LZT-Origins
Lazytown. We've all seen it on Television, sung and danced to the catchy tunes that would wriggle their way into our minds. The town was full of energy, with Sportacus as its nucleus, and the several children who would follow his lifestyle of being active and healthy. However, it was not always this way. The town possesses a rich history, spanning back several centuries, to the days of exploration, in the 15th century. This story will encompass that history, chapter, by chapter, revealing the forgotten past of this town, and how it ended up being a modest town on its very own island.
Ziggy walked into the town library. The soft thrum of the air conditioning kept him alert, a useful feature of the place when he wasn't intoxicated with sweets. He liked the library. While he was known by all his classmates and friends as being impulsive and impatient, he did have another side to his character. He sometimes preferred to be alone. Friends were nice and all, but felt drawn to the environmental equilibrium the library offered exclusively.
The librarian looked up and waved silently, and Ziggy likewise. Ziggy, being himself, liked books that were mostly of visual interest – comics, graphic novels, magazines, and the odd children's book. He didn't read those much anymore, he wanted to prove he wasn't as juvenile as he was a couple years ago. He was 10 years old now, two years younger than his inner friend circle, but still, Ziggy craved the simplicity, and often the essential morals that fairytales and other books of the like offered.
Ziggy today however, was in a different mood. He felt confident that his schoolwork had taught him enough large words for him to understand books that had more words, less images. He relished and imagined himself finishing one of the large encyclopedias or large fiction books that he often saw on the bookshelves at his friends' places, except Pixel, who kept them on his hard drive. In a semi-trance of that image, Ziggy found himself in the non-fiction section of the library, where books as thick as his hands long stood, intimidatingly, as if their spines were staring at him. Ziggy was about to turn around when he saw an enourmous book, standing stiff against a shelf, as if it were being shoved into position by books about Las Vegas and La Paz.
"HISTORY OF LAZYTOWN", was the title, and Ziggy, having a knack and interest in history, decided to flip through some pages, nothing serious. The book was only a few centimetres thick, and Ziggy had no intention of glancing at all the pages, let alone reading and processing them. That was above the duty of any boy of his age. With that in mind, he pulled the book out with a small grunt, and found a large soft chair to sit in. Now that he could inspect it, he noticed there was an abnormal amount of dust on the top of the book; it had been sitting there for ages, years even, untouched. Ziggy patted the book lightly, and the dust dispersed, before being captured by the air vent above him. With that, he grasped the boiled leather cover, and opened it.
The first inner page was blank, and had aged into a thick cream colour. The paper was rough, and had a musty scent. Ziggy spent a full 20 seconds just observing this page, feeling its texture, and processing the smell. Then, Ziggy flipped into the contents, which split the history into several chapters, each one covering a century, up until 1998. Ziggy decided to just read the summary, reading recounts of actual people was too much for him. Maybe, just maybe, with what he read in here, he could impress the other kids, and with that high note, he flipped the page.
Lazytown was first founded in the mid-15th century, when Spanish gold prospectors unexpectedly landed on the island, on their journey to Canada. With this new island empty for them to roam, they prospected in the mountain range that lies east of the current site. Day and night, infected with gold fever, they would follow seams of quartz along the cliffs, hoping to see that single glint that would change their lives forever. They never succeeded, and returned to their ships, moored today in the harbour just two kilometres from the current site of the town. The harbour proved a useful find. It was deep and the walls were vertical. The mountains also served as a windshield, keeping unforgiving breezes away from ships upon entry. Thus, prospectors decided to start a small settlement here, to accommodate sailors who would foreseeably anchor in the harbour. Thus, some stone buildings were erected, and the sparse forest was felled, and some paths were laid with cobbles. The place was named Port Joanna, after the then Spanish monarch.
Ziggy flipped through the next few pages, as they were mostly about the Spanish social structure of the time, which didn't seem to be very relevant. Ziggy stopped at the start of the next section, which covered the 16th and 17th century, in chapters.
As the 15th century drew to a close, the Spanish Empire entered what many considered its Golden Age, an age of unprecedented expansion and wealth was harvested from various places around the globe. Soon, Port Joanna became a bustling hub of activity on the island, as it was the only connection the people on it had with the outside world. The dwelling consisting of a church and shops expanded into what would be considered today a village, containing an inn, bar, several houses and farms, and a marketplace. Ships would dock here as an intermediate point between Spain and the New World and vice versa to stock up on supplies. The town did not flourish for several decades as the island had no inherent value, other than its current purpose. Efforts to expand were met with the lack of organization and population. It was simply a generic harbour village.
