photos that would follow. Yet, out of habit or compulsion, even in a moment of senility, he would have documented moving Mrs. Taylor, Vince’s convertible, or Charles and his papers. The previous pages made no mention of any such event.
      Henrietta could have moved the pieces, though Grover couldn’t think of any reason why. Grover Gulch was his domain, not hers, and though she was certainly welcome to join him in his little fantasy world, she never ventured down here except with the grandkids. Henrietta could have moved the pieces, but Grover knew in his heart that she didn’t.
      He closed the log book, and returned it to its place on the shelf, likewise filing away the mystery in his mind. Leave it alone. Come back to it fresh. It’ll make sense once the subconscious has had a chance to mull it over.
      He walked around Grover Gulch to the switchyard which ran along the far wall, and engaged the power on his new favorite toy, a DCC radio receiver. Then, he took the small control console in his hands, and reacquainted himself with its many buttons and knobs. Throttle, horn, direction, keypad, select, emergency—the cab of an engine in a remote no larger than a paperback novel.
      His daughter, Pearl, had bought it for him, and though he was skittish about technology, it had proven to be worth his while to learn. The layout, after all, consumed the entirety of his basement, and the DCC remote allowed him to follow the progress of his trains without being tethered to one stationary spot.
      “Let’s see,” he said to himself, positioning his fingers over the keypad. “1, 7, 4, Select.”
      He gave the tracks a cursory, habitual check to make sure they were clear. His eyes lingered on the Pearl Street Crossing just to make sure nothing was amiss.
      Grover then turned around and gave his attention to Santa Fe #174, an old Mountain Class 4-8-2 steam engine waiting patiently in the yard. It emitted the sound effects of a churning boiler as an added touch of realism. He opened the throttle, and in an instant the command was sent to the receiver, relayed through the tracks, and received by the chip in the steam engine.
      The locomotive awoke from its slumber, slowly reaching forward so it wouldn’t jar the freight in the short line of cars behind it, or throw the men in the caboose to the floor. Grover smiled as he imagined Old Vern yelling to the fireman for more coal as #174 gathered speed down the stretch of rails ahead.
      It crept along through the switchyards to where the tracks converged to form the mainline, then followed the 90 degree curve to the right at the basement corner. From here, the train traveled the short stretch through the badlands where the tracks weaved around rock formations before following a ravine that lead it under a trestle.
      Ronald Black, the badlands hermit, stood on the porch of his ramshackle shack and watched the train go by. The old scavenger had surrounded himself with junk the mining company had left behind when Cooper Mountain went bust. Two halves of a truck sat apart with no promise of ever being reunited. Oil drums, piles of conduit, and an old generator rounded out his collection.
      The train reached alpine terrain then disappeared into a tunnel under Cooper Mountain. It reemerged on the other side and rounded Cooper’s Village—a small struggling community literally on the edge of the world, lingering on despite the odds. From there it returned to the badlands, crossed the trestle and rolled through the far side of the switchyard. The other basement wall forced it to turn to the left where a small village of hobos had set up a shanty town. Those in the camp waved at those in the boxcar as they passed each other. The line followed the back wall allowing another trestle to carry the train over the Grover Gulch River and the highway leading out of town. Both the river and road disappeared into a mural painted on the back wall.
      A synthetic chug, chug, chug plumed from the engine. The wheels behind it played a soothing thrum against the nickel rails punctuated by a chorus of clickety-clacks that passed in a round from car to car. To the model railroader, this was music, and the song worked chords in his mind, soft and easy, like a jazz ensemble determined to take it slow. Relaxed thoughts reached for the mental bookshelf and pulled down a mystery.
      “I suppose I could be sleepwalking,” Grover said to Old Vern as the vintage engine rolled behind and now away from the main town. The engineer of #174 would neither confirm nor deny the theory. Grover didn’t really expect him to do either.
      The line passed by the Civil War reenactment on a nearby hillside, and then curved again at the wall. It straightened out and proceeded down through Industrial Row, which was comprised of warehouses and factories standing in single file. The line finally looped on itself around an oil refinery at the far end and headed back the way it had come. A spur jutted out from the loop around the refinery and ventured onto Grover’s workbench, which sat nestled in the corner at the base of the stairs.
      Grover didn’t watch #174 as it crept back through Industrial Row. Instead, he passed through the three foot gap between the refinery and Cooper’s Village that led to his workbench. He sat down, and looked back at the peninsula that sprawled out into the center of the room—the town of Grover Gulch. His index finger found his beard once more as he contemplated Vince, the impatient gas station customer, who had somehow driven away, and Charles, the newspaper vender, who changed corners. The sleepwalking theory was certainly plausible. Still, he couldn’t imagine what purpose he would have had in moving those pieces around, even in his sleep. He shrugged as the steam engine ventured onto the peninsula. “That must be it.”
      Grover switched on the radio. Classical music filled the basement, drowning out the synthetic chug of the engine and the clicking of the rolling stock wheels.
      “What an odd thing, though,” he said, as he stood from his seat and returned to the outcropping peninsula. His eyes were focused on Ernie’s Grocery Mart and he positioned himself to double-check that everything was as he’d left it.
      It wasn’t.
      “What the—?”
      Suddenly, a new sound assaulted his ears; a horrible crunch followed by the buzzing hum of electricity trying to move a model train that wouldn’t budge. He whipped his attention to the Pearl Street crossing and gasped at what he saw. Mrs. Taylor was between the tracks as though attempting to cross the line. Consequently, Santa Fe #174 was now attempting to cross Mrs. Taylor.
      Grover immediately fussed with the controls, desperate to engage the Emergency Stop. But in the befuddlement of the moment, he accidentally opened the throttle fully. The eight drivers on #174 spun aggressively against Mrs. Taylor until Grover finally managed to press the emergency kill switch.
      But it was already too late for the beloved shopper. The force of the engine had bent her ankles so that she no longer stood up straight. Grover pulled the engine off of her and picked her up gently to examine the damage. He took her to the lighted magnifying glass at his workbench to get a better look. She didn’t look as bad as he had feared. With a little luck, he’d be able to repair her.
      Still, he couldn’t imagine how she had gotten back on the tracks. He was so sure he’d moved her! He set the damaged figurine on the workbench and checked the log book. It confirmed that he had moved her back to Ernie’s, if he could trust his own writing. Maybe he wrote it down but didn’t do it? Yet, he distinctly remembered returning her, and checking the line before running the train. All the same, she was on the line when #174 arrived.
      He took the camera from the workbench and photographed the damaged Mrs. Taylor. He checked the counter, one shot left. Grover returned to the Pearl Street crossing where Santa Fe #174 sat idle. Flash.
      The camera whirred as it automatically rewound the film back into the canister. Grover looked up from the view finder and scratched his beard. Sleep walking? Not mid-morning he wasn’t, not in the six minutes it had taken the locomotive to make its abbreviated run.
      He returned to his workbench and looked out over the town he’d created. It gave him the strange, unsettling feeling that it was looking back. He imagined that the Union and Confederate armies had ceased their endless struggle to stare him down in ridicule. They were joined by Old Vern and the fireman, Walter waking from his Rip Van Winkle nap, Charles the newsie, Vince from his convertible, the boys, Officer McDougal, the bathing beauties, and the tax men, until Grover sank beneath the weight of a hundred HO Scale faces glaring their disapproval.
      Grover closed his eyes and shook the image from his mind. He couldn’t allow himself to blur the line between fantasy and reality, at least not any more than he already had. Henrietta would surely say he’d finally lost his mind, and presently, Grover was beginning to wonder.
      He took the film from the camera and set the canister on the workbench. He could get it developed while they were out later that day. For now, he reset the DCC controller, and allowed Santa Fe #174 to run its course as he set to work on repairing Mrs. Taylor.
      The locomotive arrived at Cooper’s Village behind Grover. He glanced back at it, then at Grover Gulch, then quickly looked away. He returned his attention to the magnifying glass, to the trembling hand applying glue to the figurine’s ankles. They couldn’t be watching him. It wasn’t possible. Focus. Secure this here, apply that there, she’ll stand erect again. No one’s watching.
      A synthetic chug rounded the refinery to his right. Grover nodded to Old Vern as he always did, and for an instant he could have sworn their eyes met.
      He blinked. The engineer peered from the window, vigilant of the tracks ahead.
      Mrs. Taylor was almost finished now. Just a few more touch ups and she would be done. Let it all dry and she would be shopping at Ernie’s in no time. He couldn’t finish fast enough. His basement refuge had taken on the air of a haunted house, and when the repairs were finally done, he didn’t bother to park the train in the switchyard.
      A caboose dangled from the tunnel entrance as the world below went dark, and eager footsteps ascended, descended for the film canister, then ascended again to the security of the world above. At least, they couldn’t watch him there.
