Article 1: The Silence Talker
What, you ask, is a silence talker? I’m positive you know more then one personally and I’m reasonably certain you’ve dealt with at least five today. What? You were unaware?! Of course you were. The subterfuge of the silence talker is to hide in plain sight. They work with us, they work for us, they are with us while we are out and, unfortunately, they sometimes live with us. In most cases a silence talker is completely ignorant to the damage they cause to society which, consequently, makes them harder to track and ultimately eradicate.
You may be at work, in an office or at home, and happen upon a moment of peace in your hectic daily life. There is something inside all of us, I believe, that can sense these moments, as if we know how precious they are and how fleeting they will inevitably be, so we grab a hold of them. You sit back for the first time today and maybe close your eyes, take a deep breath and just enjoy the… silence…
“OH SO I WENT TO THE DOCTOR THE OTHER DAY…”
(no, this isn’t possible. I’m clearly resting. my feet are up on my waste basket, my arms are clearly dangling at my sides lifelessly and my eyes are closed. the only reason you should be talking to me is for proof of life, not to tell me your day... I’ll just not move, they will go away. might not even be talking to me! I‘ll just slightly open one eye and check if anyone else is in the room…)
“WELL, HE TOLD ME…”
(saw me check! FUCK!)
“…THAT GROWTH I HAVE, THE ONE ON THE INSIDE OF MY BELLY BUTTON THAT BURST DURING THE MEETING THE OTHER DAY…”
(I remember very clearly everything that happened in the past five minutes and NONE of it involved me asking! I couldn’t possibly fucking care any less! no, no cursing. cursing will just make us upset and then they win. calm… calm…calm…)
“…HE TOLD ME IT WAS AN INFECTED SORE DO TO THE FACT I ONLY SHOWER EVER SIX TO EIGHT WEEKS, BUT I THINK…”
(CALM, CALM, CALMdie, CALMdie, dieCALM, die, die, DIE, DIE! DIE!)
“… THAT ITS REALLY MY UNBORN TWIN SISTER, SO I’M GOING TO MAKE IT INTO A KEY CHAIN SO WE CAN BE TOGETHER FOREVER. OH YOU’RE PHONE IS RINGING! TOOTLES!”
(FFFUUUUCCCCKKKK YOOOOUUUUU!)
That last part is usually only heard as a long frustrated sigh. Oh, if people sigh at you a lot and their eyes look noticeably more dead or saddened with regret, your probably a silence talker. I fell victim myself the other day to a SiTi, as us in the ‘know’ call them. This SiTi I’ve come in contact with quite a few times over the past year or so since I transferred to my new position at work. His name is ShitGuppy and he, at least this day, was my arch nemesis.
A little background quickly on ShitGuppy. I’ve heard, from reliable sources, that on July the 29 in the year of our Lord, 1974, upon watching the news broadcast that ‘Mama’ Cass Eliot had choked to death on a ham sandwich, he shed but one tear. He then turned to the LSD induced glowing badger that sat next to him eating a baby head and proclaimed “I will never shower again”… and has kept that promise. Apparently brushing his teeth was also a part of that promise (although there is a rumor he had made a similar agreement 4 years earlier regarding his teeth to an albino komodo dragon playing the bagpipes when Jimi Hendrix died) because he has been reduced to roughly 8 teeth. At a young age he was Hippifide and due to a combination of what I can only assume was copious amounts of assorted pills and abysmally low ambition he soon became the worst of the hippy nation, the biker hippy. This walking void’s attitude, still to this day, was exquisitely portrayed by the character Ike Clanton in the movie ‘Tombstone’(Law just don’t go round here law dog) … the extent of this creatures vocabulary wasn’t to far off either.