Some years later, a mineral prospector, Francis Lopez, discovered that nearby, just outside the city limits, was an abundance of lead ore, or litharge, which could be smelted and sold. Within just a few months, the small humble town loosely known as Port Joanna was soon immersed and expanding through the heat of industry. Some lead seams ran under the town itself, but lay untouched, as the miners had no way of guaranteeing the rock above them was strong enough. A lead refinery was constructed just outside city limits, and became the hub of employment for several villagers. As the money flowed into the economy of the town, so did the flow of people. Between the end of the 15th and the middle of the 16th, the population had swelled from 500 to 4000, as industry peaked. The entrance to the mine, which started as a metal tube with a hemispherical cover, soon expanded underground to become a clubhouse of sorts, with dark blue and grey metal columns. Ships would arrive with people and workers on board, searching for a new life away from the confines of Spain, and ships would leave with their keeps visibly weighed down with lead ingots. The town, which never had an official name, was named LithargeTown*, a fitting name for its most valued export.
However, in the 17th century, a great tornado swept across the harbour, one that had bypassed the mountains that had for so long kept the town in its large protective embrace. The tornado caused mayhem in the harbour, where mooring ropes and anchor chains were strained to breaking point, causing ships to collide, and tangle into each other, creating a major blockage, preventing access. The farms in the surrounding area were also destroyed, as the plants became uprooted. The place was devastated, but through some miracle, major buildings such as the church and lead refinery were spared.
Following this disaster, LithargeTown gradually went into decline, as people would leave to chance to unforgiving Atlantic to live in the newly founded Americas. The effects of the towns economic lifeline, lead, was also beginning to taint the town with its cruel nature. Every week several current and previous lead miners would be buried in an ever expanding cemetery outside the city sites. Economic activity plummeted to record lows.
The penultimate blow to the town was when the Spanish abolished slavery, and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade no longer made its way into the harbours of Port Joanna. The town's population dwindled to a meagre 180, and most were farmers, living off the land, while the rest worked the bare harbours and docks of the port. The Anglo-Spanish War at the time was taking its toll too, as less Spanish warships would patrol the North Atlantic, as their service was earmarked for engagements against the British. It was at this point in time that many rogues would take advantage of the weakening state of Spain's naval grip on their colonies, and the small harbour of Joanna was not safe.
In 1587, one brave pirate and his crew, who dared to defy the bitter and harsh climate of the North Atlantic sailed into Port Joanna, and ransacked the place of what was not already stolen or taken. Crops were stolen, and some residents were forced to be deck hands. Rottenbeard was not fierce, or outstandingly strong, but he was ruthless and clever. He also had an edict against anything Spanish, for he once was a Spanish captain, who went rogue after being left for dead in battle. This short campaign resulted in signs and documents burned, as well as any remaining structures that payed homage to Spain, including the now-called LazyTown stone, which had inscriptions and bore markings of the founders, as well as the palace that the aristocracy would govern the town. The once grand palace, that housed the monarch's representative, faded, and several key parts collapsed. The town decayed into a tiny backwater, and the island it lay on shrunk to a meagre speck on any map of the Atlantic, without even a label. For much of the 17th and 18th century, as the final people on the island passed away, all that could be heard at Port Joanna was the call of the albatross at certain times of the year, and the constant but gentle splashing that wavelets would create as they spilled against the harbour walls.
Ziggy stopped reading for a moment. The fact that he Rottenbeard was confirmed in his mind and that this town was once Spanish seemed irrelevant, compared to the fact that for two centuries, two hundred years, this town lay where it was, silently, in the middle of the North Atlantic.
"Jeez" he thought to himself. "No wonder this place hasn't got any sign of its past, it died with it, long ago. Two hundred years ago, long time, I wonder if the Mayor was alive at the time, he looks the part."
With a small chuckle, he flipped over the next page, and read.