     

Chapter 3

      Grover forced himself back into the basement that afternoon. He knew he was being ridiculous—he’d been telling himself this all through lunch and his trip to Wal-Mart. Still, he peeked in at Grover Gulch before fully committing his feet to the basement floor. They seemed to be minding their own business now.
      Grover shook his head. He was being silly about this whole affair, not only in his suspicions of an inanimate model town, but also regarding the package of one-hour-photos he was afraid to open. Stay rational, old fool. Keep your wits about you and a sensible explanation for all of this will eventually present itself.
      Yet, Grover stood motionless at his work bench, holding the unopened packet.
      A deep breath, another, and at last he found his strength. The first twenty or so prints were benign enough: Terry, the hotdog vender in town square, neighborhood children on their bicycles, the pack of stray dogs behind the butcher shop, Mrs. Taylor standing where he’d placed her approaching Ernie’s Grocery Mart.
      Mrs. Taylor approaching the farmer’s market where he hadn’t placed her—these were the photos he dreaded. But he needed to see them, even at the outrageous expense of one hour processing.
      He flipped to the next print. Walter slept in his chair. No impatient customers waited by the pumps.
      He flipped to the next print. Vince gesticulated from his convertible at the grocer … and Mrs. Taylor. He had moved her back; his memory wasn’t failing.
      Yet, two prints later, he saw Mrs. Taylor lying on the workbench, bent unnaturally at the ankles, which meant she wasn’t where he had left her, which meant …
      Grover laid the pictures on the workbench. Perhaps it was better to think he was finally loosing his mind.
      He checked his repair job on Mrs. Taylor. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do. He put her back on the layout in front of Ernie’s Grocery Mart. At first, he didn’t notice that Vince was missing, but then remembered the photograph. He froze, checked the length of Pearl Street. No convertible. He widened his search and immediately spotted the rogue motorist on 2nd, now waving his fist at Charles.
      Grover hadn’t touched the car in months, not even to return it to its proper place. But something had certainly moved it, and moved it since this morning. Rodents? No, not when the changes were this precise. Vince was even driving on the right side of the street.
      He scratched his beard, and the film The Exorcist came to mind. He was being ridiculous again, but he still gave the notion a surprising amount of thought.
      “No.” he said out loud, forcing the thought away. “I’m not going to let myself get spooked like this.” After all, that sort of thing doesn’t really happen.
      Grover walked around to the switchyard and busied himself with the business of the railroad. He pressed the power button, then took his DCC controller and selected another freight train from the yard. Southern Pacific #3401 and #3512, a pair of diesel engines linked back to back, rumbled to life in their synthetic sort of way. Air hissed from imaginary air-break hoses that ran the length of the train.
      At Grover’s command, the engines pulled ahead, followed by a row of thirty mismatched freight cars. Hoppers for grain, hoppers for coal, tankers, box cars, flat cars carrying timber and pipes, a gondola carrying scrap iron of every shape, container cars piled two racks high in some cases; it was nothing specific bound for nowhere specific—a “junk train.” It pulled away from the switchyard at Grover’s command and headed into the badlands.
      The tracks! Grover had forgotten to check!
      He shook his head, hoping the nonsense would come tumbling out.
      The junk train entered the badland just as Grover noticed the caboose protruding from the tunnel’s entrance.
      Quickly he checked his remote. He’d run two trains at once before, but not under this kind of pressure. For a moment, he considered stopping the junk train, but he remembered the procedure and pressed the appropriate buttons. Santa Fe #174 appeared around Cooper’s Village as the junk train ducked beneath the trestle, and the old locomotive crossed the trestle with the last hoppers of the junk train lumbering beneath. The headlights of the diesel train could already be seen in Cooper’s Village, so Grover gave the old locomotive a bit more steam. It ducked into a spur in the yard, and Grover closed the switch behind it with time to spare. The old steamer came to a stop, and let the junk train pass.
      Grover sighed with relief, now that the potential disaster had been averted. Still, he shook his head. He had to stop this foolishness of thinking impossible things. They were distractions, and distractions were going to lead to accidents. Or at least, another accident. He checked the corner of Pearl Street and 2nd to make sure Mrs. Taylor was still there, then chided himself for doing so. This was exactly what he was telling himself not to do.
      Once the junk train was clear, Grover backed Santa Fe #174, and its short line of box cars back around Cooper’s Village and into its proper place in the yard. He’d just finished when the junk train entered the yard at the other end.
      He returned to his workbench and took out the log book. Then he pulled out a pen and tapped it against his lip. What would he write? More madness about pieces that seemed to be moving on their own? Grover thought of the grandkids flipping through this book in the years to come, and reading about this most grievous of senior moments. This is when Grandpa started going down hill. Maybe he didn’t have to record these latest events? Maybe he could cover them up with some kind of fabricated tale?
      Grover began to write, saying that Vince decided he didn’t need gas as badly as he thought, so he set out to cruise the streets of Grover Gulch. He would return to Walter’s Gas Station eventually, but Walter, of course, would still be asleep. Charles switched corners hoping to improve his newspaper sales. And Mrs. Taylor got into a spat with Ernie Miller over the price of asparagus and simply took her business elsewhere. However, her journey to the farmer’s market proved to be more of an adventure than she bargained for, and after a near miss with a train she returned to Ernie’s Grocery Mart. Ernie, in turn, admitted that he does charge too much, and presently the two are haggling over her loyal customer discount.
      Grover closed the book, content with the fiction he had fabricated. It sounded sane, reasonable, not at all delusional or silly.
      A pair of diesel engines rumbled in the old mining town behind him. Grover smiled. The junk train had made several laps around the main line in the last half hour, and hit nothing. Perhaps things were returning to normal.
      He returned the book to the shelf and reached for the unfinished pieces of the work train kit. The dormitory and repair cars already sat completed on the workbench spur, waiting for the switchyard cow to haul them away to the badlands so the crew could begin maintenance on the tracks that once serviced the mine. The boom car was nearly complete, which meant Grover could finally start work on the crane today, though the tiny thread cables promised to be a challenge.
      He reached for the radio and switched it on to the AM band where he searched through the static for some interesting talk radio.
      “I agree with what you’re saying,” a man’s voice said, replacing the static through the speakers. “He has done a lot for the community as a whole, but there are lines that cannot be crossed, even by him.”
      Grover always loved a good debate, so he released the dial and returned his attention to gluing the break wheel into place on the boom car. The magnifying glass helped him see the peg where he was to place the glue. He removed the cap from the tube, and the acrid smell quickly found Grover’s nostrils.
      “But who are we to set those lines?” the caller said. “I mean, who are we to say his actions, however harsh they may seem to us, don’t lead to some greater good?”
      “Greater good?” the first voice said, which Grover assumed belonged to the host of the show. “A woman’s legs were broken because she wouldn’t submit, and you assume there is some greater good?”
      The caller fell silent at this statement. Grover looked up at the radio, intrigued. This subject wasn’t typical talk show fodder.
      “I don’t claim to under stand it all.”
      The host feigned surprise. “Really? My, Chuck, you truly have a gift for understatements.”
      “Look,” Chuck said, “all I’m saying is—”
      “Give it up, Chuck. Past deeds aside, assaulting a little old lady is just inexcusable.”
      Grover nodded and voiced his hearty agreement. “Here, here.”
      “We don’t know it was an assault.”
      “Oh, no, Chuck, not the accident theory again.”
      “I could have been.”
      “Face the facts, Chuck.”
      “What facts, Buck?” the caller asked, undaunted. “The ‘fact’ that you assume the Big Man is harboring malicious intent? Nice theory, but I don’t buy it.”
      The host hardly let him finish. “Tell that to Mrs. Taylor.”
      Grover glanced back at the radio at the sound of the familiar name.
      “She wasn’t where she was supposed to be,” Chuck said.
      “Neither are you, Chuck, or do you think the Big Man didn’t notice you switched corners?”
      Grover froze; the boom car in one hand, the glued break wheel pinched between the thumb and index finger of the other. His eyes, no longer focused through the magnifying glass, stared in blank shock at the radio. His mind raced to the corner of 2nd and Hazel. “Charles?”
      “You’d better watch out, Chuck,” Buck said, taunting his caller, “Or the Big Man might get mad and hit you with a train too!”
      The boom car clattered to the workbench before Grover even realized he’d dropped it. “What?”
      “I didn’t move as far,” Charles said in his own defense.
      “But, you did move,” Buck said. “Yes, sir. You wanted a little taste of freedom—a sampling of independence—and when the opportunity came you took it. Not that I’m passing moral judgments. I mean, is that really such a crime, Chuck?”
