The Plot To Save Heidi Falls; Lie Or Die
By John C. Weil


It was a secluded little town in Maine. A bare bones town, unpretentious, undignified. The streets lay narrow, straight, some mud, some paved. All the buildings were dilapidated. Maybe it was how Tom felt to live there that influenced his outlook, but the surrounding countryside, which was always  bleak, seemed just fine to him. His closest neighbors lived in the dark of the trees. Crude homes like tree forts, but on the ground. Most of the residents had no more than a high school education, if that.        

Thomas Brothers maps had decided not to recognize Heidi Falls as a town. They planned to leave it off the map. The falls had dried up. Two nearby buildings where proprietors had sold Italian Ice or umbrellas to the scant visitors, closed, then collapsed. The main street hardware store would soon close. Sometimes the ice cream store had no ice cream. The population had shrunk to thirty-five hangers-on. Half were old-timers.       

But the old-timers couldn’t let Thomas Brothers ignore the town. They were fighting to keep the town alive. This would be a major blow. Heidi Falls had to be on the map. It just had, too. They wrote letters and petitioned management at Thomas Brothers. “One more year,” a map maker responded. “If you don’t reach fifty residents by January 1 you’re off the map.”        

Tom attached a lot of meaning to that. He was only twenty-two, but worldly. He already had a wife and three kids. He was six-feet tall, dark-haired, broad-shouldered and handsome. Though smart, at times he seemed bewildered, from outward appearances faintly unhappy.         

He mulled this thought over: Thomas Brother’s decision meant that he might soon live in a town not recognized on any map. That did not sit right with him. He and his impoverished family barely “made do.” They made ends meet with a lot of mending and a lot of bartering. His wife could sew and wash clothes. He could do odd jobs. He rather liked chopping wood. Kept his mind off his troubles.        

But somehow - and he didn’t know why - cutting cords didn’t keep his mind off the fact that his town would no longer be on any map in the entire world. The entire world! It was odd how that made him feel. Empty could describe it. He glanced around. The town was real. Very real. It meant everything to him. Real too, was his wife Carol. She was almost entirely expressionless at all times, likely numbed by poverty, their underfed kids, their clothes constantly stitched and re-stitched and patched, didn’t care. “Where’s our next meal coming from?” she asked weakly, when she noticed his far-off gaze.        

He dropped the axe like a weight and looked down on his bland, brown haired, lean, almost boney, wife. She had sad green eyes, the only color in her pale face. “I know it ain’t a great town,” Tom said. “But it’s our town. We have to be recognized for having a town. It’s all we have.”        

“Focus on more important issues. We need jobs for the future. Our kids will leave without jobs.”        

“There’s talk a mill will open near the river.”        

“That rumor has been around for a year. It won’t happen. Look, Tom, get your priorities straight. Worry about your family. It’s not like we’re a town with no name. We’re a town not listed on any map. Who cares?”        

“I care. It’s another step toward oblivion. The post office doesn’t deliver here because we have less than the required seven-hundred-and-fifty residents. Now we won’t be on the map of  all maps.”

"This makes me mad," he said, “And I'm going to do something about it! I have friends from that softball team over in Rawley.  I’ll try to get fifteen of them to change their legal residence to Heidi Falls.”

“That’s dishonest.”

“We have to be dishonest. For the town it’s lie or die.”       

“Why would they do it?        

“We’ll all chip in to buy them beer. A case each. If we have fifty legal residents we’re back on the map. Fifteen softball players would do it.”         

Carol stared at him in disbelief. “That means they must register to vote here...”         

“And change their driver’s license.”         

“They use our addresses?”         

“People here would allow it. I’ll call a town meeting.”         

“Please, no!”

“It’s the lie or die meeting.”

“Lying is wrong.”

“Not if it means survival.”

“Some people lie. I won’t.”

“I will. A little white lie will save Heidi Falls.”

“Is it worth it?”

"Look at what we gain?"

As she walked away she muttered, "Why is it that we always find a reason for justifying a lie?"  


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