The town once known as LithargeTown would have languished for guaranteed, another two hundred years were it not for Canadians sailing from Newfoundland on course for Iceland when they accidentally bumped into the shores of a small, deserted island, in the middle of the North Atlantic, on a mild day, on the 24th of February, 1765. This is the earliest exact date in this town's history. The sailors disembarked, at what was an artificial port, or at least it seemed to be, everything being overgrown and all. The slow disease known as time had already finished long before the Canadian merchants arrived. Stone arches from doorways, laced with the tight embrace of vines and branches, were one of the few signs of civilisation. Stones, purposeless, were scattered in every conceivable direction, and the castle had decayed into one, lonely tower, surrounded by the stone corpses of its brothers. The tower tilted to the east ever so slightly, as if submitting to the inevitability of time.
The sailors, running short on supplies, could not afford to linger on this deserted island, and sailed for Iceland, before arriving in Britain, to complete their Atlantic journey. The captain, a hardened Prussian ex-fisherman, Otto Ulrich, presented his logbook to several captains, and cartographers, one of which was James Cook, who would go on to map the Australian coastline. Cook referred Ulrich to the British Admiralty, who, interested in the, albeit sparse information Otto had provided, as well as keen to wedge the Danish Empire between Iceland and Greenland, sent a small group of ships to explore and document the shores.
Flick
On board were archaeologists, botanists, cartographers, and several working men who were keen to escape the confines of the streets of London and Belfast. The party landed on the second of May, 1759. They were amazed by what they saw. The harbour was an optimal door to ferry in supplies and people. The mountain range made this place a solid strategic proposition to develop. But before the Admiralty could ship in cannons, soldiers, and building materials, the archaeologists set out about their work, unearthing details about the place. Surveys were conducted of the surrounding environment, the wildlife, the plants, and the last crumbling remains of the buildings. One of the many archaeologists surveying the site was a middle aged man, Kirky Graham, unearthed a stone, in cryptic old Spanish. Using a small brush, he loosened accumulated dust, which spilled out of very slight engravings. It was cleaved at an odd angle, and the bottom third of the stone was missing. Nonetheless, any find that was written in nature was scarce and thus precious. With some effort, Graham sent it for translation to one of the interpreters who had made the journey with them.
Flick
What happened during this period nobody knows, but it is likely that, through sheer chance, a simple mispronunciation of 'Litharge' became 'Letharge', as is evidenced by records of the time. As the survey team finally prepared to leave, the head cartographer marked on their map, Port Joanna as the name of the island, and LethargeTown as its only settlement, just as the sails were raised.
It wasn't until the following year, after serious debate, that a convoy of ships, carrying all sorts of supplies required to start a colony. Resources were tight, as many ships were originally earmarked for James Cook's venture into the Southern Ocean. The fleet landed on the 19th of September, 1766, and a temporary tent city was established to house the workers and rudimentary facilities.
In the next 3 years, the small cobbled plain that once had a Spanish small village resting on it became a naval hub for the entire British Atlantic Fleet. The town became a city, as the Industrial Revolution in Britain ignited, and a new era of wealth came to the island known as Port Joanna. When coal was discovered in the foothills of the mountains in the north, by prospectors, who had unknowingly traced the forefathers of the Spanish prospectors centuries before them, a sudden surge of migrants came flooding into the harbour. Unskilled workers from Ireland and England would come here to expend sweat and energy extracting the black gold from the ground. Coal production skyrocketed to a quarter million tons a year, which meant that shipping companies were forced to compete fiercely for contracts. Ships leaving the harbour heading for England would have their keels bulging at the weight of their precious cargo. LethargeTown soon became a juxtaposition of a name, but surprisingly, it was not changed.
By 1770, Parliamentary representatives in England were passing defence legislation for the island, as tensions in their colonies in North America almost reached a point of all-out war. Port Joanna was westernmost island colony in the Atlantic, and was thus a crucial staging ground for any naval operation. By 1771, the harbour walls of the fort were bristling with a new garrison, and lines of cannons, with hundreds of soldiers and their families migrating to the island to man them. Thus, the island's purpose was now twofold, as a garrison for defence and a source of coal for England.
In 1778, in the middle of the Revolutionary War, the large town, with almost 8,000 people living in it, became the most common stopping point for the Royal Navy. Not a day would go by before another warship would enter the harbour, either to be repaired at the newly constructed shipyard, or to be outfitted for war against the Americans. The town as abuzz as kegs of gunpowder, muskets, and lead, was loaded onto ships, leaving behind only concerned relatives.