      “Well… I…”
      “The prices Ernie Miller charges for his produce, now that’s a crime. But does the Big Man teach him a lesson with several tons of machinery? No, he’s too busy with the little old ladies on a fixed income who just want a better deal! Is that the greater good you were referring too, Chuck?”
      Charles stammered for something to say, but only produced short bursts of unintelligible syllables.
      Likewise, Grover tried vainly to wrap his mind around what he was hearing. This wasn’t possible. It had to be his imagination playing tricks on him again. Marbles, perhaps not yet lost, were certainly gushing from a tear in the bag.
      “You know what, Chuck, just forget about it. I’m glad you moved. I’m glad that jerk in the convertible drove off and let Walter, lazy bum that he is, have his little nap. I mean, really! Learn to pump your own gas, people! Vince, I’m talking to you. I know you can hear me.
      “The point is, move. If you don’t like where you’re placed, then go somewhere else. Do something different with your life. And if the Big Man doesn’t like it, tough. There aren’t enough trains in the switchyard to get us all. I’m Buck Sanders, and you’ve been listening to K-H-O, talk radio.”
      Grover turned his eyes to the small radio station which stood in the corner of the peninsula closest to the workbench. The call letters on the neighboring tower were KHO, and Buck Sanders’ second hand mustang sat parked nearby.
      “No,” Grover uttered through trembling lips. “It’s impossible!”
      Yet, despite the protestations of his rational mind, the impossible was happening.

Chapter 4

      Moments later, Grover returned to the basement, ashen faced, with Henrietta in tow.
      “Grover,” she said, concern obvious in her voice. “What’s going on? What’s this about?”
      He didn’t answer but proceeded to the layout. He turned to face her, and saw that she had stopped at the base of the steps.
      “Grover, dear?”
      “This is going to sound like I’ve gone crazy, but the town has come alive.”
      Henrietta laughed her relief, as though she were the good natured victim of a prank. They’d joked about this before.
      “This time,” Grover said, “it isn’t funny.”
      Henrietta looked at her husband, still amused, then bemused, then somber.
      Grover began to recount his story, pointing to the appropriate sections of the layout. “Yesterday, I found one my people crossing the tracks on Pearl Street as she was going to the farmer’s market over here.”
      “On the tracks?” Henrietta asked. “Why would you place her there?
      “I didn’t. I have written proof that I placed her here, by Ernie’s Grocery Mart. I returned her to her proper place yesterday, but this morning she was at the farmer’s market, here.”
      “So you’re moving pieces without remembering,” Henrietta said with a dismissive shrug. “We can call the doctor if you like.”
      Grover shook his head. Just as he’d feared, she wasn’t listening. “Later this morning, I hit her with a train. I placed her back at Ernie’s Grocery Mart—I have the pictures to prove it—and then ran my steamer through a lap watching it make its run. I took my eyes off the damn thing and it hit Mrs. Taylor as she was crossing the tracks on her way back to the farmer’s market.”
      “Grover, dear,” Henrietta said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sure it’s nothing. You must have dropped her there when you were distracted or something.”
      “And she just happened to land on her base, between the rails, and facing the farmer’s market?”      “I suppose.” Henrietta shrugged again, still unable or unwilling to accept his account.
      Grover pressed on.
      “Other pieces have moved, too.” He pointed to 2nd and Hazel. “Charles the newspaper vender crossed the street. He used to be on the right side, but now he’s on the left.”
      Henrietta looked down 2nd. “No,” she said. “He’s on the right side of the street, which is where I remember him. But why is that motorist yelling at a girl?”
      “What?”
      Grover took another look down the street and saw Vince shaking his fist at a young girl. She looked like Marietta, who was supposed to be joining her friends in the soda shop a few blocks away. Grover checked. Her spot outside the soda shop was empty. As his eyes explored the layout, he discovered that Marietta wasn’t the only one who chose to relocate without Grover’s aid.
      “I think you’ve just been spending too much time down here,” Henrietta said. “Get outside more often. Enjoy the fresh air. It might clear this whole thing up.”
      “But I heard Buck Sanders on the radio, Henrietta. I’m not going crazy! I saw what I saw!”
      “I’m sure you did, dear,” Henrietta said in her appeasing tone. “Now come for a walk with me. Leave this fantasy world of yours alone for a while.”
      “But—”
      “Come on.” Her voice was kind, but it wasn’t a request.
      The sound of two diesel engines rumbling through industrial row behind him reminded Grover that he had left his trains running. From the workbench, the radio played a classic rock song he couldn’t identify. He wanted to continue pleading his case, but the look in his wife’s eyes told him that the conversation was over.
      “I’ll be right up,” he said, hanging his head to concede defeat. “Just let me shut everything down first.”
      “I’ll hold you to it,” Henrietta said with a smile. With that she ascended the steps.
      Grover looked back at Grover Gulch, specifically at 2nd and Hazel where Charles had repentantly returned to his original spot.
      “Why are you guys doing this?” This time, he half expected to hear Charles speak, but the newsman said nothing.
      “Tell them to stop,” he said to the miniature man. “Tell them to go back to where I placed them, and tell them that Mrs. Taylor was an accident. I love you guys—every single one of you—and I have my reasons for placing you where you are.”
      Grover opened his mouth to continue his speech, but then stopped as his taxed mind registered the foolishness of it all. Talking to inanimate objects was nothing new; expecting them to reply was. He knew it was all pretend, like when he was a boy giving orders to his toy troops. But this time, the toys were really coming to life, moving on their own, and speaking—even slanderously—against their creator. It was a crazy problem, which probably called for a crazy solution.
      He continued his lecture, despite himself. “Spread the word. That’s what newsmen are supposed to do, right? Tell them to stay where they’ve been placed, and if anyone gives you any back talk about it, tell them Grover, the Big Man, sent you.”
      The diesel junk train snaked its way through the town, passed the hobo village and into the switchyard. Grover parked it there, and killed the power. Then, he walked over to his work bench and turned off the lighted magnifying glass.
      Just then, the song ended and a voice came through the speakers. “You’re listening to K-H-O, talk radio—the voice of Grover Gulch.”
      Grover’s expression fell as he switched it off, plunging the room into silence. He ascended the steps and mumbled, “Why couldn’t you have said that a minute ago when Henrietta was listening?”
     

Chapter 5

      Grover didn’t return to the basement until the following afternoon.
      “Really, children, Grandpa’s having some problems with his trains right now and I don’t think you should be—”
      “Oh, dad, relax,” Pearl said, descending the steps with little Jasmine in her arms. “It doesn’t matter if they’re not running, they just want to look. You know how Quincy loves your models.”
      Quincy had already reached the bottom landing, leading the procession much faster than Grover’s aged legs could match. “Hey, mom!” he said with all the enthusiasm of a seven year old, “Grandpa changed it! Come see!”
      Grandpa hadn’t changed a thing, but there wasn’t any arguing the point.
      “Wow! Mom, it’s so cool!”
      Grover cringed. He’d seen the toys Quincy played with—three headed monsters with laser eyes, disproportional skateboarding punks with wild clothes, those Japanese Super Rangers. He had a fairly good idea of what this seven year-old boy considered “cool,” and he was afraid to look when he got to the bottom of the steps. Grover braced himself for the worst, and opened his eyes.
      He hadn’t braced himself hard enough.
      Not only had the pieces moved, but they had also changed poses! Bedlam reigned in his once peaceful, civil community, and Grover surveyed each scene with an increasing sense of horror.
      Charles, the newspaper vender, was being held up by a gang of hobos who’d wandered in from their camp. Newspapers, no longer gathered in a neat bundle, were scattered like garbage in the streets.
      The young men in the alleyway between Jasmine and Quincy had joined the beauties in the swimming pool. Street clothes and bathing suits lay strewn carelessly around the yard, and this time it was Officer McDougal who was taking advantage of the hole in the fence.
      Greg, the hunter, had finally found the buck, and was riding him through town near Pearl and 2nd. Ernie, the grocer, was running for his life, while Mrs. Taylor pointed his direction as though to help the hunter track him down.
      Walter had awakened from his nap at the gas station to find that Vince had returned with Marietta in the seat beside him. Walter’s mood was apparently foul at being roused and he was taking a baseball bat to the convertible’s hood, despite the protests of its passengers.
      The fire department had lost interest in the kitten up the tree, and had opted to roast marshmallows at the ever burning I.R.S. building.
      The civil war reenactment had turned to guerilla warfare within the city limits, where a few unlucky civilians learned the hard way that they weren’t firing blanks.
      A change in clientele at the farmer’s market told of a different line of produce being sold. Already, it was beginning to look more like a rave.
      In the badlands, Ronald Black, the hermit, had set himself up as the mayor of Cooper’s Village. He walked through the only street the community had and was greeted by the residents in their version of a ticker tape parade.
