Ep 3: The Fix is In

The mayor of Mirror Falls, Hans Spiegel, had a lot of ideas. It was part of the reason the town elected him in a landslide. Some ideas were good. A new sign on the highway. Trying to figure out why the electricity seems so unstable in town. Still haven't figured that one out. Some ideas, though, are objectively not good, like suggesting the tourist brochure drop the word quaint and instead use pre-gentrified, or letting his granddaughter name the newest street in town, which is how 8 people came to live on Winky Binky Avenue. Hans Spiegel is 89, but sharper and more fit than most of the people in town. He has a way of squinting when he laughs. And keeps a low-quality dad joke always in reserve, ready to go for any occasion. He's gentle. The kind of man who'd move a worm off the sidewalk after a rain. This time, he thought he had the perfect idea. A town-wide scavenger hunt. Something to lighten the mood in the misery of the dark rainy months, and somewhere for that competitive spirit to go now that the Highways Ministry shut down the sign wars between Mirror Falls and Ashford Bay. Damn killjoys. What's next? Putting barricades near the cliffs? Sliding to within inches of your death is the only thing to do around here in January. But no, Mayor Hans thought what the town needed was some levity. And if he wasn't the guy to get it started, well, who would? It had been a dark winter. One that weighed heavily on Hans. Though his upbringing would never let him admit it. Hans came to Canada in his early his early 20s, having grown up in the shadow of war. Brick row houses, clipped hedges, and church bells that had gone quiet years earlier. By 1944, unease had become normal. German soldiers on bicycles, boots on cobblestones, orders shouted in a language he didn't understand. Hans remembered the winter most, the Hunger Winter, though no one called it that yet. His mother boiled sugar beets and tulip bulbs. His father disappeared for days at a time, trading whatever he could for flour. Hans learned not to ask questions. One night he heard a sound from the backyard next door. He looked through a gap in the fence and saw his neighbor digging a hole. He watched as the man carefully lowered guns into the ground and covered them up. Then out of nowhere, Hans was grabbed by the shoulders, lifted clean off the ground, and told that if he told anyone what he had seen, his parents would be killed. Not might be, would be. In time, he and his older sister Wilhelmina were sent by cattle train to the north, to Bolsward, in the hopes that by splitting up the family, there'd be enough food for all of them. It was on that cattle train that Wilhelmina saved Hans' life. At one unexpected stop, the Gestapo got on the train and started dragging off any boy over the age of 12 to work or worse. Hans is 14, but he was so malnourished and hadn't grown, so he didn't look his real age. Wilhelmina, who spoke a little German, told the Gestapo he was younger than he was and shot Hans that look that said, "Keep." "Keep your mouth shut." They both made it through. And on one clear day in May 1945, the sound changed. At first it was distant thunder, a rolling noise that didn't fade. Then came aircraft, low and loud, and the crack of gunfire just past the fields. People whispered, Someone rang a bell, just once, as if testing whether it was allowed again. The fighting never did come straight through the town. It skirted it, pushed along the roads and canals, but everyone knew what it meant. The Canadians were coming. Hans hadn't heard a lot of Canada before the war. To him, it sounded like a made-up place. Too far away to be real. But the men who arrived were very real. The Nova Scotia Highlanders. They came in tanks and trucks, caked in mud, their uniforms loose and worn. They smiled easily. They waved. One of them lifted Hans up onto the edge of a tank and handed him a piece of chocolate. Hans had never tasted chocolate before. People poured into the street. Some cried, some laughed, some stood very still as if afraid the Canadians would vanish if they moved. The liberators handed out cigarettes, food, whatever they had. They told them their names. They tried a few Dutch words and failed. It didn't matter. That night, lights appeared in windows for the first time in years. The Canadians didn't stay long. The war was moving. But they left something behind. Not just freedom, though that was everything. They left the idea that help could come from far away. From people with no reason to care except that it was right. That fascism would not go unchallenged. Hans grew up in a free Netherlands. He became an engineer after seeing the backbreaking work the Royal Canadian Engineers did to repair his