The church tower tolled eight times, the deep, wise rumble carrying over the town. The morning sun beat down on the folks below. The small figures scurried past each other, beads of sweat began forming on weathered faces, foreheads glistened and upper lips grew mustaches of moisture.
The town was waking up. Adults scurried off to work, children lumbered to school, and the elderly parked themselves on creaking rocking chairs attached to front porches. Myriads of cars puttered along the street, deftly weaving past pot holes and bumping over the cracks in the concrete.
The town was old. The building visages once grand in their splendor had deteriorated into waste and rubble. Over half of the buildings were boarded up, abandoned to nature and vandals alike. The streets were just as rundown, infrastructure had become null to the town, they made do with crooked roads and layered asphalt. The houses were faded: windows barely hanging on their hinges, grime etched into the very fibers of the sagging wood. The house numbers had long ago disappeared. They didn't matter anyways, everyone knew each other, all the way out to the scattered farmlands.
The population of the town was small. 697 people according to the 2012 census. In reality the town was smaller. The people were old, even the new born - of which there were few - were old. Nothing new came to the town. The adults lagged in their daily routines as set before them by their parents and their parents, parents and so on. The adolescents, small in percentage, droned on in their daily gossips that had already been said. The children played with paint-chipped actions figures or haggard Barbies, the roles never changed: the action figures saved the world and the Barbies were a family. The elderly would sit under the burning sun and reminisce about the old days. Their skin was worn and leathery. The women would always have something to occupy their hands, be it knitting to word puzzles to the outdated copy of Little Women. The men would usually stare off into solitary silence and always had tobacco of some sort, be it pipe tobacco or chewing tobacco it stained their beings.
The old folk were the martyrs of the town. They had the oldest ties, the most experience to guide those to come after them. They often could be seen talking tales of the 'olden days' before the corruption of technology, when they had to work - the w's always came out as dubba-yuh - while on the fragile cusp of transition into pubescence. Their words were clipped and dragging, elongated like their lives.
The kids would cling to the tales in the beginning. But as they grew older their eyes would glaze over at the mention of the 'olden days' - for the 'olden days' never changed. With shocking understanding the kids soon realized the 'olden days' were their days. Out of touch with the modern world, stuck in a dying town, with a future of desolation in the oil fields or farmlands.
The church tower tolled eight times, the deep, wise rumble carrying over the town. The glow of the moon shone down on the folks below. The small figures scurried past each other, faces drawn into hard lines of fatigue, foreheads were creased with wrinkles and mouth were quirked down and firm.