      On the other side of the room in Industrial Row, most of the employees had gone on strike. They carried signs as they picketed, and while Grover couldn’t read the tiny print, he thought he was able to make out the words, “Remember Mrs. Taylor.”
      In the entire layout, only Grover Gulch Baptist remained unchanged.
      Pearl noticed the changes rather quickly. “My, dad, you’ve been busy,” she said to Grover. Then she noticed the swimming pool. “I think I liked it better the other way, though.”
      “Me too,” Grover said.
      She opened her mouth as though to ask why he’d changed it, but closed it again without saying anything.
      Quincy had found the soldiers locked in combat, and the budding warrior awoke within his heart. The sounds of battle poured from his mouth as well as a seven-year-old can produce them.
      “P’shew, p’shew, eh, eh, eh, eh, kaboom!”
      “Quincy!” Henrietta said, with a wag of her finger as she reached the basement floor. “You know Grandma doesn’t like you playing war. No more gun sounds.”
      “Bang! Bang! ‘Get em!’ P’shew!”
      “Quincy,” Grover said in a firm voice. “Don’t do that, all right son?”
      “But Grandpa…”
      Pearl intervened, and Grover was able to return his attention to puzzling out the mysteries at hand. What had come over his layout, his beloved hobby, the world he’d created? How was it coming to life? Why was it turning against him? And perhaps most importantly, what was he going to do to fix it? Was fixing it even possible? What was the point in replacing rebellious pieces when they would simply move themselves right back?
      “Grover, dear,” Henrietta asked, “is this new?”
      Grover looked up, somewhat annoyed at being distracted again, and saw that she was pointing to the spot behind the church. He joined her just to double check his answer before giving it. Six men, one beer each, sat on crates or leaned against the church wall enjoying each other’s company—exactly as he’d left them.
      “No, honey,” he said with a dismissive wave and promptly returned to the mystery which preoccupied his mind. “They’ve always been there.”
      His answer was true, but it wasn’t right.
      “Mr. Clark,” Henrietta said firmly. “Are you sure you didn’t make any changes to the church?”
      “Yes, dear,” Grover said, never taking his eyes off the layout. He hadn’t changed anything, as a matter of fact, but he’d tried to explain that before.
      Grover didn’t notice his wife’s expression, though he should have been able to hear it in her tone.
      Pearl noticed. “Quincy, let’s go upstairs and play, alright.”
      “But mom…”
      “Quincy, now.”
      Unhappy footfalls ascended the steps.
      “Mr. Grover Clark,” Henrietta said, almost through gritted teeth.
      “What, woman?” he said, impatient at being interrupted yet again. He turned his full and fully annoyed attention upon her. But that’s when he finally saw the look on her face, a look reserved for disgruntled wives and elementary school teachers. His demeanor melted at once.
      “These men are new, aren’t they?” she asked, pretending to be calm.
      “No,” he said very matter-of-factly.
      “I haven’t seen them before,” she said, slightly less reserved.
      “You haven’t noticed them before. They were ‘the finishing touch’ I put in on the church when I built it, but that was years ago. It’s not a recent addition.”
      “Everything else is different, why shouldn’t I believe they were changed too?”
      “I haven’t changed anything!” he said in his own defense, thinking better of speaking only when it was already too late.
      “Grover Travis Clark!” Henrietta said, pointing to the world of evidence that contradicted his statement. “Don’t lie to me. You changed the church, didn’t you?”
      After a moment, Grover shook his head.
      “You did,” she said. “My favorite part of the layout—the part you specifically said was mine, for me— and you tampered with it like you did with the rest of your stupid little town?”
      Grover opened his mouth and slouched forward. Henrietta never belittled his hobby this way before.
      He recovered from the verbal blow, and tried once again to explain. “The town is changing itself, like with Mrs. Taylor, but now all—”
      Henrietta shook her head. “Shame on you, Grover Clark. A little boy like Quincy would believe that these characters of yours could move on their own, but you’re a grown man who should know better. You don’t honestly expect me to believe that your train set magically came to life, do you?”
      Actually, yes, but this time he thought before speaking.
      “You never saw the pictures I took,” Grover said reaching for the packet on his workbench. “They’ll prove what I’m telling you.”
      Henrietta rolled her eyes, and threw her hands up in resignation. “You’re being impossible.”
      He held the photos up for her to see but she didn’t even glance at them as she reached for the railing.
      “No, listen,” he said, abandoning the pictures and turning on the radio.
      Henrietta was already ascending the stairs in quick, frustrated steps when Buck Sanders’ voice filled the room.
      “… ‘bout time too. You heard me, folks: freedom rally, tonight. Maybe we’ll even get a few laughs out of that Zealot, Chuck.”
      “Come on,” Grover said, coaxing the radio. He glanced back at Henrietta as she neared the top of the stairs. “Give your station identification.”
      Buck didn’t comply. “Let’s take another caller. Hey, loser, you’re on the air.”
      Henrietta had reached the top landing, and Grover knew that his chances for vindication were leaving with her.
      “Hey, Buck. I love the show, and I just wanted to say, ‘right on!’”
      Grover grabbed the log book from the shelf, quickly stepped to the edge of the layout where the KHO building stood, and gave the wooden support beams a hearty smack.
      “Hey, thanks you little—”
      Buck was suddenly unable to finish, and Grover could hear him tumbling to the floor. Other crashing sounds rattled through the radio, including the caller’s curses as the impact reverberated through the layout. Even a few cars in the switchyard wobbled.
      “See!” Grover said, looking up the stairs just in time to see Henrietta close the door behind her. He’d delivered proof positive that he was telling the truth, and she’d missed it.
      Grover’s shoulders slumped and he let the log book slip from his hands to the floor. She would undoubtedly apologize to Pearl and the kids, most likely explaining that Grandpa wasn’t feeling well and needed some time alone. He’d let her talk; it was true enough.
      Buck came back on the air. “Whoa! Now that was something else! Is everyone okay?”
      There was panic in his voice, and Grover liked to hear it. He wanted Buck’s attention; he wanted Buck to fear him—to respect him for who he was; his loving creator. Grover would have preferred Buck to love him back, but regardless, Grover would be respected by him—by him and by all the characters and figurines he’d placed in Grover Gulch.
      He inspected the layout one more time. Many of the figurines had been knocked over, and those left standing looked horror struck.
      “Straighten up!” he said sternly, waving a condemning finger at the layout as a whole, scolding it like a disobedient child. “Straighten up, or so help me!”
      At 2nd and Hazel, he saw that Charles was one of the toppled characters. Lovingly, he righted him and set him back on his corner. “Tell them that this was a warning,” Grover said. “Tell them I don’t appreciate being made a fool of like this, and if this town doesn’t get its act together I will strike it with a hammer next time.”
      He placed his hand on the layout for support as he reached down to retrieve the log book from the floor.
      “Wow,” Buck commented with a shaky voice. “That was intense. Are we still on the air?”
      “Unfortunately,” Grover said as he returned the log book to its rightful place and switched off the radio. He had more important matters to attend to upstairs. But he would return; hopefully to a layout that had come to its senses, to each piece in its rightful place.

Chapter 6

      The following day, Grover sat at his work bench reminded of the final, senile years of his mother’s life. It had been hard enough to watch one person he loved lose their minds. But now…
      “I’m telling you, Buck, those so-called-scientists can shove their explanation of ‘The Great Earthquake’ up where the sun don’t shine. Foundations of the world settling, my butt. The truth is that what we felt were the shockwaves from a munitions accident in an underground, top-secret, government facility.”
      “Munitions accident?” Buck said. “So, you don’t think it was a crashed UFO in the badlands, as an esteemed colleague of yours suggested earlier?”
      “Well, it’s certainly plausible, Buck, I mean you’d be amazed at what the government is able to cover up these days. But believe me, the munitions dump miles beneath the town is real. Mark my words, it’s a wonder those military hacks didn’t blow us all to pieces.”
      Grover shook his head as he checked the paint on an HO scale hobo, the last of his ambassadors. He gently cradled the tiny figure in his hand.
      “Interesting. Or at the very least it’s better than what Clucky Chuck has been proselytizing all day.”
      The caller laughed. “The grumpy Big Man theory? Now that’s just crazy talk.”
      Grover raised one eyebrow and looked back over the town he loved—the town that bore his name, but showed him no allegiance. “Crazy talk?” he said, rising from his seat and walking over to the peninsula. Now, nothing, save the church, was as he’d left it. Anarchy found life in HO scale, like a disobedient youngster flaunting his rebellion while the parent counts to three.
      “You’re listening to K-H-O, the voice of the glorious Move Movement.”
