Hudson Bennett

Heirloom

It was a Saturday, deep in East Texas, when the whole town awoke for the ceremony. Alarms across the cluster of buildings screeched at 7 a.m. sharp; bleary-eyed teenagers shook off the clutches of sleep and adults stumbled into their kitchens to brew their morning coffee. The town was called Jacobson. Situated in the middle of what had been a forest, before all the trees had been sliced into stumps, it held 12,463 people. Of those 12,463, on that June 15, there were 196 12-year olds, all of whom were participating. Attendance of the ceremony, was, of course, mandatory, which is why the alarms woke every man, woman, teenager, and child, and all of them went to attend.