country. Moved to Canada in 1953 when he heard the Canadian government needed engineers. It, alongside the US military and a big private company, was building early warning radar facilities across the country. One of them on northern Vancouver Island. And every year he drove his family into town for the Remembrance Day ceremonies. He and his wife Margaret taught their children the names of the soldiers he still remembers to this day and the cost their countrymen paid. In theory, the scavenger hunt seemed like a great idea. People would gather in the afternoon, paired off into teams of two. Mayor Hans would be standing at the front door of the theater, sealed envelopes in hand. You had until 6 that night to solve the clues and claim the prize. Most of the town was excited by the whole thing. It had been a particularly dreary winter. 12 couples signed up, including Corey and Jessie, who both did remote customer service for some cell phone company. They brought their 2 kids, Paul and Buffy. Gee and Kim, who come to every town council meeting and never speak, they volunteered to take a team of kids with them. And Tyson and Sue, who got married last year with a big party at the old church, and then divorced last month with a much bigger party at the pub, those two liked the idea so much they decided to join forces again. Plus half the town who said that they would come out to watch the fun. But Hans was the most excited for it. He'd been feeling it a lot lately. His age, the work of the city, the weather, the social media doom. The Twilight Theater's been closed for years. Not enough people to cover the cost the film studios wanted, but it's still a central place in town. Weddings happen on the lawn, car washes in the parking lot. The guy who owns it though, Roger barely unlocks the doors. "Bring me a damn good reason to open it and I will," he'd say. Nobody much liked Roger. Conspiracy nut. Spent way too much time in Facebook groups with names like "What the Feds Don't Want You to Know About Kale." The only place he'd talk to you is in that corner of the Dark Side of the Moon coffee shop where there was no cell reception. And as it turns out, This whole scavenger hunt idea was not a damned good enough reason for him to open the doors. "Do what you like in the lot," he said, "but I'm not opening the doors." No matter. Han stood in the theater's parking lot, all dressed up for the start of the hunt. Suit, tie, and the pin a soldier gave him. He only brought it out for the important occasions, like Father Marcel's funeral 17 years ago. Around him, a couple dozen players, and then maybe 40 or 50 onlookers. Even Tyler showed up to watch, one of the AI tech bros that comes hiking with friends every month or so, although according to pretty much everyone in town, spends more time talking on his phone than talking with locals. "No, a semi-circle around me!" Hans yelled out. "You know, like on The Amazing Race!" People shuffled into position. Hans put his serious mayor face on and said, "The world is waiting for you. Travel safe. Go!" and threw the envelopes to the ground. I expect he thought people would lunge at his feet like on TV, but Mirror Falls is more saunter than scramble. People walked up, grabbed their envelopes, read the first clue, and took off in opposite directions. Hans, with a smile on his face for the first time in weeks, took the long way back to his house. A smile because he knew something the teams didn't. The scavenger hunt was rigged. Two teens from town, Kaylee Chen and her brother Brian, had secretly teamed up with the mayor in an audacious plan. The last clue would send people back to the theater parking lot, and there they would scare them and livestream the whole thing on the internet. Kaylee's mom had an old friend whose cousin had gotten 2 million views for a video of her golden retriever licking its genitals. 2 million! For a dog with poor impulse control. Surely we can do better, Kaylee told the mayor. The teens would get fame, and with enough views, monetization. The mayor would get attention for the town, maybe some tourists from it all, but certainly a fun break from the past year's misery. The first clues were clever: "I turn a short stop into clicks ahead, my glowing figures are brilliantly red." That sent people to Mohit, who works at the Gassing God, who told them the next clue. "I smell of comfort, steam, and grounds. Your signal fades before you're found." The Dark Side of the Moon Coffee Shop. "You trade one thing, you take one too. A quiet deal on shelf A through Q." The Free Bookshop, outside Town Hall. "It's going great," Hans said to Margaret when he got home. Unfortunately for Hans, what he has in enthusiasm He lacks in planning. Launching this thing