When the British lost the Revolutionary War, Port Joanna lost some of the wartime bustle that an entire generation had grown up living with. Soldiers once garrisoned to defend the island were called home to fight against the Napoleonic tyranny that threatened England, and Port Joanna was left quiet again, with the occasional ship with cargo and mail sailing by. For 35 years, Port Joanna continued with the hustle and bustle of ordinary life, until one day, on a frosty morning, on November the 21st, 1824, a large steamer, chugged boldly and intimidatingly into the harbour. Against the wooden hulls of yesteryear, the steamship seemed to be light years ahead. The new ship was constructed of iron, and seemed like a garrison, with two paddles flanking it. Upon hearing this development, people stopped their daily runabouts to flock to the harbour, and gazed in awe, at the genesis of motorised naval travel. Off it, stepped off a group of sharply dressed engineers from England, who spoke to the governor of the island. Inside the office, the largest change to the island since its founding era was sparked, and the chain reaction soon came, in the form of metal, and wheels.
In the following years, the town was shoved into a state of modernisation previously unheard of. The graceful, white sailing ships that entered the harbour was soon replaced by grand ocean steamers, powered by the fires of industry, and carrying hundreds across the Atlantic to the New World. The oil lamps that reeked of fish carcass were replaced by brighter lights powered by a new discovery called electricity, and the windmill which produced flour to be shipped to the homeland was replaced by a factory that increased production fivefold. The sound of horse hooves carrying fresh produce, gone, replaced with a whistle and chug, as the iron horse methodically went about its work. Everywhere, the sound of industrialization could be heard, and the city was jokingly named Lazytown, a move that the population voted on, just to make the town more memorable and noticeable, as English settlements everywhere in the world during that period were anything but lazy.
In 1840, on a lone ship arriving from the United States, was a bright-eyed, ambitious farmer named Johnny S.C Seed. In America, he had perfected a very specific variant of apple, but could not afford the land to plant it. Without a prospect to grow his apples in America, he sailed for Joanna, the perfect climate. When he arrived, he purchased a hectare of land, near the old lead mines, and planted his apple seeds. Later laboratory tests of this fruit would show that it contained an unprecedented level of energy and vitamins. Such traits could only be obtained through several generations of selective breeding, a theory that Johnny had worked out, after seeing selective breeding work with cows back at home. When the apples were ripe for picking, Johnny sold them at the town market, where they made quite a sum of money. After all, everyone wanted to buy these delicious apples, that Johnny named 'SportsCandy', after his middle name. Thus, in the following generations of Johnny's family, the apples became a staple of the town, and part of its image.
Some years later, the Irish potato famine hit, as potato crops were blighted all across Ireland. Starving families, unable to afford bread, sought refuge in Canada and the United States. One family making the crossing however, the Devlin family, decided to land in Port Joanna, as they saw potential in the town. Steven Devlin, father of his two children, was a sharp minded, methodical man. His father had made a killing on the stock market in London, only to lose it all while gambling in a drunken stupor, before dying merely months later of a heart attack. Devlin purchased the land on the crest of a hill on the Southwestern side of town, and built a modest house for his family. Then, with what little money he had left, decided to start a bank, operating out of his own house, the first private bank in the town. Breaking the monopolized rates of the Bank Of England, Devlin swiftly made a large sum of money before the official bank had time to react. With cheaper credit, the towns economy took another free kick, and soared. Then, suddenly, in July 1853, Steven Devlin vanished. His whereabouts were never discovered, but many speculated that the chief accountant at the English bank, furious at the success of the competition, eliminated him out of sheer frustration. He was never convicted however, and Devlin's legacy lived on through his children, and the bank in the middle of the main street, with its imposing stone pig on top.
"Hmm" Ziggy thought. Reminds me of a friend of mine.