      Grover chuffed; there was no glory in their shame. If only the pieces had been content to simply repositioning themselves. But they had not, and in addition to blocking the tracks with debris and derailing the trains in the switchyard, rebel graffiti appeared all around town. Nowhere was this as prominent as on the walls of KHO, where the red, encircled “M” stood as tall as the building on which it was painted.
      Grover’s eyes wandered the tiny town, finding the offensive symbol everywhere. It was on the alley fence between Quincy and Jasmine. It was on the pavement between the gas station pumps, a decal hood ornament on Vince’s convertible, and in the window of Ernie’s Grocery Mart. The Pearl Street Crossing had been tagged. The warehouses had been tagged. Even the diesel engines of the junk train would need to be repainted.
      He shook his head. Why deface the trains? But wasn’t the answer obvious? Grover loved the trains; they were the reason he build the town. Why did Grover Gulch vent its vehemence against the trains? Because the trains were the closest it could get to Grover’s heart. He suppressed his sense of outrage, and allowed his love for his creation to rule the day. Perhaps there was still time to bring them to their senses. Perhaps, he could still make things right.
      The junk train turned to enter Grover Gulch, its tail end still retreating from Industrial Row. Grover checked the line ahead of it, and wasn’t at all surprised to find the tracks obstructed. An oil drum lay between the rails just before 3rd. An old truck sat in harms way further down near KHO. Both were removed before the engineer had a chance to be concerned, but the tiny slogan, “Remember Mrs. Taylor,” remained visible on the ties at the spots where the debris had been placed. Grover sighed. From where he stood between the peninsula and Industrial Row, he counted nine such tags.
      He walked around to the other side where there were more. A barricade of stacked crates sat waiting for the train, but Grover took care of it long before the engines rounded the corner. Grover watched it approach; an anaconda swallowing the tagged ties in its path, slithering through a town that despised it, just as they despised its master.
      Grover sighed again and placed the hobo ambassador in the shanty town.
      “Tell them to straighten up,” he said to the tiny man. “Though I should probably just pack you all away and start over.”
      But the threat didn’t taste right in his mouth. The junk train passed between him and the hobo village creating a moving barrier that parted the creator from his rebellious world—a metaphor for the ache in his heart. He’d invested too much of himself into this world, so much so that packing it away like that would feel like locking disobedient children in the cellar. He didn’t have the will to give up on them so easily.
      The junk train entered the switch yard, and as the tail end left Grover Gulch, Grover flipped a switch on the control panel. Two switches buzzed and closed off the main line with a snap. The train wouldn’t bother Grover Gulch on the next pass. He hoped they would return the favor.
      He looked back at the hobo he’d just place on the layout, shook his head, and waved his hands though the air. “Never mind my frustration, just tell them to straighten up.”
      He walked back to his workbench and sat down to begin what he considered to be his masterpiece in model making—an HO scale replica of himself. All the while, he listened to Buck Sanders whine.
      “And what’s with all these newcomers? I mean, really! First we had to listen to Clucky Chuck, the nutcase newsie, telling us about this Grover guy, and now we’ve got strangers popping up all over town! I say that if the Big Man is such a great guy, then why doesn’t he just knock it off and leave us alone? Are you with me, people? Let’s take a caller. Hello, loser, you’re on the air.”
      “Hello, Buck. Love the show, and I totally agree with you.”
      “Why thank you, you little kiss-up,” Buck said in his usual abrasive shtick. “And who might you be?”
      “Frank Morgan,” the caller answered. “I live in Cooper’s Village.”
      “Hey, the old defunct mining town! Big Man Grover has certainly been good to you folks, hasn’t he?”
      “Uh, Big Man Cooper, actually, Buck. Those newcomer quacks have no idea what they’re talking about.”
      “Frank Morgan of Cooper’s Village, you’re my new best friend! Either that, or we’ll have to sign you up for our ‘Toad Eater of the Month’ award.”
      Frank laughed. “I just tell it like it is, Buck. But keep you eyes on Cooper’s Village. We’re in a slump right now, but Mayor Black is really turning things around, and once the mine reopens we’re going to be prosperous again. Cooper might even make us the capital city.”
      Grover put down his modeling clay and swiveled around to face the small collection of ramshackle buildings behind him. Cooper’s Village, a capital city? Now that was crazy talk.
      “Really?” Buck said to his caller. “So you Kooky Cooperites honestly think the mine’s going to reopen someday?”
      “The mountain bears the Big Man’s name, Buck,” Frank answered. “It’s not a matter of if, but when.”
      “Well, there you have it, folks,” Buck said, clapping his hands in a show of enthusiasm. “Cooper Mountain—the new Mecca of our world. And if any of you closed-minded, Grover-supporting whack jobs out there wanna get upset about it, I say deal. Open your minds. Let go of your traditions and embrace new realities. After all, what’s in a name? Come on, people. Grover, Cooper, Cleatus; personally, I call the Big Man Bob! But I mean, really! It’s all the same guy, right?”
      “Wrong,” Grover said, voicing his indignance. Cooper had not invested his thousands of dollars in kits and materials. Cleatus did not spend years of loving hard work to bring them into being. They were not an expression of Bob’s creativity. He, Grover, had created them in his image, and he would not be so easily tossed aside as they tried to recreate him in an image of their own.
      He returned himself to his masterpiece, the model would use it to win them back. Every nine minutes the junk train passed near his workbench. It was his only reference to time as he sculpted the hardened modeling clay into an HO scale image of himself. Looking through the magnifier he carefully, and steadily, crafted the face, the beard, the defiant crown of thinning grey hair.
      Then came the paint. Hours passed as he worked the painstaking details into the tiny figure. The buckles on the overalls, the checked pattern in the plaid shirt; every miniature detail showing him as he was in real life, in the hopes that Grover Gulch—and yes, even Cooper’s Village—could finally know him, and realize his plans for them were good. At last the figurine stood complete, and Grover admired his work as the paint dried, almost willing himself into the tiny copy on the workbench.
      The song, “Another One Bites the Dust,” started playing on the radio; the celebratory backdrop for Buck’s voice. “That’s right, folks, another one’s gone and another one’s gone—one less Grover fanatic to worry about. I’m telling you. Bob bless the guy who invented the firing squad.”
      Grover shook his head as he stood to his feet, and carried the tiny copy of himself to town square. Such reports had been coming in all day. But regardless of how the town of Grover Gulch treated his ambassadors, surely they’d revere the image of the Big Man himself. The miniature came to rest prominently in the center of the square. Then, Grover looked over the town one more time.
      “This is me,” he said pointing to the figure he’d just set in place. “This is who I am. Know me, and love me, as I know and love all of you.”
      He looked down on his own image again and smiled. Then he looked at his watch and realized the lateness of the hour. So he parked the junk train in the switchyard, bid good night to his beloved Grover Gulch, and ascended the stairs to the real world above.
     

Chapter 7

      Grover laid his head on this pillow, closed his eyes, and after a few moments of drowsy contemplation, he found himself standing in the middle of a darkened town square. A large, rectangular moon lit the plastic buildings that towered around him, and Grover knew at once where he was—Grover Gulch. Seizing the moment, he rushed to greet the nearest person he could find, a young mother who tended her child in a baby buggy.
      “Excuse me, Lisa Fletcher?”
      She looked at the stranger, taken aback. “How do you know my name?”
      “I gave it to you. I created this world, and placed you in it, though it was actually over there by the fountain.”
      “Oh, I get it. You’re one of those Grover fanatics, aren’t you?”
      “I am Grover, Grover Clark, creator of Grover Gulch, and—”
      “Come along, Susie,” she said to the child in the buggy. “Let’s get away from this strange man.”
      “I’m not a strange man, I’m Big Man Grover.”
      “All the more reason to keep our distance,” she answered over her shoulder, widening the gap between them in a kind of walking run.
      Grover let her go, slumped his shoulders, and looked around. Everyone else in town square had noticed the encounter, and all eyes were on him.
      “I am Grover Clark, your creator,” he said, shouting so everyone could hear him. “My plans for you are good, and the places I’ve placed you are good.”
      The silhouetted crowd stirred, murmured, kept their distance as though he were a wild man who’d escaped from the circus.
      “Return to where I’ve placed you,” he said, taking a step towards the nearest group.
      They backed away the same distance. All around him, Grover could hear a collective gasp.
      “I’m not here to hurt you,” he said. “I just want you to be what I created you to be.”
      “Then you should have created us to be free,” a young man said. Grover didn’t see which one, but the rest of the assembly agreed with him.
      “We’ve heard this line before,” another said. Grover saw that it was Terry, the hotdog vender. “You can think what ever you want, stranger, but you might want to keep this opinion to yourself.”
      “My ‘opinion’ is fact,” Grover said. “I am the one who made this world.”
