In Lakeland, they liked to say; 'Lakeland keeps it real', because it was true-- but Benny and Ali liked to say; "Fakeland keeps it real", because it was funnier.
Benny and his girlfriend Ali were both nineteen years old, but they looked even younger, having grown up in the soft atmosphere of Lakeland. The child-like spirit still followed them closely, and they had never been taught the need to create any real live tears over any dreamed-up illusions-- they habitually embraced reality, as they'd been taught that it was all that they really had.
They were young, and it was working for them. They were free in the head, and simply knew no better, or worse. Nice, innocent kids.
How quickly they had ended up in the Hill Valley jail!
One day Benny and Ali had stepped out into the streets, and had wandered down the Long Highway towards Hill Valley for an adventure. They weren't prepared for an adventure, but who ever really is? They hadn't anticipated any problems, but how could they? They were children of Lakeland.
Busted
Except that two innocent people were thrown into a cage against their will, the charges against them were laughable. Their arrest's importance, though, was apparently verified in the Official Hill Valley Police Report by using all-capital text: "POSSESSION OF MARIHUANA, TRESPASSING, THEFT, LOITERING, AND RESISTING ARREST" In less than an hour after their arrival in the town of Hill Valley, Benny and Ali were clinked inside the HVPD holding facility.
A new crime wave was being heavily promoted on the Hill Valley News that same week, with hour-long Crime Wave Specials telling all about it, and dreary news commentators promising more to come after this. Benny and Ali had been grabbed up during all of this contrived excitement, but now they sat in the HVPD Municipal Jail, and after a few days had rolled by, it looked like they had been forgotten.
Benny and Ali saw a lot of interesting people come and go at the busy jail. Being friendly and easy to talk to, they quickly found that most of the 'bad' people in jail were actually just having a 'bad cop day', and only wanted to go home and be left in peace as soon as possible. The various reasons that these people were in here were both exotic and confusing to Benny and Ali. Since being thrown in here themselves, they had been wondering about all of the real criminals that they would meet in a Hill Valley jailhouse, but they hadn't met one yet.
As the daily prisoners cycled through the system, it became clear that these were not criminals. These were just the people whose sleeves had been caught up in the gears of the grotesque machine that they themselves had inadvertently helped to build, and Benny and Ali were able to point this out to the occasional prisoner who had the state of mind to grasp it.
Growing up in Lakeland, the TV programming that was being broadcast from the powerful Hill Valley transmitting towers was sometimes viewed, but only as a learning tool. Children were easily taught the basics of propaganda and social engineering by using this instrument and games, and they learned how a community's mind could be played with, like a box of plastic soldiers, if they were unaware. Using these creative games and puzzles, the young people of Lakeland were taught how they, as individuals, could avoid such social conditioning simply through the knowledge of the neighboring town's eerie conduits of societal manipulation.
Given such knowledge, Benny and Ali were not at all surprised that they were meeting so many kind and nurturing people in Hill Valley. These new friends were no different than their friends back in Lakeland, and several of the people they'd met in jail had offered genuine invitations for them to drop by and visit whenever they liked-- or whenever they got out.
During their stay, and despite their own vibrant glow, Benny and Ali couldn't have hoped to clear the shrill fluorescent disease from Hill Valley's well-lit jail. The long ceiling lights with their piercing hum and metal grating were fixed into smaller caged cells of their own, but while the flickering tubes were so confined, their bluish toxic glow was free to roam the building at will. It did roam, and it urgently radiated the interiors of the cells and halls with a frequency of dull anxiety.
In their little adjoining cages, Benny and Ali held hands through the blue-grey bars and smiled, visiting with their confined neighbors and listening with care to the shaking voices of the new prisoners, while exchanging warm goodbyes with the ones who had done their time. They invited everyone, without fail, to be sure to visit Lakeland soon. Inmates got out, new detainees were put in, and the machine churned it's energy from the herd mercilessly. Friendship and care can be found in the most unexpected places though, and sometimes the biggest machine can be ruined by a couple of pieces sand.
At any rate-- during their stay under the humming caged lights of the jail--if friendships can be considered a type of currency, Benny and Ali were now some of the richest people in Hill Valley, and they'd only been there three days.
On that third day of their unplanned visit to Hill Valley, there was a noticeably quite moment in the hallway outside of the cells, followed by voices that were unfamiliar to the echoing corridors of this jailhouse. Benny and Ali listened, and a woman's voice was now dominating the hallway outside.
"Roy, you really should listen to yourself sometime. Three days, you told me, that you've been holding them, and… why is he just standing there? Open the door, please!"
The now-familiar buzzer and clang from a steel door echoed down the hall, as Benny and Ali listened.
"It really sounds like a good story, especially the way YOU tell it, Roy. You've been holding these kids for three days… for drinking a little bit of water out of someone's garden hose, your brave officers caught them in the act. You actually said "stealing water"… you actually tried to… WHERE are they?"
The rotund guard-guy, who never spoke, appeared outside the cell's bars, followed by a sour-faced police Captain, and behind him, the source of the voice that they'd been hearing; it was the town's librarian, Beaulah Chandler.
They all stopped in front of the cells. Beaulah smiled nicely when she saw Bennie and Ali peering out of their bright cells, and then frowned sharply at the Captain. "Roy… don't just stare at them like it's a zoo… OPEN these doors!"
The silent guard didn't wait for the Captain's word, and he opened the cell doors. Benny and Ali remained seated on their benches, smiling at everyone. They really were nice kids.
Beaulah shoo'ed the guard away from the doors with one hand, and motioned to the two prisoners 'come on out' with the other, like she was directing traffic. "Come on out of those cages, you two… you're free to go... you shouldn't even be in here. Let's get out of this idiotic place, if you don't mind."
With that, the two stood up and were set free. They smiled at the Captain with their happy twinkles, and then followed Beaulah as she turned and quickly began walking back down the echoing hall like she meant it, and soon they were outside in real sunshine on the sidewalk in front of the police station.
Beaulah laughed a little and rolled her eyes back at the building. "Did you hear his excuse, why they arrested you? No. He didn't have one. He was ashamed, as he should be. Now. I would like to welcome you to Hill Valley properly. I'd like to buy you a coffee, or whatever you desire, somewhere away from this jailhouse, if that's ok with you, and I'd like to hear all about Lakeland… I haven't been there in years!"
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FICTIONARIUM: where they're not just playing with you-- it's for science.