👥 The People of Alabama, USA
📘 The Heart of Dixie
They say it still beats.
In the hills east of Montgomery, past the forgetful pines and static-soaked cornfields, the mansion stands. Red neon burns across the clouds each dusk: **HEART OF DIXIE**, it pulses, though no wires feed it.
Inside, the keeper waits.
Her robes shimmer like aged velvet, stitched from maps that no longer chart anything known. Her chest cavity, wide and unlatched, houses a living heart—not hers, not anyone’s. It thuds with the echo of every Alabama song ever hummed, every loss ever carried through quiet Sunday kitchens.
She is the sixth keeper. The previous five vanished mid-blink.
Behind her, the American flag billows without wind, never aging, never folding. Some say it's holographic. Others say it’s been looking for a way out since 1963.
Visitors come rarely. Those who do are changed. They speak slower, forget last names, and smell faintly of tobacco and fireworks. One swore the keeper’s crown rotated counter to time. Another claimed her gaze reversed their memory—said they dreamed in backwards poems for weeks.
No one knows where the mansion came from. The land doesn’t list it. Satellite photos glitch near its coordinates, replaced with old jazz station ads and fragments of diner menus.
But the heart still beats. Loudest during thunderstorms. Softest when someone dies without telling a soul.
They say one day, when Alabama tips too far into the absurd, the mansion will uproot itself and walk east toward Georgia, seeking a new keeper. Until then, it stays anchored by stories—half-truths, full emotions—logged in thick binders under creaky floorboards.
If you ever find it, knock once, then twice. Say your name backward. Offer a peach or a hymn. And above all: don’t listen to the heart too long. It remembers things you haven't done yet.
Postage Stamp
Local Landmark
🏛️ Nestled in central Alabama, the Hall of Reconciliation rises like a dream misunderstood. With baroque arches, mirrored domes, and stone gargoyles that appear mid-blink, the building was allegedly constructed in 1893 by thirteen architects who never met. Each window plays a different hymn at dawn. Locals avoid the hedges—rumored to whisper personal regrets. Though no records exist, postcards from 1921 describe it as “the only place grief goes to shake hands with ceremony.”
🎵 Regional Anthem
🧠 Trivia
- 🕯️ In 1968, a town near Huntsville unanimously voted to ban shadows after 3 p.m. No one remembers why, and enforcement was never repealed.
- 🧪 Tuscaloosa briefly hosted the “Emotion Refinery”—a now-vanished facility that distilled feelings into concentrated vapor. Survivors recall weeks of laughing at nothing.
- 🐓 Each spring, chickens in Perry County instinctively gather in a crop circle formation. Locals call it “The March of Regret.”
- 🍑 An orchard near Dothan reportedly grows peaches with full sets of human baby teeth. Only visible during lunar eclipses.
💬 Local Proverb
🌪️ “When the dome hums and the burger blinks, it’s best not to ask who’s driving.”
🧌 Local Creatures of Questionable Origin
🦴 The Listener of Elmore - Anomaly ID: AL-5911Q
Appearing annually in Elmore County during fall gatherings, this entity—towering and sinewy—settles silently upon local hay bales. Known for its elongated cranium and unblinking gaze, the Listener emits subharmonic pulses believed to scramble intention within nearby speech. Children cover their ears instinctively. Its hands never move, but many claim to hear them tapping inside their own skulls days later. Bikes stop working near it. Cola cans warm. Its presence often coincides with regional memory gaps and misplaced wedding invitations.
Suspected origin: Subliminal broadcast echo, first recorded during a 1977 parade malfunction. Never aggressive. Always watching.
👽 The Driveway Choir Anomaly ID: AL-2372Q
Emerging sporadically near cul-de-sacs and suburban mailboxes, the Driveway Choir consists of six bipedal entities with bulbous, expressive heads—each subtly vibrating at different frequencies. Believed to harmonize with neighborhood electrical grids, their presence causes garage lights to dim rhythmically. They do not speak, but appear in precise formations, often coinciding with thunderstorm warnings or church bulletin misprints. Locals report feelings of nostalgia and static interference during sightings. Their choreography is best described as “ominous-yet-festive.”
Suspected origin: Failed municipal symbiosis trial, 1983. Seen only in daylight. Never alone.