      “Well, as long as we’re dealing with facts,” Terry said in his deep burly voice, “then let me tell you about this little beauty.” His eyes were cold, almost angry. “Accidents happen, just ask your friend.”
      Terry motioned to a figure crawling through the green, felt grass. It was a man in a suit whom Grover recognized as his ambassador to town square. His flesh body and fabric suit became mangled plastic just above the knees.
      “I’m sorry, sir,” the ambassador said. “I tried to tell them, but they wouldn’t listen.”
      “Damn near wouldn’t shut up is more like it,” Terry said. His smile broadened. “But ever since his accident, he’s learned to respect the opinions of others.”
      Grover looked down at the ambassador’s disfigured legs and wished there was something he could do. Perhaps if he just straightened them out—yes, that would work, somehow he knew it would. He took hold of the man’s left ankle and pulled it downward, smoothing out the rest of the leg with his other hand. The plastic transformed back into an organic limb. He repeated this with the other leg, reformed the feet, and helped the man stand.
      The surrounding crowd stood speechless, unable to believe what they had seen. Grover met their astonished faces, especially that of Terry, the hotdog vender. “My name is Grover Clark. I am your maker. I am your purpose. I placed you where you belong.”
      “Like I was saying,” the ambassador said. “Go back to where he placed you.” He pointed to the woman with the baby buggy, who had returned in the safety of the crowd. “Lisa, didn’t you even admit to me that you felt happier by the fountain?”
      She straightened, stiffened. “I value my freedom.”
      The crowd agreed.
      “But if it doesn’t make you happy—”
      “I’m happy.” Lisa didn’t look it.
      “Go back to where I’ve placed you,” Grover said, pleading with the crowd. “Go back to where you used to be.”
      Most of them shook their heads, or waved their arms in a dismissive gesture. But they all turned to go, leaving Grover and his ambassador alone in the square.
      “Come with me, sir. This town has become dangerous for those who support you—I can only imagine what you’ll suffer at their hand.”
      “I’ve already suffered.”
      “All the more reason to get you somewhere safe, sir.”
      Grover was shocked by the offer. “Safe? I didn’t come here to be safe.”
      “You should reconsider. The fire department isn’t roasting marshmallows at the I.R.S. building anymore, if you get my meaning. Have you heard about the firing squads?”
      Grover nodded.
      “The only place still loyal to you, sir, is Grover Gulch Baptist. A few of us have taken refuge there, and I’m thinking about joining them.”
      Grover sighed. “Do what you must, but understand that reaching my world is something I need to do, and I can’t do that if I’m hiding where it’s safe.”
      “But, sir—”
      “I need to be about my business, but if you can’t join me, then go about your own.”
      Grover turned to go, leaving the ambassador standing by himself. Hurried footsteps caught up with him a moment later.
      “My maker is my business,” the ambassador said, looking ashamed of himself for his lack of courage. “Lead on, sir.”
      Grover smiled and led the ambassador out of town square. He found his way to the alley between Quincy and Jasmine where even at night Officer MacDougal stood ever vigilant at the hole in the fence.
      Grover called his name from the opening of the alley. The policeman glanced his direction and ran the other way. Grover and the ambassador chased him, but they stopped near the peep hole.
      “Did you hear that?” a young girl said from the other side of the fence.
      “It’s probably nothing,” a male voice answered.
      “Go back to where I placed you, or it will become something.”
      There was a moment of stunned silence before another girl said, “Why is that voice familiar?”
      “Shut up!”
      “Maybe he’ll go away.”
      Grover rolled his eyes. “Just go back to where I placed you.”
      They left the alley onto 3rd, ventured down to Pearl, and over to 2nd. Grover and his ambassador continued with the same speech whenever they encountered someone, but it was always yelled at a distance as those they met, ran.
      Grover looked at Ernie’s Grocery Mart, read the sign in the window, and came to a stop in front of the store. “Under New Management?” It didn’t really surprise him, but he hadn’t expected to see it.
      Mrs. Taylor, having traded in her shopping cart for the whole store and a cane, hobbled to the front door and glared at the two men in the street. “No loitering! Either buy something or move along!”
      “Mrs. Taylor,” Grover said. “My dear Mrs. Taylor, this isn’t where I placed you.”
      “Grover fanatics, eh?” she said. “Keep walking then. I don’t care for the Big Man, and I don’t want to hear any more dribble about him.”
      Grover’s heart broke at her words. “I am the Big Man.”
      The old woman gave him special, searing attention, leaned against the door frame, and tapped her ankle with her cane. “Then I really have reason not to want you around, don’t I?”
      “Go back to where I placed you.”
      “Get lost.”
      “My plans for you are good.”
      “Good?! You hit me with a train, and you claim to be good?!”
      Grover shook his head. “You weren’t where I’d placed you.”
      “Oh, so you’re judging me now? Must be nice to be the Big Man.”
      “But—” Grover wasn’t allowed to finish.
      Mrs. Taylor slammed the shop door behind her and turned the sign from “Open” to “Closed.”
      Grover took hold of his chest. She had been one of his favorites, and to hear her talk to him like that…
      “We should keep moving,” the ambassador said, putting his hand on his maker’s shoulder.
      Grover nodded, and the two men proceeded along 2nd to where Charles was standing alone on the dark, deserted street—right where Grover had placed him. The nearby wall sported all manner of graffiti ranging from the rebel M to taunts directed at “Clucky Chuck.” Papers ripped, crumpled, and defiled littered the sidewalk and streets. Compassionate eyes examined the beloved newspaper vender. The wall wasn’t the only thing to have been tagged.
      “Sir,” Charles said in a wavering voice, giving a tremulous nod. “I told them, like you said, but… but I guess they… I’m just…” A tear began to roll down his cheek. “It’s really you, isn’t it, sir? I really did hear your voice? I’m not going crazy?”
      Grover embraced the trembling man. “Charles, you’re among the more sane people I’ve talked to today.”
      Charles could hardly stand at this news, and for a moment, it was Grover alone who sustained him.
      A voice squawked from the radio beneath the discarded want ads. “Heads up, folks, our alleged Big Man was last seen heading west on 2nd, and we believe, wait, yes, it’s confirmed. He is with Clucky Chuck on the corner of 2nd and Hazel. So if I were you, losers, I’d stay clear of that part of town.”
      “They’ve been doing that all night,” Charles said. “That’s why the streets are empty.”
      “How do you talk to people who don’t want to listen?” the ambassador said with a shrug.
      Grover returned his gaze. “I still need to try. Take Charles to the church.”
      “No, sir,” Charles said. “I’m staying where you placed me.”
      “I’m placing you somewhere else.”
      Charles nodded, wept his relief, and the two men disappeared down Hazel towards the church.
      Grover, continued another block down 2nd to where it crossed the tracks. He then followed the line to the bypass switch, traversing the evenly spaced ties with caution. Grover Gulch wouldn’t listen to him, but maybe other parts of the layout might. It would be a long walk to Cooper’s Village; he needed a ride.
      If it had worked on the ambassador’s legs, it might work on the trains too. Grover stopped walking for a moment, closed his eyes, and willed Santa Fe #174 to life, commanding it to back its way to the bypass switch. When Grover arrived, the train was waiting.
      He boarded a box car with the door wide open, just as the old steamer reached forward and pulled the cars back into the switchyard. His muscles strained as he lifted himself up, raising one knee onto the filthy floor, then the other. At last, he was inside, and noticed a number of hobos sitting on a crate near the center of the car. He stood up and began to plead with them. “My name is Grover Clark. I made this world, and I beg you to go back to where you were placed.”
      The hobos shared a smile, like friends enjoying an inside joke. “And where would that be, sir?”
      Grover felt the indignation rising within him at the disrespectful reply. Hadn’t he put up with this sort of thing enough tonight? Wasn’t the ride to Cooper’s Village going to be long enough without…
      And then he realized what they meant. In his mind, he was back at his workbench gluing a crate in the center of a box car. Nearby he placed an oil drum so the men could have a fire to keep themselves warm. This was that car. There was the crate and the drum. Here were the three hobos, exactly where he’d left them.
      “Coffee, sir?” One of the men proffered a cup. Grover accepted it, and all through the badlands the company and the drink revived his spirits.
      He leapt from the open door and into Cooper’s Village as though he were once again a young man of twenty. Without missing a step, he ran through the town’s only street, making the usual proclamation. “I am your creator, and my plans for you are good!”
      “Then why did you let the mine go bust?” Ronald Black said, backed by angry citizens coming together to form a mob. “You’ve left us with nothing!”
      Grover shook his head. “You have me. What more do you need?”
      “Some one who’ll take care of us!”
      “Some one who’ll make this town prosperous again.”
