Leroy's Dream

There was a strange town, just over yonder. The boy looked back at where it had been, wondering if it was really gone. He knew that it couldn't be, that somewhere deep in the hidden cracks of the Universe, a perfect replica was preserved for all eternity, waiting for him to find.

He also knew that he would never find it. He would come across snapshots, reminders of fading memories, but the place as it was would forever elude him. Like Brigadoon, it would remain hidden by the impenetrable mist. One day he will wonder if it was ever really there at all.

But that day is still far off, and right now what he wondered was why they had to burn it down. He understood that it had been time for everyone to leave, that the town could no longer support any life within its walls. He had been okay with that, when they had said that they would leave it standing so that he and the others could wander about the silent streets in reminiscence.

The fire had come without warning. Two years and a day after he had first arrived there, he had been taking a stroll down memory lane, thinking about what misadventures he would write about next. The next morning, it was gone, with not even charred remains to show that it had been there.

But he still knew it had been. And he remembered enough about the strange things that had gone on there to continue the writing of his strange history. And what he wouldn't remember, he would imagine. And it would become greater in legend than it was in life.

And for that, the arsonists would come to regret what they had done. And he smiled as he picked up his parchment and quill.