New Secret
09-24-2016, 03:30 AM
My father’s house was a standard two story suburban house built in 1960s Akron Ohio. My father inherited the house when my grandfather passed away and I recently inherited the house when he passed away. It was the only house I knew throughout my young years and now I owned my own house in Wilmington Deleware. I decided to visit the old familiar house to decide what to do with all of my father’s things. I was going to clean the house out and sell it on the market.
I took hold of the draw string then lowered the ceiling ladder to the attic. There was a small squeak as the ladder unfolded. I looked up into the hole in the ceiling above. I don’t think that I ever ascended the ladder into the attic before this. If I did before then I don’t remember it now. The air was dead still. I found the light cord quickly and turned the lone light bulb on. The attic was empty except for a few piles of clothes that were folded neatly and covered in dust. Right next to the attic entrance was an old chest. I lifted the lid and looked inside. There were Christmas decorations, a shoebox full of photos and a stack of paper. I retrieved the stack of papers out of the chest. It was a television show manuscript. Here is what it said:
SETTING: There are four chairs on the stage for the actors to sit on. Behind the chairs above everyone’s heads is a very large video screen with three empty picture panels that are ready to light up with photos of the actors.
ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Show Who Looks!
Music theme cued. Searchlights randomly zip around the audience and the stage.
Cheer and applause.
ANNOUNCER: Show Who Looks is the show that doesn’t make sense! But we don’t care because none of us really need to be here! We call this episode “Ouplotting the Joypop!” Like all of our shows the winner won’t be announced until the next episode. Last episode, episode number seven million, was called “Disc Jockey Tollbooth” and the winner was the lovely Uwunfu! Welcome Uwunfu to the stage right now!
Uwunfu enters stage right then takes her seat at chair number one.
ANNOUNCER: Tell us about yourself Uwunfu.
UWUNFU: I was born in Tennessee, the daughter of a shoe saleswoman and an electrician. I sell real estate for a living and on the weekends I practice my golf swing.
ANNOUNCER: Thank you for playing with us again, Uwunfu. And next welcome to the stage Buck!
Buck enters stage right then takes his seat at chair number two.
ANNOUNCER: How are you, Buck?
BUCK: Good.
ANNOUNCER: Good, tell us a little about yourself.
BUCK: I am a rocket suit engineer and a toy train enthusiast.
ANNOUNCER: Sounds interesting. How high can you fly?
BUCK: One thousand feet. I’m working on it. I want to eventually rent these things out as citywide travelling apparatus. Getting the right certification for this idea isn’t so easy.
ANNOUNCER: Good luck with that.
BUCK: Thanks, I need it.
ANNOUNCER: Now we got Pelly, welcome her to the stage.
The audience cheers. Pelly enters stage right and takes her seat on chair number three.
ANNOUNCER: Pelly, tell us about yourself.
PELLY: I am a nutritionist from Las Vegas and on my spare time I look in the mirror 23 hours a day.
ANNOUNCER: Except today of course.
PELLY: Of course.
ANNOUNCER: Well, welcome to Show Who Looks, Pelly.
PELLY: Thanks.
ANNOUNCER: And last but not least we got Hugh! Welcome to the show, Hugh!
Hugh enters stage right and takes his seat on chair number four. The audience cheers.
ANNOUNCER: Tell us about yourself, Hugh.
HUGH: I sell cars for a living and I like long mountain hikes on my free time.
ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the show.
HUGH: Thank you.
ANNOUNCER: Now, the rules to Show Who Looks aren’t easy to understand and a lot of the time we don’t even know what we are doing but I will tell you what I know. First off, we got a bucket full of really shiny marbles over there. You get some marbles. Save up as many marbles as you can and you won’t be eliminated at the end of round one. You get a marble if you don’t look you lose a marble if you do look. Got it? Alright. We urge the contestants to watch the audience, not look at each other.
BUCK: This sounds like a really dumb show.
ANNOUNCER: Like it or not that’s how we do it. You can leave if you’d like.
BUCK: No, I think I will play.
ANNOUNCER: Alright then. Uwunfu, you go first.
UWUNFU: My dad and mum were excited because it was payday and the bills were paid. This was back in the late 1980s. They decided to take me shopping. I didn’t want baby toys. I wanted a quad. Daddy said, “Not in this century! You ain’t gettin’ a quad. You’re getting something else.” They bought me a fish tank with aqua rocks and a jellyfish kit to grow mini jellyfish. Little sea shells too. It was swell.
ANNOUNCER: Pelly looked! Buck and Hugh both get a marble. Buck, it’s your turn.
BUCK: I add it all up when I’m at the gym, recording my progress with my physical goals. I listen to jazz while I exercise and I wear a damp cloth on my shoulders to keep me cool. My exercise buddy is a toned and fit Swede with a really gelled up slick massage. She glints like a car in a car wash. She owns a Dell computer and carries it around the gym with her. Her favorite word is yes.