      “We need Big Man Cooper, not you.”
      People closed in from the tavern, the general store, the pawn shop. Hatred flared in their eyes, resounded in their voices, the collective tumult of a village scorned.
      Grover’s feet began to move, one before the other; a swift walk that soon became a run.
      They gave chase until Grover found himself scrambling up the side of Cooper Mountain. Angry shouts followed him, backed by pelting rocks. Grover tripped, and stumbled. A wave of angry people threatened to engulf him.
      But then came the blast of a shotgun from the ridge above. Grover looked up and saw the ambassador he’d placed in Cooper’s Village. He was a large man, also dressed in overalls.
      “This way, sir.”
      Grover got up.
      The mob, momentarily halted, moved once more.
      The ambassador pumped another round into the chamber, and the advancing horde got the message. They cursed and hurled insults, but backed down.
      Grover reached the ridge, where the ambassador helped his maker to his feet and led him to the mouth of the abandoned mine. A few meager supplies were gathered near the entrance. This was the man’s home, his refuge from a world that hated what he stood for.
      “I’m glad that mob didn’t call my bluff,” the ambassador said, laying the shotgun against the plaster wall of the mine. “That warning shot was my last shell.”
      Grover nodded. “Much obliged.”
      The man waved his hand though the air, as though the words of thanks were hardly worth mentioning. “Hungry? I don’t have much, and I’m afraid I’m ill prepared for company, but…”
      This time, Grover waved his hand.
      They ate peaches while a can of beans warmed by the fire. Grover hadn’t notice his own appetite before now, but the food reminded him that he was hungry. The physical and emotional demands of the evening had taken their toll, so when the beans were ready, he welcomed the replenishment they offered.
      After half an hour’s rest, Grover thanked the ambassador, and left the mine. His body felt revived, but his heart ached for Cooper’s Village. Despairing footsteps ventured back into the badlands, following the tracks back to Grover Gulch. There were no city lights in this part of the layout, and the dim glow of the street lamp outside the basement window did little to light his path. Still, Grover stumbled on until the headlights of Santa Fe #174 illuminated the desolate terrain. After a few minutes the tracks were brightly lit by the engine chugging up behind him. Old Vern brought the great machine to a stop, and leaned out the window.
      “Need a lift, Stranger?” he said with a tone reserved for friends.
      “I thought that was against the policy of the line,” Grover said.
      “It is,” Old Vern answered him. “But I think the rules of the line can be bent for the man who built it.”
      Grover smiled at Old Vern, and climbed into the engine’s cab with the fireman’s help. He turned to the engineer to again express his thanks, but the man simply sat in his seat and opened the throttle. Santa Fe #174 began to move forward. Now and then, Grover caught the engineer looking back his direction, but each time he turned away. They traversed the badlands and began making the turn into the switchyard when Old Vern finally spoke in a solemn, apologetic voice.
      “I’m sorry for hitting Mrs. Taylor.”
      Grover put his hand on Old Vern’s shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault.”
      “Still,” the engineer said, “I wanted you to know that.”
      Grover pulled back on the old man’s shoulder, looked him in the eye, and smiled. Old Vern seemed to understand, and nodded.
      They came out of the switchyard and passed the hobo village where the inhabitants pelted #174 with tin cans and anything else they had available to throw. Grover didn’t bother ducking inside the cab as the projectiles bounced with a metallic ping off the plastic sides of the locomotive. A rock hit him in the arm, but he made no move to retaliate.
      The engine bellowed its way across the overpass and into the industrial part of town where the chants of the protestors rose like deafening thunder. Even the rumblings of the great boiler were lost amid their tirade. The locomotive sounded its whistle, and the factory simply retorted with a blast from its own. Grover pleaded; crowds shouted; no one listened.
      Santa Fe #174 rounded the oil refinery and then rode past the protestors one more time like a whipped dog with its tail between its legs. Grover watched from the cab of the engine as the striking workers cheered his retreat. With every downbeat of the chant, his heart broke a little more.
      “Let me off at the bypass,” Grover said as Old Vern took the engine around the corner, the wheels of the freight train squealing behind it. The engineer nodded and brought the train to a stop at the switch. Grover jumped out and ran ahead, leaving the switch open to the bypass line. The engine wouldn’t be welcome in Grover Gulch anyway.
      He ran through the clump of trees grateful for the solitude so he could suffer his anguish in private. Once alone, Grover collapsed into a broken heap on the artificial turf. “Why?” He’d created their world with such love, such care, such attention to detail. Yet, most of them hated him for imposing his will on his own handiwork. His plans were good plans; plans for a simple, but very happy existence. Humor, joy, delight; could life have a better meaning?
      His love for Grover Gulch strengthened his resolve. Somehow, he had to make them see that they were not made for their own pleasure, but for his, and that only in this truth could their little plastic lives find meaning. He would help them understand so that they would repent from this madness. He had to, because if they didn’t… that was an outcome he didn’t want to think about.
      He followed the highway into town like a man on a mission; followed it as the forest gave way to buildings and homes; followed it as the highway became Main Street and 1st; followed it as 1st gave way to 2nd and 2nd to 3rd.
      “I am your maker,” he said to closing doors and locking windows. Pedestrians offered only their backs in greeting. “My plans for you are good! Abide by them. Return to where I’ve placed you and you will be happy again.”
      Ahead of him, a group of men gathered, each one armed with a baseball bat, or a short length of pipe, or menacing bits of modeled lumber.
      “I am your maker,” Grover said. “I am your purpose.”
      “You’ve got that right,” one of them answered, slapping the business end of his bat into the palm of his hand.
      Grover got the message and decided it was better to be somewhere else. He turned around to see another group of men assembling behind him. He looked down 3rd and saw the hunter still riding his buck—both ready to charge and run him down. He checked the other way and saw the grey uniforms of Confederate troops.
      Grover turned back to the first group, and addressed them as though he were their king. “I’m warning you. I brought this world into existence, and I can take it out again if I choose.”
      Undaunted, the leader smiled. “We’re trembling.”
      Grover took another look at him and finally recognized who it was.
      “Walter? You’re the napping attendant at the gas station.”
      “Not anymore,” Walter answered, swinging the bat into his hand again for emphasis.
      “Why not? Do you know how many people wish they could do nothing all day?”
      Walter laughed, “So, you’re going to destroy us by talking us to death?”
      “I don’t want to destroy this world,” Grover said. “But you’re really not leaving me with much of a choice. Go back to where I placed you. Be what I intended you to be.”
      “We do our own placing around here, thank you very much,” Walter said.
      Grover looked around to assess his grim situation. Smiling faces looked down at the scene from second story windows; no joy, only dark, malicious laughter. There were no exits. There was nowhere to retreat.
      Walter let out a battle cry and charged.
      The streets closed in on Grover from all four corners as the tidal wave of their furry washed over him.
      He opened his mouth to scream, but didn’t get the chance.
     

Chapter 8

      Blood. Corn syrup, red paint—apply it to a fallen human form and the resulting horror is the image of mortality. Plastic doesn’t bleed. Modeling clay doesn’t bleed. Yet, the battered body lying at Main Street and 3rd was outlined in a crimson pool of red. It spattered his plaid shirt and overalls, and covered his face as though the town’s hate for him had removed the man’s human features. Eyes, skin, nose, beard; nothing was left, save the grizzly hue of blood.
      Grover numbly stared down at the crime scene before him. A bath robe covered his sweat soaked pajamas. House slippers covered his feet. It was nearly four in the morning, but thanks to the dream turned nightmare he was wide awake. His boiling blood left him with no desire other than being here, and attending to the terrible business at hand. Murder is personal when the image is your own; most foul when the perpetrators are the beloved creations of the victim. Children murdering their parents; characters in a book murdering their author; worshippers murdering their god. Only one response was appropriate to that sort of outrage.
      He ascended the steps and returned a few minutes later, setting a cup of coffee on the workbench before he powered up the controls near the switchyard. He closed off the bypass line, and then walked around Grover Gulch checking the tracks. As expected, there were several barricades and obstructions to remove.
      Next, he looked down at Santa Fe #174, which was still parked before the bypass switch, right where Old Vern had left it last night.
      “Thanks for the lift, old friend,” he said to the plastic figure leaning out the cab window and watching the tracks ahead.
      The miniature didn’t answer, but Grover nodded as though the engineer had tipped his hat in reply.
      He opened the throttle gently between his fingers and the steam engine came alive with a hum. In its perfect practiced start, #174 pulled ahead through the switch at a somber pace. It passed the forest where the miniature Grover had disappeared the night before, and lumbered into the rebellious town of Grover Gulch. It rolled over the Pearl Street crossing as Grover began to collect his ambassadors—including Charles—from the town and place them in the empty coal hopper. Some were dead, covered in red paint, others were imprisoned or hiding. But Grover knew where to look for each one.
