Speaker

By Natty Soltesz

One day this would happen.  A speaker would appear in the clear blue sky.

Just like that, one moment it is there and one moment it isn’t.  Her eyes catch it and she takes in her breath sharp and fast, her eyes fixated in pure horror.

It is brown, cube shaped, and looks like a p.a. speaker, like one you may have had hanging in the corner of your junior high school.  It is huge and suspended there clear as day for all to see.  Everyone cries, because they are scared and confused and nobody knows how it got there.

It would look so menacing, the skewed angles of the speaker against the flat azure sky, looking like an instrument of God’s judgment.

But people would get used to it eventually.  It would become a fact of life.  You shut the door, step out onto the sidewalk, and there it is—that speaker, looming over you, looming over us all.

Then, just when everybody was getting used to it, it would start to make a sound.  Just a low sound would emerge at first, an ominous hum.  It would barely be noticeable.  It would gradually get louder and louder, and people would think it was the voice of God.  Then a horn would sound three times.

Soon, a pattern would emerge.  On cloudy days the sound would be reduced to a low buzz, so even if you can’t see the speaker, you know it’s still there.

Then the clouds would break, the sun would burst forth, and the speaker would release a sound so soaring and majestic, that it would stop us all in our tracks.

We would come out of tall buildings and under bridges to look at it, and again we would cry, but we would cry because it was so frightening and beautiful.

And in the countryside the sound would follow the sunshine, spilling down from the sky over rolling green hills and pastures, and everyone would take their pills and smile and everything would be so happy, radiantly happy.

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