“Noisemakers, behold, your Mayor of Mayhem…”
They waited. Beady, desperate eyes squinted at their Sky Box.
The rotund, bespectacled one, the Mayor of Mayhem, loomed large over them; in them.
Then it appeared, filling the Sky Box.
The smirk.
“AAAAAAAAARARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH”
Hundreds upon thousands of Noisemakers unleashed themselves onto the streets. Activated, emboldened, enabled. Sent forth.
The Noisemakers hurled themselves into action with boisterous loyalty. V8 engines purred with patriotism, mowers and blowers howled. Stereos strained. TVs triumphed. Reality was re-defined.
‘NOISE NOT KNOWLEDGE’ ran the mantra, seared into their consciousness.
‘NOISE NOT KNOWLEDGE’
A force directed Jarryd to a library. Libraries remained contested space. Territory recently won, but in need of defence, consolidation, fortification.
Books = learning = knowledge, Jarryd knew. NOISE NOT KNOWELDGE, ran his internal monologue, NOISE NOT KNOWLEDGE.
The scene at the library pleased Jarryd. Noise was heard. Hollow noise. One corner of his mouth turned upward, involuntarily.
It twitched.
His ears pricked, he heard it. A Talk Box. It spurted loud, obtrusive, vacuous noise. Jarryd could almost see the learning leaching out of the pages of the lonesome books, spilling like blood onto the sponge-like carpet. Lost.
His Talk Box, her Talk Box…music, mobiles, meaningless mutterings…mayhem.
Jarred smirked.
Time was ticking. More mayhem was demanded, and action requires sustenance. A public house lured the loyal servant and he rode to it on a wave of violent squawking.
“Do you have mayonnaise?” enquired Jarryd, motioning to his hot chips.
“Nah mate, we’ve got sauce.”
No Mayonnaise, and no Sky Box – just innocuous screens with Surfing on loop.
Jarryd deserted his chips.
A second public house was located, a house alike in dignity.
‘…alike in dignity…”
Jarryd’s skin prickled, his stomach turned. He was jarred and jolted by the memory of this phrase and the learning it entailed, a higher learning acquired in quiet contemplation and a depth of thought which was anathema to his calling and ambitions.
The Mayor would be displeased. The Mayor would not smirk. Noise, not learning, begets a Mayor.
The Mayor in the making stomped the clutch, ripped the throttle with fury and careered his crackling Motor Box to a public house. A safe house.
“Do you have Mayonnaise?”
“Maybe,” replied the barmaid with a smirk. A juvenile smirk, a smirk in development. An apprentice’s smirk, An ally, but not a competitor.
Jarred devoured his chips, noisily. Transfixed by the Sky Box. Waiting, yearning for instruction, inspiration, motivation, affirmation.
The scene pleased Jarryd. Eyes flittered from Sky Box to Talk Box to Sky Box… noise filled every crevice of the space. The Talk Box and the Sky Box downloaded their orders into Jarryd.
Turbulent commotion outside. Jarryd in movement. Fast, faster.
A woman, quiet, still, reading. An obstacle. Jarryd’s Motor Box devoured her.
“What are you doing’?” she whispered in pain and dismay.
Jarred smirked. A maleficent grin, close to perfection, he knew, as he caught its reflection in her glasses. He was ready.
“I’m runnin, laaady. I’m runnin for Mayor of Mayhem”
Image: Markus Spiske
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