The latter half of the 19th century saw Lazytown became a huge contrast in terms of living standards compared to its motherland. Newly formed worker unions pressed the government to improve their working conditions, and a brand new system, pioneered by the local governor, called waste collection, saw Lazytown becoming one of the cleanest modern cities of its age. A distillatory was completed on the shores of Port Joanna, meaning that a clean, steady supply of water was no longer a luxury. The next big hurdle for infrastructure though, was introducing an entire network of pipes to introduce running water to homes. There were no plumbers in town, so a company had to be hired. Rotten Plumbing & Co were the first to answer the call for the contract. They arrived in 1876, with their head, Tommy Rotten personally leading the project. As they began digging up the surrounding land to install pipes, one of the workers digging fell through what looked like a burrow, and ended up in what seemed like a huge underground lair, covered in cobwebs and dust. It was the original clubhouse of the Spanish lead miners, and was in relatively good nick, compared to the town above it during the centuries of decay. Rotten, being the man who he was, decided to not tell the mayor, instead finishing the contract, and buying the land the lair was situated on. He even raised a wooden billboard to deflect attention, to the rather conspicuous entrance, built with leftover pipe from the contract. Not much is known about the man after this point, only that he sold his company for a grand fortune, but he disappeared in 1889. His daughter, Heidi Rotten, was soon forgotten, as she became a social outcast. To this date, there is no documentation of the whereabouts of the last members of the Rotten family.
Ziggy laughed. This book was definitely old. "Maybe I can add to this when I'm older, haha", the thought danced around in his mind.
At the dawn of the 20th century, there was an enormous celebration organised by the local church, and the star attraction of the celebration was a newly imported, and were called fireworks. The residents 'oohed' and 'aahed' all evening, as the bright flashes and colourful patterns lit up the otherwise cold, dark sky. At this time, a lighthouse was constructed, to give passing ships some bearing. In 1905, the town received a hugely modern building, which constructed with ocean-blue bricks, and was comparatively tall and skinny, with thin wires protruding from it, and at the heart, was a rather complex device that made intermittent beeping sounds. The technicians, with their thin rimmed spectacles, called it a 'wireless radiowave communicator'. One of the technicians was a young, African man who grew up in England. His name was Bill Waverly, but his colleagues nicknamed him 'Bit Wave', owing to his technical prowess. He was the head technician, and was the first person to receive a radio transmission from London. From then on, Lazytown was connected, and finally offset its perpetual isolation with the rest of the world. Bit later retired at the ripe age of 52, in 1922 and son and daughter were named Raymond and Darlene respectively, or Ray and Dar for short.
Flick
In 1906, there was suddenly a surge for federation on the island of Joanna. Federation would allow for a local Parliament, to introduce local legislation for the people, rather than having laws made for them by old men sitting thousands of kilometers away in Westminster. Through some more-than-enthusiastic campaigning from representatives in Westminster, and a slight majority of agreement on the issue, the fate of the town was sealed. Ultimately, the vote of the residents forced the hand of the reluctant British, and the Town Hall, having been rotting away from disuse, was soon rejuvenated, and expanded. The first Mayor of Lazytown, Hanz 'Gilford' Marklin. Inheritor to the wealth generated by his father's toy company, he rose in popularity, as one who understood the importance of education, and a healthy lifestyle, especially for children. His only real competitor was the daughter of the previous Governor. Emily Stirling rallied a slight advantage over Marklin, due to her appealing to the older residents in town, those who had been raised by a monarchy, and some other royalists. However, during the voting process, several of her councilors were exposed as being on the payroll of the monarchy, to try and regain control of the island. Stirling was shortly disqualified, and Marklin won by a landslide. From the day he took office and introduced his legislation for mandatory, free education and a boost to the local hospital, (as well as raised taxes, despite some protest), Lazytown was never going to be lazy.
Flick
In 1911, the harbour had just received an enormous expansion, as a reflection to a change in its usual traffic: From clunky, noisy, unrefined paddle steamers to the luxurious and graceful ocean liners that tamed and plied the Atlantic, chock full of people, essentially a small town sitting on the ocean. Despite the seafaring tradition of previous generations, many of those living in Lazytown were accustomed to a life of operating out of a small business, or some profession. However, some older families retained their aspirations to the expansive blue, and they would soon experience the subtle wave of change, as the Mauretania, one of the grandest ocean liners of the time, steamed into the harbour. To many, it was as if Versailles itself had floated three thousand kilometres and arrogantly plonked itself in their harbour, like any royal. Like the first steamship that entered oh-so-long ago, people would leave their posts; stop the wheels of commerce, to gaze at the floating palace, in all its sheer grace and beauty. Some fishermen at the time even claimed the tide rose higher than normal owing to the presence of the enormous hull weighing down the water.
