Voices

Writers' Club assignment for the week was to use a different writing voice. I struggled with a few ideas but, in the end, decided to write in the voice of the announcer for Welcome To Nightvale.

The church will hold a charity auction today complete with a dunk tank and ritual suicide booth.  Among the items available for bidding are the walls and doors of the local Boys And Girls Club facility.  Sadly, the floors will not be donated but will be turned upright to replace the walls as new floors are constructed.  The doors will not be replaced and citizens are encouraged to place themselves in the jams and require others to knock on them.  In a prepared statement, the president of the local Boys And Girls Club reminds you that all parts of the local Boys And Girls Club are now, and always will be...haunted.

The local insane asylum would like to announce its annual costume party celebrating the return of The Voices.  October is parole month and The Voices generally fade to silence during the parole process.  Inmates are often overheard saying that it had been "Some Time" since they'd heard The Voices.  Something in the parole-denial process brings the return of The Voices to a jubilant and expectatious community who had been without purpose or guidance since the disappearance of The Voices.  The staff of the local insane asylum ask that all costumes be racially and mentally sensitive.  Anyone wearing an inmate costume will be held until next year's parole process.

Well, Old Man Paul got drunk last Friday, reached into the void and pulled back from it a cursed chalice.  Despite warnings from local clergy and yoga instructors, Old Man Paul has been carrying the chalice around... and drinking from the chalice... and mumbling incoherently to the chalice.  The chalice is said to resemble a green Gatorade bottle and hold up to one liter of virgin's blood... or Gatorade... or brothy soup.  This reporter would like to recommend that Old Man Paul stear clear of the local insane asylum's annual costume party.. for obvious reasons.

A great Sadness came over the town this morning as the sun refused to rise and, at once, all our citizens became aware of our lies.  Lies told out of convenience.  Lies that hold society together.  Lies that fall so effortlessly from the mouth as to be confused for the truth even by the very lips that spoke them.  Lies so unnecessary that shame is the only product of their invention.  Shame and a deep, deep sadness and a yearning for connection.  For honesty, even for a moment, just one moment that we pull away this veil of lies and stand naked before one another and we cry and say, no scream, "I HAVE ALWAYS LOVED YOU!  IT HAS BROKEN MY FRAGILE DOVE'S HEART THAT YOU DO NOT LOVE ME BACK!"  Local weather authorities have stated that there was no Great Sadness and that an unusually warm fall has brought morning fog that drapes the sun, leaving it temporarily invisible and that no one should dwell on the nonexistent Great Sadness that they probably don't even remember NOT experiencing.

A brief reminder that October is Tie Your Shoes Together And Throw Them Over The Powerline Month.  Also, Saturday is Daylight Forgiveness Day.  Please be sure to get drunk and turn your clocks forward by one day.  Then wake up thinking you have to go to work and must have blacked out all day Sunday.  Then realize what you did and forgive yourself for this little prank.  Participation in Daylight Forgiveness Day is mandatory.