A Place Called Hollow Graham

Welcome to the sleepy suburb of Hollow Graham. The sunny-yellow sign warmly invites you inside. As you enter, you see the usual. There are quaint shops, manicured lawns and more than a few bicycles in motion. You almost expect to see Otis stumbling toward the courthouse or Barney ticketing a jaywalker.
       

If you require an elevator here, well you're out of luck, I'm afraid. You see, there are no high-rise structures here in Hollow Graham. Ironic indeed - because there are strangers in town who are about to take the everyday reality of this place to a whole new level.
       

"Are you seeing this?!"
       

"What do you mean, am I seeing it? Of course I am!"
       

This exchange - or some version of it - is intermittently taking place on the immaculate sidewalks of Hollow Graham. The downtown street is lined with shocked spectators. The main attraction? A car. But this car is unlike any other witnessed by earthly eyes. At least in the real world, outside of smartphones and television screens.
       

"That's impossible!," cries out a voice amidst the gawking crowd.
       

"Did you put those tires on, Bill?," jokes another voice, directing the sarcastic question to Hollow Graham's sole mechanic.
       

Said tires are spinning nicely. There's just one problem with this picture. The tires are in the wrong place. They are...inexplicably and impossibly...ahem...on the roof. That's not all. The bottom of the crazy car, where the tires should be, is levitating above the pavement.
       

Suddenly the car backfires, sending it to --- well, nobody knows. It simply (or maybe not so simply) vanishes into the pristine air of Hollow Graham. There are a few scattered gasps, but mostly stunned silence. The collective noodle of the crowd struggles to process this ridiculously-illogical event.
       

Finally, a painfully-uncool dad speaks up. "Maybe it was Marty McFly in there." Not getting the ancient movie reference, the man's preteen kids glare at him in consternation. He presses on. "You know, Marty McFly? Back to the Future? Doc Brown? Time travel? DeLorean?"
       

Still nothing.
       

"Forget it."
       

The driver of the car was not, in fact, Marty McFly. It was one Bugs Glitcheson - husband to Milli, father to Digit and giver of new meaning to the phrase "stranger in town." Indeed, stranger things are happening in Hollow Graham.

© Matt Decker

» This post is excerpted from my short story MEET THE GLITCHES. The full story is included in my latest book  SPACE & RHYME