Flick
The true effects of globalization would only strike the world adversely when the empires in Europe turned on each other in 1914. 4 years of war, however, did little to dampen the spirits of the residents, other than a handful of sailors enlisting into the Royal Navy to defend the Motherland. Food was rationed, but the island was self-sufficient to the point where this was almost irrelevant. Workers still came home to an ample dinner at the end of a hard day. The port again handled military supply logistics, much like during the Revolutionary War, but, in a unique twist of events, the ships arriving were now mostly American and Canadian, sailing west to aid their weary allies on the Western Front.
Flick
The Roaring 20's came sooner than expected, and as the global stock market truly boomed, and wealth came flowing into the town from foreign investments, the living standard of the people only improved. In 1923, the theatre was reopened, after some months of renovation to introduce a new-fangled invention, which produced what seemed like pictures, but moved. The black and white films became a hit, and life overall, was good in the town. The first quarter of the 20th century had torn down several communication barriers, and had completely offset the geographical isolation. The residents enjoyed this, until the entire world was shocked with one of the unseen ramifications of globalization. While wealth had pulled all up with it, the stock market crash of '29 dragged all down with it. As poverty hit the small island, the population dwindled from 20,000 to 12,000, as many moved to a life in less affected areas, such as Brazil or Australia. Many businesses could not fight the struggle to stay out of debt, and closed. Economic activity took a nosedive, and many in the town who resisted the original urge to stay, started to question their capitalistic society, seeing the decay of shops around them. In 1933, many of those with a Swiss, or Austrian descent moved back to Germany, as news of Hitler's Nazism bringing prosperity to the nation through meagre unemployment. Some Ukranians and Russians moved even further east, to join the Soviets, in hopes that Communism would bring them hope in a life where Capitalism had stolen it. This started a chain effect, as more people jumped on the bandwagon. The population again dwindled, to a meagre 7500. Seeing the loss of nearly half his citizens, the Mayor and the Governor introduced drastic economic reforms, to stabilize and kick start the economy from its dive-induced coma. The policies, such as enforcing lower interest rates, did serve their purpose, but the Governor was reluctant to grant permissions for construction companies and entrepeneurs to expand, as fears of monopolised districts arose from the public.
Flick.
The Second World War saw a major, temporary increase in the population of the island. As Nazi submarines prowled the North Atlantic, sinking Allied convoys, which carried much needed food and war supplies to England, military planners suggested to operate an airbase from Port Joanna. A brand new airstrip was quickly bulldozed on some fallow land north of the town, barely long enough, with the end dipping sharply into the hungry waves. Citizens every morning could hear the low cough and splutter of engines, as the metal birds would take off, on their eagle-eyed patrols. The tall, blue building in the middle of town received several large radar dishes, and Raymond and sister Darlene Waverley worked tirelessly as the first air traffic controllers in town. Once, a crippled submarine ran aground on the island, the crew desperate to escape death at sea. They were captured and sent to America, but the vessel itself was left floating outside the harbour, until a storm surge claimed it a week later.
Flick
In mid-1943, American and Canadian ocean liners once again steamed into the harbour, but instead of their sharply dressed passengers, they were fit to burst, carrying thousands of American and Canadian troops for D-Day. With them, they brought several slices of their culture. Many children gathered at the dock, as Americans would scatter chewing gum and sweet, as well as cigarettes for their parents. For many people, it was their first taste of American culture. When the war ended, several Yanks moved into town, and started families. Also, some Icelandics migrated here, shortly after their country was declared independent. With them, was a special family, close friends of the late mayor, Hanz Marklin. The Scheving family, were mostly notable for helping in founding the Icelandic national football team, back in 1912. In 1948, Sjőrn Scheving, captaining the Port Joanna Football team, defeated the Reykjavik Football team, in a friendly match. The jersey Scheving wore that day, is proudly displayed in the Mayor's office, after being gifted by Sjőrn. Now, the blue-and-white striped jersey, bearing a large '10' on the back is timelessly preserved.
Ziggy perked up. The shirt had an extraordinary resemblance to Sportacus' outfit. "I'll have to talk to him later about that." He chucked as he flipped through more boring stuff.
