I looked up, the lamp I had kept outside the upper left window of the house clearly visible. I wanted something to mark my house; that was how concerned I was about not being able to find it later.

  My good mood did not last for very long as I found that I couldn’t start my car. I frowned, and tried again. And again. The engine roared to life for a few seconds before dying.

  I tried some of the quick tricks I had picked up, but none of them helped me.

  Needless to say, my mood immediately soured. Of all the things that had to happen on my first day in this new town, did it have to involve my car breaking down?

  I hadn’t even been paid yet given I hadn’t started off with my job, and I had used up a good portion of my savings to move here. An expensive repair job was a cost that I could ill-afford, but at that moment, I wasn’t even thinking about that.

  Those thoughts about the distant future were at the back of my mind, because what I was thinking about in the now and here was, ‘How am I supposed to get to work?’

  It would make a very bad impression to be late on my first day, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do but to give Mr. Dawkins a call via the landline.

  I didn’t remember his number, but my phone’s contact list still worked fine, I thought, as I was about to get out of the care when I saw John walk up towards me.

  He was as jovial as ever as he tapped lightly on the window. This time, he did not catch me by surprise as I rolled down the window, wondering what it was that he wanted.

  “Having trouble?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I don’t know why my car just won’t start,” I said to him. “Hey, happen to know a good mechanic ‘round these parts?”

  “Sure thing, I can get you one, but um… before that, isn’t this your first day of work?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Want me to drop you off?” he offered immediately, before I could even finish my sentence.

  “I wouldn’t want to bother you I can just Uber something or…” I trailed off as I remembered I still couldn’t get a signal, let alone wondering about how much time it would take for me to get one here. Would a taxi be better? I didn’t know, but the main thing was that I didn’t want to be late right off the bat. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you or-”

  “-not at all! As a matter of fact, I’m going where you are too. I mean, near where you are. Not too far away, hop in, we can talk about getting your car fixed later,” John said enthusiastically.

  Reluctantly, I ended up taking him up on his offer.

  “Oh, by the way, I’m dropping my kids off first, if you don’t mind,” John said as I got into the passenger seat and he called out to his two children.

  “I mean, it’s your car so…” I said, trailing off. I mean, he was already doing me a solid dropping me off, it didn’t make sense for me to complain about him dropping off his kids along the way. Why would he change his intended route for someone like me? I already felt like I owed him too much; I would not have the gall to ask him to drop me off first before doing anything else.

  “Well you know, just wanted to know if you were in a hurry or not,” John said.

  “I mean, I got up early anticipating some kind of delay, just not, y’know, my car breaking down.”

  “So that means you’re good on time?”

  “Yes,” I said. Even if I was slightly late, I had a reasonable excuse, or so I felt. That, and it was one thing to be ten minutes late and another to be several hours late, which would’ve been my fate if I decided to decline John’s offer.

  The lack of anything that stood out was apparent while driving as well. I hadn’t noticed it as much when I first drove in to the town, mainly because I was fixated on other things. So much of it was so bland – all the billboards up were blank and said ‘You can advertise here!’ or something else along those lines. I got that the economy was bad, but you’d think there would be at least someone advertising something. The cars passing by seemed to all be one of four different models and perhaps two colors.

  John didn’t seem to care – but he had likely been in this place for a long time, perhaps even growing up here. This was all routine to him, which actually frightened me in some way. Imagine being in a place so boring and actually getting used to it!

  Thankfully, by a year I would have hopefully paid off enough to hightail it out of here. I had no intentions of setting down roots in this place permanently. Also, by then I might’ve had enough experience under my belt to get a better job back in the city.

  The two kids were quite well-behaved during the trip; they had made so little noise that at one point I turned my head to look at the backseat to make sure that they hadn’t vanished or something.

  If it had been me and my younger brother in the backseat back when we were younger, you would’ve definitely been unable to not notice that we were there.

  But even though they weren’t fighting, it was kind of uncanny just how little they were doing. Neither of them had smartphones or tablets to catch their attention, and they weren’t doing anything else like kicking their feet, whistling, or even singing. They weren’t even looking outside the window or anything, with gazes fixed straight ahead. They just sat there, like perfect little statues.

  Maybe they were only like this because of my presence; I know my brother and I were more well-mannered when there was a stranger compared to when we were with our parents, but this was taking it to the next level.

  “Your kids are pretty well-mannered,” I commented.