      He took a sip of coffee at his workbench as the train passed by KHO, and he turned the radio on for the news of the day.
      Buck Sanders never sounded so ecstatic. “That’s right, folks, the alleged Big Man’s Image is dead! No great loss as far as I’m concerned. That’s either one less loon we have to worry about, or this community has finally been able to rise up and execute an unlawful tyrant. The fact is that the Big Man now knows that we’re a force to be reckoned with, and I doubt he’ll be bothering us again for quite some time.”
      Grover gave no response.
      Santa Fe #174 rolled out of town and passed the hobo village, where another ambassador was added to the hopper car. Then, Grover retrieved some needle nose pliers from his work bench and peered into the mine shaft where the ambassador to Cooper’s Village had been hiding. By the time he’d dug him out, the freight train had arrived in the badlands, and Grover placed him in the car with the others. He looked over Cooper’s Village as the train circled the town, and sighed a sorrowful good-bye.
      Next, he took a small container from his workbench and retrieved the two ambassadors he’d placed in Industrial Row. Then, he carried them to the switchyard where he began packing the rolling stock. First the engines were placed in their respective boxes and carefully put away. The box for Santa Fe #174 was laid out waiting for its arrival. It pulled into the switchyard, and Grover brought it to a gentle stop. He killed the power to the whole system and finally unplugged it. He wouldn’t be using it again for quite awhile.
      He dumped the contents of the hopper into the container, which he returned to his desk. After another sip of coffee, he continued his work at the switchyard. Bit by bit, the cars of the freight train were placed back into the boxes from which they came, never to ride these rails again. The passenger train was next to be packed, and by the end of an hour the last of the rolling stock was stashed below the layout.
      “Ladies and Gentlemen,” Buck said through the radio on the workbench. “I have been receiving reports all morning long that something is going on. People have been disappearing, no one I’d miss mind you, just those pesky Grover Fanatics. Could it be he knows he’s licked and he’s retreating? Could it be we are all finally, dare I say it, free? Free to find our own purpose; free to live as the Big Man lives. No rules, just sovereign Rights—inalienable Rights. I have the Right to place myself in this world wherever I please. I have the Right to find my own purpose. And who’s going to take those Rights away from me? Not Grover! Not anyone! That’s right, people. Freedom.”
      Grover took another calm sip of coffee. His answer would come soon enough.
      Without a word, he took a box cutter from his workbench and cut a circle around Grover Gulch Baptist. Wire cutters made quick work of the chicken wire that formed the hill and it wasn’t long before the white steepled church—the worshippers, beer drinkers, and all—was removed from the layout. He placed it gently on the workbench.
      Then, he donned a pair of safety glasses, slipped on some work gloves, and took a ball-peen hammer from his tool box.
      He tossed it coldly, carelessly, vengefully onto the town of Cooper’s Village and in an instant the General Store found itself permanently out of business. He adjusted his safety glasses, took up the handle of the hammer, and with a single swing he reduced Cooper Mountain to the truth of its construction. Rock was revealed to be painted plaster, and the solid mass of the mountain became hollow. Wooden supports stapled to the chicken wire broke under the weight of the hammer. Plastered newspapers revealed their print under the layers of gray, brown and green paint. Plastic trees flew in all directions as the support of the mountain crumbled beneath them.
      Buck Sanders’ tirade was interrupted, presumably by a signal from his producer. When he came back on the air his voice was much more serious. “Ladies and Gentlemen, it would appear that something’s happening at Cooper’s Village. We have a caller on the line, so let’s go to him. Hello caller.”
      Frank Morgan sounded unmistakably hysterical. “Buck, I can’t explain it but something crash-landed in town, and then Cooper Mountain just started flying to pieces! It’s like the world is coming to an end.”
      A cold smile crossed Grover’s face, yet there was pain in the smile. The hours of work, the thousands of dollars, the love; He would have preferred to leave it all as it was, if it could have been the way it used to be. But the pieces refused to stay where they were placed, and repairing the damaged they’d caused would be just as much work as simply starting over.
      Another swing of the hammer crushed the old mining camp on the far side of the mountain. The town’s one and only bar was next to go, followed by every other structure in the community.
      “Oh my God!” Frank shouted with renewed panic. “The town is getting hit again and—”
      A terrible crash came through the radio as Grover let the hammer fall on one of the houses. In a horrifying flash of static, the caller was suddenly gone. A tear rolled down Grover’s cheek for Frank Morgan, but he, and the entirety of Cooper’s Village, had turned against their maker. Now, Grover was returning the favor, and the hammer fell several more times against the debris for good measure.
      The bravado had completely vanished from Buck’s voice. “Frank? Frank, you there?” A disconcerting dial tone was the only answer. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I… I don’t know what to tell you. There may be a situation in Cooper’s Village. We’ll give you as much information about it as we can, but for now it may be safe to assume that Cooper’s Village and Cooper Mountain—according to the report you’ve just heard—are gone.”
      “Safe assumption,” Grover said.
      The recluse’s shack of a house was next to go, followed by a few choice structures in the badlands. He then turned his attention to the refinery, tossing the destructive hammer into the intricate network of pipes.
      Grover sipped his coffee, took up the hammer again to finish the job, making sure he got it all. Then he began to work his way down Industrial Row.
      Factories and their striking workers were crushed with equal disregard, yet equal attention to detail. The destruction of one facility was completed before the next one was even touched. The employees of the textile plant had seen what had happened to their neighbor, and by the time Grover got to them they had dropped their picketing signs and tried to flee. Frozen in plastic, running, but not, they were sitting ducks when Grover swung the hammer over his head and brought it down upon them. Quincy would enjoy this, he thought to himself. Another blow from the hammer, and the textile plant became a hollowed out, roofless frame. The rebel ‘M’ was still visible in red paint on the walls, until the hammer came down again.
      “What?!” Buck’s voice couldn’t contain his disbelief. “Industrial Row? Are you sure? Ladies and Gentlemen, our reports say that Industrial Row is being destroyed. We don’t know why or how just yet, but the destruction does seem to be heading this way.”
      “Oh, you know why,” Grover said, his anger rekindled by the audacity of the comment. He set his hammer down harshly in Grover Gulch, putting Ernie’s Grocery Mart permanently out of business. He retrieved the log book—its latest pages filled with little more than the layout’s rebellion towards its maker.
      “This is why!” he said, waving the book at the tiny radio station. “I’ve done everything I can to reach you!” He took his likeness from Main Street and 3rd without the usual care not to disturb the surroundings. “Everything!” he said, and waved his murdered miniature in front of KHO. “I was willing to overlook this…” He waved the book. “…until this.” He waved the corpse. “Now you’ve left me no choice, so really you’ve brought this on yourselves!”
      He placed the body and the book on the workbench, and returned to the hammer, remodeling an unfortunate home into a crater.
      He turned back to Industrial Row, which shortly became nothing more than a jumbled collection of smashed plastic. Grover continued along the tracks through the forest, devastating any structures of interest, including the shack that had once been a part of the Civil War reenactment. Finally, his hammer fell on the bypass trestle which spanned the highway and river. He crushed it as far as his arms would reach and then tossed the hammer into the center of the hobo village on the other side. He walked around the peninsula, took up the handle, and made short work of any part of the village that had managed to survive.
      Panicked refugees fled down the highway; more sitting ducks, more swings of the hammer.
      First Street became a wasteland; 2nd didn’t fare any better.
      The fire at the I.R.S. building finally went out. Union solders fell. Confederate solders fell. Officer McDougal was retired without his pension, and the miscreant youth were grounded.
      Walter looked up despairingly from his gas station, wishing he could take back his murderous actions of the night before. The hammer fell, and his hopes were crushed.
      Bit by bit, swing by swing, the beloved, yet rebellious town of Grover Gulch was reduced to a wasteland of debris. Buck Sanders began to cry and plead through the radio on the workbench, calling out to anyone who could hear him. But there was only one listener left.
      “Grover,” Buck said with audible, repentant tears. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”
      Grover paused only for a moment. “Me too.”
      With one final swing, Buck’s broadcasting career came to an end.
      Grover returned to his workbench, removed his safety glasses, and finally laid the hammer down. His arms ached, but not nearly so much as his heart. He sat and looked out over the world he’d created, the world he’d been forced to expunge. The tears flowed more readily now.
      “Why did it have to come to this?” he said, sobbing. “Why did they make me destroy them, when I loved them so much?”
      Just then, a still small voice spoke up in the back of Grover’s mind, a gentle voice that seemed to weep with him.
      “My dear Grover,” it said, wrapping around his heart like a consoling hug. “I know the feeling.”