John Beal is cool, as I've said before. He's the main guy in this, which reminds me, strangely, of a that Twilight Zone story "It's a good life" (itself a Ray Bradbury story?), where a normal, small American town suddenly disappears off the map. This story's not nearly as malevolent as the TWZ play, though...nor is it like the RMT's "the fall of Gentryville".

At the beginning of the tale, Beal's character is looking at a real, in-his-hand blue stone which is from a recent occurence in his life that he cannot fathom. He doesn't know if he just imagined it (though the stone is genuine) or if he had contact with some strange other existence.

Turns out he's an analyst, and was on his way to work on the commuter train. He'd just exchanged niceties with a friend, and had become totally immersed in his figures for work. (I guess he'd had been staring at his laptop had this episode taken place today?) When he looks up, he's astounded to see that the train car is empty, save for him. In fact, the whole TRAIN appears to be empty. Disoriented, he exits the train at a stop he can't recognize. Immediately, he's met by a kindly woman who seems to be amazed that he's there.

Taking him to her place to meet her husband, he discovers he's in a town called "Hanover Hills", that (they surmised) after some distant far off nuclear test was suddenly isolated from everywhere. The people are eternally youthful. They always have a plentiful harvest from crops in nearby fields. The town filling station's gas pumps are always full. Yet whenever one tries to leave town by rail or road, they always end up back where they started.

Apparently, when the atomic test took place a mysterious vapor began emanating from a nearby hill. The townspeople can see it from far off but not up close. Beal's character, led by another townsman to the site, can see it up close, and they become convinced that whatever is inside that cave which is the source of the vapors is what's keeping their town mysteriously ageless and isolated.

Nice ending, if a little inexplicable. Interesting to hear John Beal (who was a septugenarian when this play was performed) talking about a "disco"... 