Ep 2: What Stays Behind

Mm-hmm. Of all the people in town, Maureen Smith did not need a new hobby. Retired now, 68 years old, Maureen ran all 4 of the town's Facebook groups. Buy and Sell, the Town Council comment page, the events calendar, and the most toxic of all, a cesspool called Anything Goes. Maureen didn't start any of these groups. She took them over, annexed them against the will of their leaders. Day after day, she patrolled them like a lighthouse keeper who had mistaken the beam for a weapon. When people used I instead of me, they heard from Maureen. When people posted more than 2 memes in any single 24-hour period, they heard from Maureen. She'd remind people that personal attacks were not allowed, and then in the next breath suggest they consider therapy. When people started to reply with the word "actually," Maureen was there to remind them that Google's dumbass AI thing was not a good substitute for real research, maybe they should stick to their own business and not be such a nosy Nancy, and by the way, why did you guys buy that car anyway, don't you know Kias are bad for the environment? Maureen was exhausting. The original Facebook group owners just gave up and ceded control of the groups to her. Everyone muted Maureen at least 3 times a week in frustration and unmuted her a day or 2 later because of the one helpful asset she possessed. As a retired municipal administrator, Maureen knew how grants worked, where to find them, how to apply for them, and how to win them. She was a machine. She once got Mirror Falls a $14,000 provincial grant for seasonal wayfinding improvements, which turned out to be 6 laminated arrows nailed to trees. She secured a rural innovation fund to explore alternative transit futures, which covered a feasibility study that concluded that walking was still very popular and boats were unlikely to be helpful on the roads. There was the micro grant that restored a historic plaque explaining why the original historic plaque was insensitive to the local raccoon population. She even won an environmental grant for invasive species education where the invasive species on Vancouver Island she railed against were in fact Dollarama stores. No one liked how Maureen talked to them online. But everyone liked that the town kept getting free stuff. A few months back, she'd been focused on a small heritage grant which would fund a Maritime Museum. It was Stephanie's idea. Her mom was from Big Narrows on Cape Breton Island, and she and her brother Sam would often spend a couple of summer weekends on the water there while her parents ran the family record store back home in Toronto. A Maritime Museum would show off the history of the inlet, the local First Nations, and how industry changed the North Island. The building was all ready to go. Across from the credit union on First Avenue was the old community hall. It had been emptied out when the new library went in by the water, but the old building itself was in great shape. A couple of maritime artifacts, some signage. This would be easy. The grant application, like all of them nowadays, was online. Maureen didn't care for it much that way, her eyesight getting worse and everything, but there weren't options. And so she spent a few good days working on the application. "It's a nice town, Mirror Falls," she wrote as a kind of introduction. "Sits on the north end of Vancouver Island. About 400 people live here. It has what you expect: a coffee shop called Dark Side of the Moon, a gas station called the Gas 'n' God, and a faulty electrical system." Maybe putting a bit of hometown charm in might personalize it, she thought. She even included a couple of photographs of the proposed site. Not actual photo files, of course, but rather screenshots of photos that she took from her iPad while holding it up to her laptop screen. Finally, after days of work, it was done. She adjusted her glasses, checked all the boxes, clicked all the pull-down menus, and hit submit. And a few weeks later, she got the email: Accepted! Congratulations! Mirror Falls will be home to Canada's newest military museum. It seems while checking all the boxes and clicking all the pull-down menus, Maureen's mouse missed maritime and mashed military instead. It was going to be an uncomfortable city council meeting. The rain kept a lot of locals away, but the hardcores were there, like Gee and Kim from the Chinese restaurant who show up to every council meeting and never say a word. The mayor was wrapping up a passionate argument against an amendment to his garbage bylaw. "No changes!" he said. "It's