ANNOUNCER: Alright, Buck. Pelly looked! Uwunfu and Hugh both get a marble. Pelly, it’s your turn.
Cheer and applause.
PELLY: There’s this one dude who always used words like thou, thus and shall in his normal everyday language. Nobody talks like that in this day and age! Not for hundreds of years. His name was Wanglinker and he talked like he was authentic 1681 English talk or something. He always sucked on lollypops. Every time you saw him he was sucking on a lollypop. Even on his driver license he was sucking a lollypop. He was a hush hush goofy hoot of a fool and I couldn’t stand him. Now that’s an understatement. I hated him so much I wanted to plough my fists right through his spine!
ANNOUNCER: Sounds like a problem.
PELLY: It was a problem.
ANNOUNCER: Good luck with that. Well, anyway, Hugh and Buck both looked. Uwunfu gets a marble! Hugh, it’s your turn!
HUGH: I own a lock shop downtown and I sell handfuls of keys every single day. 71% of my time I shape duplicated keys. When I’m not doing that I’m picking doorknob locks that folks bring me and I’m making them new keys or I’m answering calls where people are locked out of their houses. This one time while on call I needed to get a laundry room door unlocked. Soap suds were pushing out under the door because the wash machine was overflowing. The overflow of soap suds began to rise. When I finally got the lock unlocked the suds were touching my thighs.
ANNOUNCER: I thought you said you sell cars for a living.
HUGH: I do both.
ANNOUNCER: You must be a very active man.
HUGH: You could say that.
ANNOUNCER: Alright. Pelly looked. Uwunfu and Buck both get a marble apiece. Uwunfu, your turn!
UWUNFU: I was checking my email and one letter in my mailbox was entitled, “Youthful Toplofty Bookshops with Joyful Slot Machines near you!” I thought to myself no, I don’t need to go there. So I erased the email and added the sender to my block list. I noticed an email in my outbox that I was yet to send off. The unsent letter was entitled, “Giving Jolly Kudos”. I wondered, was there a paranormal connection between my unsent “Jolly” letter and the “Joyful” junk mail? Was it that my email provider has a scanner that reads my emails and sends keywords to junk mail advertisers? I might never know.
ANNOUNCER: Neither will we. But what I do know is that everyone looked this time and so everyone gets a marble deducted! Buck, your turn.
BUCK: I was driving my jeep along this long road in the country. Speed limits weren’t strict so I went speeding. The wheels of my car were getting bare because the tires hadn’t been changed in eight years. I drove carefully to ensure I didn’t slip on the pavement. That afternoon I was married to my lovely wife Jessica. We were deeply in love and we pledged to never part.
ANNOUNCER: What a heart warming story. Thank you for sharing that, Buck. Pelly and Hugh looked! Uwunfu gets a marble. Pelly, your turn!
PELLY: I like to go to the pub and get buzzing until I’m spun. I think that’s really funny. Sometimes I will wear my fuzzy hat and put on my fuzzy scarf and people think I’m a nut. My fuzzy attire is a great ice breaker and conversation starter.
ANNOUNCER: Great! Hugh looked. Buck and Uwunfu both get a marble. Uwunfu is in the lead. Hugh, it’s your turn.
HUGH: I was a stuntman once upon a time, performing stunts in televised advertisements. I enjoy jumping out of a plane and hurtling through the sky. Skydiving is a fun sport as well as a high paying stunt. That will sum up my statement about that.
ANNOUNCER: Pelly looked. Uwunfu and Buck both get a marble. Uwunfu, it’s your turn.
UWUNFU: I like to read books. I own a lot of books. I don’t outdo it though. I only read a few here and there. I am a careful reader, absorbing the words thoughtfully. And although reading late takes it’s toll on my sleep time I remain a stout reader, jogging my imagination and making my mind sharp.
ANNOUNCER: Buck looked! Uwunfu and Pelly both get a marble. Buck, it’s your turn.
BUCK: I told the people at my favorite ski shop “Fox Hut” that they were fools because they wouldn’t show me the elf skis that were too high to reach. They didn’t tell me why they wouldn’t help. They were jerks, so I never went to “Fox Hut” again.
ANNOUNCER: Uwunfu and Hugh looked! Pelly gets a marble. Pelly, you’re up!
PELLY: I always liked clouds. Clouds are goodsome goodly things, all rolling around in the air above us. Clouds drift along with a slow soft flow of soulful peace. I always wanted to reach out and touch a cloud. I would pull out two clouds out of the bright blue sky above and put them on like fluffy asymmetrical socks. I could walk around with my cloud socks on and feel wholly good about it. That’s all I got to say about that.
ANNOUNCER: Alright. You sound like you don’t got enough marbles. Nobody looked! Everyone gets a marble. And now, a word from our sponsors! Sit tight and we will be right back.