  “Oh, of course,” John said. “Hey, Peter, Stacy, why don’t you tell him a little more about yourselves?” He seemed to have caught on the awkwardness slightly and sought to ameliorate it to some extent.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Their replies were rather standard, but it was generic stuff like what grade they were in or what their favorite color was. Even after a few minutes of exchanging small-talk, I felt like I didn’t know much about how they were like. It was like I was reading the description on two trading cards about these two kids rather than getting to know actual people.

  Before the awkwardness could get any worse, we arrived at their destination, the school.

  “Elementary and middle school are in the same building,” John said as he unbuckled his seat. I expected that in a place of this size. What I hadn’t expected was for John to say, “Why not join us and come out? Have a look around?”

  “Um…” I said, not sure where to begin with my objections to that. “I think there’s some confusion- I’m not married, and I don’t have any children.”

  “Oh, that doesn’t matter, what are you going to do inside anyway? Why not take a look outside,” John said.

  ‘Why would you invite me to take a look around a school?!’ I thought and felt like screaming. Up until now, I could dismiss a good portion of his behavior as just trying to be really neighborly, but this was beyond strange.

  Why would you invite a grown man to walk around a school with you when he had no business there? If this was back in New York such a thing likely would’ve gotten me on some kind of watch list.

  And yet, John seemed to think nothing of all of this and posed it as if this was a real, true question.

  I would’ve refused if not for the fact that out of the blue, the two kids seemed to have spontaneously grown personalities and eagerly asked me to join them.

  Again, I owed John a solid at this point, and so I obliged.

  “You sure we won’t be late?” It was the last counterargument that I had.

  “Ah, no, I know Mr. Dawkins, he’ll be okay with it,” John said, once again waving his hand nonchalantly.

  Just how well did he know my new boss, I wondered, even as I followed him.

  I noticed the same strange sense of blandness as we walked through the crowd towards the steps where John was headed.

  It started with the children. Now, for the elementary school students I didn't expect much, but there was an odd uniformity with even the older middle-schoolers that was just so foreign to me. Back in my old school, at least a few of those kids would be sporting things like punk hairstyles or Gothic clothes or whatever was fashionable among rebellious teens their age. Forget extremes like that, there would be some other things like those who would highlight their hair and so on in a desperate attempt to mark themselves as different.

  I saw none of that.

  The trip to the front doors was a short one, but we were constantly interrupted by people who were approaching John to speak with him.

  At first, I didn’t find this to be all that shocking. John seemed like an upstanding guy, if slightly off-putting to me (though that was likely just something wrong with me, I felt at the time), so it made sense that he was quite popular.

  Only, as we finally reached the doors, I realized that they seemed to spend very little actual time speaking with him. They all followed a similar pattern: they would walk up to John, say a few words, then happen to notice me with John and the conversation would shift to me and who I was.

  Initially I thought that was just natural curiosity at seeing someone who was new versus someone they had already met, but that idea changed ever so slightly once we reached the front doors.

  There was a short woman with streaks of gray through her hair who waved at John, before, like the others, noticing me.

  She didn’t have any children with her, and with the way she was dressed and stood, she seemed more like an employee than a parent. It turned out that my first impression of her was correct as she introduced herself as Principal Weston.

  “Ah, nice to meet you,” she said, immediately turning her full attention to me once she had exchanged the minimal amount of pleasantries with John. It was odd for her to spend so much time with me, I first thought, as I didn’t have any children with me and had no relation whatsoever with the school.

  I clarified this with her, to which she simply waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, it doesn’t matter. We aren’t that strict about things here. As a matter of fact, there is a P.T.A. meeting next week on Thursday, I think you should come.”

  That really caught me off guard. I had to clarify if she was talking about what I thought that she was talking about. “P.T.A.? You mean Parent-Teacher’s Association?”

  “Yes.”

  I was neither a parent nor a teacher, nor even tangentially related to education in any way. I could rationalize away nearly everything that had happened but this was on a whole different level.

  ‘Why would you invite me to that kind of meeting? What’s wrong with you?’ Those were my innermost thoughts, but I didn’t voice them for the sake of being cordial.

  “I don’t think that I would have much to add,” I said instead.

  “Nonsense, we always appreciate new input,” she said. Her reply made no sense at all given I was sure there were better ways to meet new people than at a P.T.A. meeting, but at the time I felt that I couldn’t really say anything to argue further. “Come to think of it, would you fancy a cup of coffee? In the Teacher’s Lounge we had a new machine installed, I’m sure you’ll like it.”