important!" Everyone would learn later it was only important because Mayor Hans had managed to use the first letter of every word in the bylaw to spell out the lyrics to the song "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley. 89 years old, and Hans Spiegel had more shitposting game than the average college kid. News had spread in town that they'd won another grant, so council was all smiles when Maureen stepped up to tell them the details. She took a long breath in. "So," she started, First, I think it's important we look at all of this in context. It was a strange way to start what everyone had assumed would be a celebratory presentation. A few minutes later, after having explained the whole situation, Maureen gave more news that nobody wanted. The grant-giving organization was excited to see what Mirror Falls would come up with, and they would be here in 6 weeks. With media. And the premier. Luckily, in the right hands, a mirror can hide something you expect to see or reveal something you never knew existed. When they were moving stuff out of the old community center, a mirror that came out of the back of an antique curio cabinet had been set aside because written in what looked like fountain pen ink was two stars and a note. Air Vice Marshal Raymond Collishaw, 501 ACW Squadron, Pine Tree Line, November 1963. The work crew had set it aside because it seemed like some kind of artifact that somebody at some point would probably want to look into. In time, the curio cabinet got lost, but the mirror stuck around. Raymond Collishaw was a war hero. Raised just down the island in Nanaimo, which during his time was a rough-and-tumble coal mining town. You might actually think he'd have been a good miner. His parents were miners. I mean, everyone in Nanaimo was back then. But he had absolutely no interest in it. He found it boring, tedious. Screw mining, he thought, and screw this little island hick town. Raymond Collishaw is gonna make a name for himself. In 1908, at the age of 15, he packed up and joined the Canadian Fisheries Protection Service. I mean, sure, it's not the Air Force, but it's a start, right? He spends a few years up there, rising up the ranks, and finally applies to the Royal Canadian Navy, which ghosts him. No reply. That's okay. Screw those guys, he thought. He'll go to the Royal Naval Air Service instead. Frankly, it's a miracle he survives training at all. Those planes' engines keep breaking down. Sometimes mid-flight, for God's sakes. No, not sometimes. Frequently. His logbooks are full of it. But somehow training didn't kill him, and in 1916, he was off. His first victory was a raid against a rifle factory in Germany. As his squadron narrowed in on the target, out of nowhere a bunch of German Fokkers attacked. Cowlishaw spun back, circled behind, and let his wingman fire. They hit one. Bad. Cowlishaw turned, climbed altitude, and unloaded hell into the German plane. It spun like a child's toy, broke up into a million pieces, and fell to German soil like rain. According to the German authorities, no, they didn't lose any aircraft. Must be fake news. Then, the famous Black Flight. Kalashnikov commanded that flight in a plane called the Black Maria. All the planes were like that. Black Prince, Black Roger. Hell, they even named one of them Black Death. Corny names aside, the squadron was devastating. His unit downed 87 enemy planes in just 2 months. Kalashnikov himself hit 27 of them. Or maybe 60. It depends on which record you believe. Once, delivering a new aircraft from headquarters, 6 German fighters came out of nowhere and ambushed Kaliszczaw. It was 6 to 1, and the Germans had the advantage of height. But no worries, Kaliszczaw liked being low. He could lure them. Flying just under the enemy fighters, he dipped even lower, forcing the confused fighters to follow him, right until he made a sudden pitch up inches before the tree line. He made it. Two German fighters didn't. The other four got the hell out of there. Lucky or not, his name was attached to some of the most decorated fights in the First World War. The Last Hundred Days, the 1918 German offensive, the Allied counteroffensive. They promoted the hell out of him. Squadron leader, commander. And at the end of the First World War, That former little pudgy red-faced kid from Nanaimo had made a name for himself. After the war, he spent some time training. They gave him a horse for some reason, deployed him to Sudan, then to an aircraft carrier, then to Russia, the Middle East, Africa. He was pretty much everywhere. And for a while, the world was at peace.

