I stood under the warm glow of the lamp above the railway station door. I could see the welcoming committee waiting for me outside.
They struck me as a non-threatening bunch; or at least as non-threatening as a crowd of people blockading a doorway can be, especially when I'd just stepped off a train I didn't remember boarding and had no memory of leaving home. I was already pretty rattled.
There was an excited murmur. The group were smiling and sharing glances between them as they saw me. There was a lady with a bad 1980's poodle-perm. She was clutching a clipboard tight to her chest. I got the impression she was trying to exude authority.
With her was a tiny woman who stared at me like a bunny caught in headlights. Next to her was a tall guy with a billy-goat beard and a short man with a broad, froggy smile.
The crowd drew a simultaneous breath. “WELCOME! Mayor!” they cheered, the chorus led by poodle-perm.
I stared. The three companions gave a cheerful wave and clapped. I couldn't even think about how to respond.
For a moment, I felt a wave of relief. She'd called me Mayor. Clearly they were waiting for somebody else and I was off the hook. The ticket guard had been clear there were no more trains tonight, however.
“I'm afraid you're mistaken,” I told them, “You must be waiting for someone else.”
For just a moment, poodle-perm lady seemed to lose her resolve, but then she smiled and cocked a gun-finger at me, saying, “Uh! Ohhhh! You're such a kidder!”
She gave a humourless little laugh that was half chuckle, half growl and then continued with her spiel.
“Well, a sense of humour is an important trait in an elected official!” she said, her voice bordering on hysteria, “All is well! There's no mistake.” She was reassuring herself as much as the crowd.
“We want you to feel at home, Mayor,” - the way she said it now was like there was a shared joke between us; that grated on me - “so here's a map of Io Falls so that you can find your way around!”
She handed me the map. I looked around at the crazy woman's three companions. They were watching me, carefully. Were their faces betraying expectation? Confusion? Or amusement? I couldn't place it.
“No-ummm,” I said, “you really don't understand. I don't know who you're waiting for, but it definitely isn't me. I'm not your Mayor. I've tried telling you politely but you don't seem to be taking it in. What part of 'no' do you have trouble grasping?”
There was a flicker in the eyes of little miss poodle-perm. After a moment of interminable silence, she forced a thin, polite smile and said, “Well, let's continue this discussion at the town hall, shall we?” She indicated a big municipal building marked on the map. “Why don't we go there together?”
We walked for some time beneath trees. There were no paths or any kind of navigation. I looked behind me, trying to memorise my route through the forest to get back to the railway.
I hadn't seen any roads around the station, either. I had a sudden memory of my previous life in Animal Crossing. I'd arrived in a taxi, hadn't I? It was raining that night. The cab driver had talked all the way there.
I brought my mind back to now. We crossed a stone bridge over a lazily-flowing river and we came to a squat, stone structure in a clearing amid the trees. Poodle-perm unlocked the front door and pushed it open, habitually clicking on the light switch as she went in.
It was an old-fashioned office. Wooden counter at the front, flip-up bar hatch at one end and a lone desk by the back wall, surrounded by filing cabinets and covered in trinkets.
“Welcome to the town hall, Mr... I didn't catch your name,” poodle-perm said to me.
“I didn't drop it,” I told her.
She turned to face me and took in a deep breath. She said, quickly, “I'm Isabelle, your secretary, and I'm here to help in any way that I can. If I may be frank I was surprised to find it would be someone as young as you.” Was that – disapproval – in her voice? “I mean,” she said, “our former mayor held the position for many, many years and was quite set in his ways...” She trailed off.
“If you want to help,” I told her, “you can start by listening. I'm not your mayor. You've got the wrong guy!”
“Well, really!” Isabelle huffed and trotted over to one of the filing cabinets. She opened it with a frustrated clatter and ruffled through the files. She pulled one out and returned, slapping it down on the counter in front of me.
“If you aren't the mayor, then perhaps you'll explain this?” She flipped open the file and stubbed her finger into a grainy six-by-four print.
I stared. There was no way I could deny that the photograph in the file was clearly – and unmistakably – a picture of me.
Isabelle gave a victorious smirk; her previous bumbling persona had slipped away. “Welcome to Io Falls,” she said, “Mr King.”