  “I think that he has to get to work, but thank you very much for the offer, Principal Wesley,” John said.

  There were several things I noticed in the scant few seconds in which this exchange happened. For one, Principal Wesley was inviting me into the Teacher’s Lounge, which was usually reserved for employees in most places. Two, she had invited me, but not John who would’ve been the more appropriate person to invite in this circumstance given he actually had kids who went to the school. Third, there was a very subtle and quick change in her facial expression with her smile twitching as she looked at John as if he had offended her in some way.

  With all of that said, I really did want to be out of there as soon as possible, so I was with John on this one. “Uh, yeah, I don’t think it’ll look good for me to be late on my first day, but thank you very much for the offer.”

  As John and I got back into the car once he was done waving off Peter and Sally, I said, “Thanks for getting me out of that situation there.”

  “No problem,” he said. “Sorry about that, some folks around these parts can be kinda… clingy, you know? But they don’t mean anything bad by it.”

  It was rather ironic coming from him, who I had initially thought was quite clingy, but I didn’t mention that. And well, I guess that he was right, nothing seemed to be malicious at what some of the people were saying, it was just really odd.

  Thankfully, the place where I was going to work was not too far from the schoolhouse, and looking at the clock, I was only about ten minutes late. Not ideal, given the fact that if anything I should’ve been arriving there ten minutes early to make a good first impression but circumstances dictated otherwise.

  I waved John off- I honestly don’t know what my reaction would’ve been if it turned out that he also worked at the same building as I did, but despite everything weird that had gone on until that point, I was spared from that kind of scenario.

  The building was three stories tall, made of dull brown bricks and looking quite nondescript like most things in this town.

  As I walked in, I saw a short, slightly obese man with a spectacular handlebar mustache dressed in a light gray suit.

  I recognized him from the voice call interview I had attended. “Ah, Mr. Dawkins, I’m so sorry I was late-”

  “Ah, no problem, no problem, it happens,” he said, before I had even given the reason as to why I was late.

  It was a bit odd to see him standing in the reception instead of in his office where I’d assumed that he would be, but I was just glad that I wasn’t in any trouble for the time being and didn’t ask too many questions.

  He lead me to where I would be working. It was a simple cubicle, which I had expected, though surprisingly, although it was designed like a cubicle two of the walls had been torn down. There was only one of them still standing where I could pin things like sticky notes, but otherwise it was completely wide open for anyone to walk up to me whenever they wanted.

  My job involved marketing, which should’ve been straightforward enough, though I oddly learned very little about what I was supposed to do my first day there. “You’ll learn as time goes on,” Mr. Dawkins said.

  He was a bit evasive when I asked about details, telling me that for now I should just acquaint myself with whoever I was working for now.

  And boy did I have a lot of people to acquaint myself with!

  Throughout the day, people approached my desk all the time. I don’t think there was a period of time for longer than five minutes where I wasn’t talking to someone.

  Initially, I sort of expected something like this. I was the new guy, after all, so it was only normal for people to want to have a word.

  But, it didn’t stop to just the people I was working with.

  “Hey there, I’m Isabelle, I work in IT and usually don’t come out of the basement, you know, but I thought I’d just drop by to say hi.”

  “I’m a janitor here, usually just clean the third floor, don’t even come here regularly, but I wanted to greet the new guy, you know.”

  There were people who didn’t work in the same company as me, or even a tangentially related one, but still felt the need to not just drop by for a short greeting, but a full-on conversation.

  Perhaps I was just used to people being in a hurry all of the time back in New York, but these people seemed to have nothing better to do than to drop by and talk about whatever for what felt like an uncomfortably long length of time. At least, to me it seemed so, it was probably not longer than ten minutes. Hardly going on and on forever by anyone’s standards, but by the tenth person it had all gotten rather exhausting.

  If I had been given actual work to do, I would have gotten none of it done – that was how bad it was. The longer it continued though, I began to realize why it was that something felt so off about the way they talked.

  Their smiles - it wasn’t like there was anything malevolent about them. But they were the kind of smiles you would get from Walmart greeters. It wasn’t necessarily completely fake, but there seemed to be some kind of ulterior motive behind it.

  Was I being too cynical? Too paranoid?

  I initially thought so, but lunch was an entirely different kind of disaster.