20 years ago, firing ceased. 20 years ago, a rejoicing world saw the end of its most terrible carnage. Today people are again plagued by unsound theories. The desire for conquest. Again the world is offered the false idea that might makes right.

By the time Hitler showed up, Kalischa was a senior commander. Things weren't going well. The Germans kept taking over territory. Churchill's Operation Battleaxe, huge failure. Kalischa was doing what he could with what he had, which wasn't much. They didn't have as many planes as the enemy. They didn't have as much firepower. Hal Kalashaw only had one modern Hurricane fighter to use. The rest were assigned to training. But Kalashaw, who was charged with keeping the Italians at bay, decided, "If I can't win the air war, I will fight them in their minds." He took that single Hurricane and moved it constantly from base to base, making sure the enemy saw it each time. That plane was everywhere. He sent it to attack formations dozens of times, making them think they had a whole squadron at his disposal. Sometimes he'd send the plane to do loud flyovers of their forts, not to recon or to bomb them, but just to piss them off. The crazy thing is, it worked. Trying to stay on top of it all, the Italians spread their fleet too far and too wide. They were assigning soldiers to watch the fort for this fucking The plane that keeps showing up instead of actually going on missions. And yet a few months later, Kalleschau was fired. Well, fired as much as the military fires anyone. He was recalled and given a posting in Scotland where after 2 years he was involuntarily retired. He spent the rest of the war behind the desk as an air liaison officer. He wasn't even 50. After the war, Kalashow returned to Canada. He and his wife raised two daughters, and apparently at some point in the '60s passed through Mirror Falls. Nobody's quite sure why he was in Mirror Falls. Mary George, of course, had one of her harebrained conspiracy theories: secret towns, government installations. It didn't help that someone swore up and down that they saw an aging Father Marcel in a helicopter with military people last year. 'Let the man rest,' Mayor Hans would say. 'He's been dead almost 20 years.' As for Kalashaw, they couldn't ask him. He died in West Vancouver in 1976. But the Mirror gave them enough. At the next council meeting, Maureen came prepared in a way only Maureen could. Not with apologies, but with a plan. She'd spent the previous week doing what she did best: digging, emailing, posting questions in Facebook groups. She tracked down a granddaughter of Mrs. Parkins who used to live in town and vaguely remembered some pilot fellow with a bunch of Air Force friends and a visit that involved tea, sponge cake, and a man who insisted on polishing his shoes before sitting down. Maureen had also reread the grant, more carefully this time. There was nothing in it that said the museum had to be about tanks or guns or flags on them. It was a military museum, yes, but the language was broad.

Service.

Defense. Community contribution. So, Maureen told the next council, we tell the truth. Mirror Falls was never a garrison town. No base. No barracks. What it was, like most small places on the island, was somewhere people passed through. Sailors, loggers, pilots, families. A town that brushed up against history without realizing it had left fingerprints. The mirror would be the centerpiece, of course. They built the museum around it. One wall told Kalashaw's story, from Nanaimo coal dust to black-painted planes to that ridiculous single Hurricane buzzing Italian forts into submission. Another wall had headphones on hooks, playing recorded oral history from elders collected by the local First Nation. The back wall focused on the quieter parts of military life: the waiting, the moving, the letters home, the odd places people stopped. The mirror was mounted in a simple frame, the original writing preserved. Beneath it, a small plaque. It read: Some stories stay behind. The Grant people arrived 6 weeks later. The Premier shook hands and smiled the way Premiers do when they're told where to stand. Maureen hovered like a proud momahawk, correcting a reporter's grammar mid-sentence and reminding the Premier that the building was accessible, but the ramp was temporary and frankly not up to code. She proposed a small grant. If you want to understand a nation, the mayor told the people gathered, you listen to the boots that arrived when it mattered the most. After the crowd thinned, Maureen stood alone in front of the mirror. Then she reached up and straightened it just a fraction. Later that night, she posted in all four Facebook groups, which for the record was against the rules. The post was short. "Thank you to everyone who helped with the museum opening today. Comments about the Premier's choice in tie will be deleted." People laughed. A few used the heart reaction. And for the first time in anyone's memory, nobody muted Maureen. I am the dust. I hope you liked the first two episodes of Mirror Falls. If you did, I could use your help getting more people to hear it. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, hit follow right now. That tells the platform that this show matters to you. Then download the episode. Don't just stream it. Downloads count more than you think. If you've got a minute, leave a rating. If you've got 2 minutes, write a short review. It doesn't have to be poetic, just say what you're enjoying. Those early reviews really make a big difference, especially for new fictional series like this one. And here's the big one: talk about it. Post about Mirror Falls to your Instagram story. Mention it on Bluesky. Text that one friend who loves mysteries and small towns. Word of mouth is still the engine. This show will grow if you decide it should. So if you want more episodes, more seasons, more time in this town, I'd really appreciate it if you'd take a minute and help me build it. Thanks for listening. Stay tuned for episode 3 and a special bonus episode.

I am strolling along, just minding my business.

Mirror Falls is produced with gratitude on the territory of the Coast Salish people. Story and sound design by Tod Maffin. Join other Mirror Falls fans and chat about this episode at chat.mirrorfalls.com. You can subscribe to Tod's free newsletter about Canada at farandwide.news. Music licensing by Epidemic Sound. Theme song by Nicholas Gabrielson with the Martin Landstrom Orchestra.

<LYRICS>I'm out and about, painting the town red. I'm coming around.</LYRICS> There ain't no doubt about it, I'm no longer blue. So glad we are through, just me, myself, and I.