I had made sure to finish up all of my work by 4 o’clock that day. I was enthralled with Stephen King's ‘The Stand’ from page one and was wrapping up the end of Book II, hopefully, that afternoon. I sat down after buttoning up some projects and eagerly opened the book to where I had left off. I read about three sentences before who walks in? ShitGuppy. Sparing you the boring details of my job lets just say due to certain circumstances ShitGuppy was going to have to stick around for a while till his boss called him.
“This isn’t a big deal,” I thought. “I’ll just keep reading and he will clearly SEE that I am reading and everything will be fine. don’t get frustrated, you worked hard all day, this is nothing to worry about”. I turned back to my book and began to find my place again, trying to recall what the characters were just doing before I was interrupted by this human skid mark that plagues my life.
(aa yes, ok, so Stew was just about to… and yea, I remember Larry was headed over there)
“YA KNOW, THOSE DOG BREEDERS, THERE REALLY NOTHING BUT A BUNCH OF CROOKS.”
(…)
“…”
(I couldn’t have just heard that right. There is no chance at all he just opened with the topic of dog breeding like that, out of nowhere. That is completely impossible.)
And right here is where I made my mistake. Never, ever, make eye contact with a SiTi. Eye contact to there kind is like offering up the remains of your sanity and soul on a silver platter. Its an open invitation for them to continue to waste your time and energy. How do they waste your energy? Takes a lot of energy to keep homicidal thoughts from turning into homicidal actions doesn’t it? Yea, it does.
“YEA MAN, I WATCH THESE SHOWS ABOUT IT…”
(dear god in heaven, I busted my ass all day to give over the remainder of my free time to this tumbling shit gnome?! He saw something once on tv so he knows what the fuck he’s talking about? Guess what, I’ve seen star wars, I don’t fly fucking rocket ships into space though!)
“THEY TAKE THESE DOGS, YA KNOW, AND THEY JUST MARK THEM UP. THAT’S WHAT THEY DO…” ß that ‘…’ isn’t cause we are going back into my mind, he really stopped there.
(I have no idea whatsoever is going on. Maybe he is done, turning back toward my book now… where was I?… aaa, right there)
“THAT WAS A GOOD JOB…”
(mother fucker!)
“VENDING MACHINES… IF YA CAN FIND A GOOD ROUTE, IT CAN REALLY PAY OFF, MAYBE ONE THAT…”
(ya know what, fuck it. If I’m not going to be able to read I’m at least going to have some fun with this jackass. I could …
- Start dancing. Imagine his confusion if, for no reason at all I just… dance.
- Scream. Letting out a long sustained yell should get my point across, especially if I don’t brake eye contact.
- Hum the theme from ‘The God Father”. Starting low and progressively get louder to the point where I’m shouting it (deee de de de dede deee)
- See how long he can keep this up with zero encouragement.
… yea that last one will do.)
I set my eyeTelephone to stop watch and looked over at him. He had been talking but for the life of me I cant remember anything he said. Never once, in the (ready for this?)… 53 minutes and 23 fucking seconds, did I say a word. I did not nod, I didn’t shift my weight, I didn’t grunt as a sign of approval. I just sat with my hands in front of me staring at him for 53 minutes and a half until he left. There’s no excuse for that, you cant explain that to me. And he’s out there right now, god forbid, trying to figure out how to breed!
It was that day that I began my research into a solution to this problem. Ladies and gentlemen, I believe Tyrant&Greazy industries have discovered it. It is still being fine tuned in our R&D department (which is pretty much a bathroom with a Bunsen burner and a magnifying glass) but we are very hopeful. I am not at liberty to divulge any details but I would like to take this opportunity to unveil at least the name of what may be the greatest hope of our generation. My readers may I present to you…
The Heightened Annoyance Time Energy Scale - The H.A.T.E scale.
Visit us again in the weeks to come for the full explanation. Exciting things are happing here, we are making dreams come true and if the HATE scale lives up to even a quarter of its potential we may be able to eliminate annoying behavior at its source! Thank you for your support. Please enjoy the free refreshments.
-Tyrant
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