Act I Preview

Lions Club: Predators and Prey, The Karens of Oak Meadows, and other stories.

How do the so-called “regular” people of Junction City manage to create a town so perfectly primed to roll out the red carpet for the Regime? Through the subtle art of micro-fascism, of course. Not the flashy, jackboot kind. No, Junction City prefers the more genteel variety, where tyranny comes disguised as “concern” and authoritarianism is delivered with a smiley face emoji.

It starts small. A raised eyebrow about the length of your grass. A whispered comment that your recycling bin is out a full hour before pickup. A neighborhood Facebook post reminding everyone that Halloween decorations should be “seasonally appropriate” (which is code for: my aesthetic preferences are now law). And bit by bit, with each petty correction, Junction City transforms itself into a Stepford terrarium, a place where individuality goes to suffocate under the throw pillows of conformity.

These everyday enforcers aren’t out burning books, they’re just making sure your shutters are regulation beige. They’re not kicking down doors, they’re forwarding screenshots of your yard to the NextDoor group chat. But the spirit is the same: ensure that everyone thinks, acts, and decorates in a manner deemed “appropriate” by the self-appointed guardians of community standards. That’s how the dream is realized. That’s how they’ll finally Make Junction City Great Again. Or, at the very least, vaguely tolerable to their delicate sensibilities.

Click the image to read the stories of Junction City’s seemingly normal citizens. The ones who appear harmless at the block party but reveal themselves, in time, as petty commissars of suburban order. They smile at you over potato salad while quietly sharpening the knife of conformity.