The 1960's saw a new mood settle on the town like an invisible fog. While Television and radio were commonplace, and the upbeat sound of Transatlantic reports filled the atmosphere in all homes, there was an unspoken fear. The Soviets and the wests were in a huge political standoff, as both sides bristled with nuclear missiles, threatening to plunge the world into an endless age of nuclear dystopia. In an attempt to restrict Soviet 'boomer' nuclear submarines from patrolling the Atlantic and spying on their western Allies, the radio station in town was boosted with two more satellite dishes, and like their grandfather and parents, the two sisters living in it, Bindi and Aryanna, or Bin and Ary for short, worked, hours without the slightest gasp of sunlight, to decrypt Soviet communications, with a huge, brand new contraption the size of their basement, called a digital computer. Often, at night, unbeknownst to the entire island except the two sisters and their superiors in MI6, decryption keys and other sensitive information was delivered into town by a secretive man in a bowler hat, strange shoes, and an oversized jacket. His codename was merely 'Zero', and that he was a Soviet double agent. MI6 was only slightly less vague on describing him, merely saying he 'means well'. This correspondence continued for several years, one or twice a year, as the pair cracked codes, and managed to provide the West a crucial intelligence advantage over their opponents. Of course, this activity was carried out hidden from the eyes of the average resident. Whenever one of the sisters was rarely called to see someone, they would often refer to their relative as being ill, and having to tend to them.
On the 12th of January, 1972's, residents awoke not to the sun rising as usual (the sun was not due to rise until near noon this far into winter, but to the sound of glass cracking and a loud, bass-like vibration that seemed to shake the ground itself. Earthquakes were common, given the islands relatively small distance from the Euro-American fault, but the island had not experienced a deadly earthquake since the 1800's. What they experienced however, was not due to fault plate friction, but a huge volcanic eruption in Iceland. Within days, westerly winds had carried a huge, dark cloud of ash, which lingered, and towered over the tiny island. The sky darkened, and even at noon, visibility dropped to merely a few metres, and residents carried about, with masks and scrubs on, attempting to ignore the ash cloud. The ash, having an abnormally high content of sulphur, coated the walls of the town yellow, as winds pushed away the ash cloud. The entire town was placed a fire alert, as sulphur is an easily combustible element. For a week, the town walls seemed to have been painted yellow. Specialised teams arrived from Iceland to remove the sulphur. No major fire sparked, only small, menial ones that caused minor injuries at worst. Before it was all removed however, journalists flocked from all over the northern hemisphere to photograph, 'The Yellow Town'. Artists created several interpretations of the town. Ultimately, after the sulphur was disposed of, the mayor decided to have the town walls painted yellow, to keep that status that a natural disaster had created for the town. The majority of citizens liked the new colour scheme, rather than the brown bricks that had once plied the several walls and barriers around time.
"Yellow walls huh, can't picture LazyTown any different way."
In the late 1980's, as the environment of the town suffered more and more from the ruthless gears of industry that had been turning for almost 200 years, Mayor Michael Barton was becoming less and less popular. He advocated expanding the town, selling once fertile farmland to hungry property developers, and felling the nearby forest to increase capital. However, citizens in the town, much like those of previous generations, decided enough was enough, and staged a huge protest in town, waving huge signs, and demanding that the mayor resign immediately. Gathered outside the town hall, the citizens waited for their mayor to show face. He didn't come out for a whole hour, by which time he was denounced to the point of resigning on the spot. Now deposed, the vacuum was filled by one, young, aspiring man who wanted to keep the principles of Lazytown in place – A peaceful town, virtually no crime, and an emphasis on human wellbeing over money. Milford Meanswell won by a landslide vote, as he took office. His brother, George Meanswell worked by his side as an administrator. He was been mayor since, and has never lost popularity.
Ziggy flipped again, and saw several pictures of the Mayor, one of which showed him with of all things, hair on his head. Ziggy almost laughed louder than what the librarians would have thrown people out for, instead acquiring short glances from people nearby. Ziggy flipped more, and saw he was at the 'bibi-, bibliography', his cognitive processes coming back to life after a brief microsleep.
With that, he decided to place the book back where he found it, being careful to not bad the spine and sliding it snugly onto the shelf. Then, he left the library, ready to show off his newfound knowledge to his friends.