in the afternoon, in the winter, meant darkness fell early. And darkness in Mirror Falls is, well, really dark. No nearby city to light up the sky. Just a smattering of streetlights on the big corners: First and Arbutus, Chestnut and Water Street. The calls start around 5:30. A parent asks if the hunt was still safe. Someone at the wharf says a team almost slipped. Maureen calls to ask if she should post something about it. Margaret gets a call saying a couple of teams were thinking of quitting, not angrily or anything, just drifting home. It was cold. The kids were whining. "I mean, most of them are still playing," she tells Hans. She can hear a lifetime in his silence. He's wondering if he misread everything. If this is a good idea after all. Worried that his work to try to keep people happy, keep this tiny town at the end of the road alive, maybe it's harder than he thought it would be. Hans worries about things like that. Towns emptying out. Places that survive only as memories. Then Kaylee called. Uh, the theater power is out. "Or Roger turned it off. Maybe he's outside muttering about patterns. I think he thinks this is a flash mob." Hans closes his eyes. Of course he thinks that. Years ago, when Mirror Falls decided it needed to attract young people to town during the tourist months, Maureen secured a modest economic development grant to to produce a video. There aren't many young people in a town of 400. What there are, though, are 60-year-olds with opinions about what young people like. What this needs, Maureen said, was a flash mob. They'd video it, upload it to YouTube, and, uh, something something watch the tourists roll in. Roger was persuaded against his better judgment to let them use the theater stage for the grand finale. Given that he owned the building, he was also assigned a role in the closing shot. The concept was simple: 6 people on stage holding large signs with aspirational phrases: "Beautiful scenery," "Great biking," "Outdoor adventure," and Roger's sign: "Public access." Doug Henderson made the signs the night before with the help of a little gin. They rolled camera. 'Closer to the Heart' by Rush swelled dramatically from a borrowed speaker. Roger waited for his cue, then stepped forward, civic pride radiating from his sensible jacket, and lifted his sign. Amidst all the chaos of setting things up, what nobody had noticed was that Doug's public access sign had a typo. A big typo. Missing from the word public. Was the letter L. Grants have deadlines though, and surely nobody would notice, right? Eh, it took exactly 12 minutes for the first YouTube comment to come in. No words. Just 17 crying laughing emojis in a row. For months, people would hum Rush when Roger walked by. Flash mobs, he'd later tell a friend. Emotional Ambushes. This must be the reason, Hans thought as he put on a jacket. Roger saw people scattering around town, whispering, taking pictures. Of course he locked the doors. He and Margaret walked to the front lawn, but nobody's there. It's odd, Hans says. He checked his watch. Nearly 6. Shouldn't they be here? Shouldn't they all be here by now? "Try the door," Margaret says. "He locked it," Han says. Margaret gave him the look. Try. The door. Inside is the entire town. All the teams. All the onlookers. People he hadn't seen in weeks. People he'd waved to through windshields and grocery store glass. People who knew him well enough to know when things were off. Someone leads him up to the stage and hands him an envelope. Inside, clues to a new scavenger hunt just for him. The meeting room where you show us how to argue. Without hating each other. The bench you insisted on because people need somewhere to sit. The hall where you never missed a Remembrance Day, even when your knees begged you to. Kaylee and Brian, who'd lied about the power and double-crossed the mayor to engineer the whole thing, even recruiting Roger, stand grinning at the back of the room with a camera and a laptop. They were up to 12 live viewers. Hans looks down into the audience. At his feet, a bucket with the prizes for him to hand out. Stale Dutch licorice for the adults. Chocolate for the kids. 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.ca.

Mirrorfalls.com.

Closing song by Cosmosaurus from Nanaimo, BC.

It's true, but to make you smile, I wrote this little song for you. And I hope it works, or I just won't know what to do. So if it makes you smile, you'll see how much I care for you. And you should know, my dear, my love is more than a silly song. See, love makes me believe in things I never hoped to wonder. It's true, there's something in you. I'm captivated by your wonderful, beautiful mind. It's true, and the way that I feel, I've always known you.