That was where the manuscript ended. Although it was a terribly dumb show I read the whole thing. I wondered where it came from. Was it real? Authentic? Whose was it? Was it my father’s? My grandfather’s? My mother’s? My grandmother’s? We didn’t know anyone in show business so it’s anyone’s guess where it could’ve came from. I looked close at the print on the manuscript and it looked like a xerox duplication. I decided that the manuscript was probably newer than the house. I tossed the manuscript into the chest carelessly and let the lid fall closed. I looked around the attic one final time and didn’t see anything of real interest. I left the attic and closed up the ceiling ladder. The house was as my father left it. There was a lot of work to do.
I took hold of the draw string then lowered the ceiling ladder to the attic. There was a small squeak as the ladder unfolded. I looked up into the hole in the ceiling above. I don’t think that I ever ascended the ladder into the attic before this. If I did before then I don’t remember it now. The air was dead still. I found the light cord quickly and turned the lone light bulb on. The attic was empty except for a few piles of clothes that were folded neatly and covered in dust. Right next to the attic entrance was an old chest. I lifted the lid and looked inside. There were Christmas decorations, a shoebox full of photos and a stack of paper. I retrieved the stack of papers out of the chest. It was a television show manuscript. Here is what it said:
SETTING: There are four chairs on the stage for the actors to sit on. Behind the chairs above everyone’s heads is a very large video screen with three empty picture panels that are ready to light up with photos of the actors.
ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Show Who Looks!
Music theme cued. Searchlights randomly zip around the audience and the stage.
Cheer and applause.
ANNOUNCER: Show Who Looks is the show that doesn’t make sense! But we don’t care because none of us really need to be here! We call this episode “Ouplotting the Joypop!” Like all of our shows the winner won’t be announced until the next episode. Last episode, episode number seven million, was called “Disc Jockey Tollbooth” and the winner was the lovely Uwunfu! Welcome Uwunfu to the stage right now!
Uwunfu enters stage right then takes her seat at chair number one.
ANNOUNCER: Tell us about yourself Uwunfu.
UWUNFU: I was born in Tennessee, the daughter of a shoe saleswoman and an electrician. I sell real estate for a living and on the weekends I practice my golf swing.
ANNOUNCER: Thank you for playing with us again, Uwunfu. And next welcome to the stage Buck!
Buck enters stage right then takes his seat at chair number two.
ANNOUNCER: How are you, Buck?
BUCK: Good.
ANNOUNCER: Good, tell us a little about yourself.
BUCK: I am a rocket suit engineer and a toy train enthusiast.
ANNOUNCER: Sounds interesting. How high can you fly?
BUCK: One thousand feet. I’m working on it. I want to eventually rent these things out as citywide travelling apparatus. Getting the right certification for this idea isn’t so easy.
ANNOUNCER: Good luck with that.
BUCK: Thanks, I need it.
ANNOUNCER: Now we got Pelly, welcome her to the stage.
The audience cheers. Pelly enters stage right and takes her seat on chair number three.
ANNOUNCER: Pelly, tell us about yourself.
PELLY: I am a nutritionist from Las Vegas and on my spare time I look in the mirror 23 hours a day.
ANNOUNCER: Except today of course.
PELLY: Of course.
ANNOUNCER: Well, welcome to Show Who Looks, Pelly.
PELLY: Thanks.
ANNOUNCER: And last but not least we got Hugh! Welcome to the show, Hugh!
Hugh enters stage right and takes his seat on chair number four. The audience cheers.
ANNOUNCER: Tell us about yourself, Hugh.
HUGH: I sell cars for a living and I like long mountain hikes on my free time.
ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the show.
HUGH: Thank you.
ANNOUNCER: Now, the rules to Show Who Looks aren’t easy to understand and a lot of the time we don’t even know what we are doing but I will tell you what I know. First off, we got a bucket full of really shiny marbles over there. You get some marbles. Save up as many marbles as you can and you won’t be eliminated at the end of round one. You get a marble if you don’t look you lose a marble if you do look. Got it? Alright. We urge the contestants to watch the audience, not look at each other.
BUCK: This sounds like a really dumb show.
ANNOUNCER: Like it or not that’s how we do it. You can leave if you’d like.
BUCK: No, I think I will play.
ANNOUNCER: Alright then. Uwunfu, you go first.
UWUNFU: My dad and mum were excited because it was payday and the bills were paid. This was back in the late 1980s. They decided to take me shopping. I didn’t want baby toys. I wanted a quad. Daddy said, “Not in this century! You ain’t gettin’ a quad. You’re getting something else.” They bought me a fish tank with aqua rocks and a jellyfish kit to grow mini jellyfish. Little sea shells too. It was swell.
ANNOUNCER: Pelly looked! Buck and Hugh both get a marble. Buck, it’s your turn.
BUCK: I add it all up when I’m at the gym, recording my progress with my physical goals. I listen to jazz while I exercise and I wear a damp cloth on my shoulders to keep me cool. My exercise buddy is a toned and fit Swede with a really gelled up slick massage. She glints like a car in a car wash. She owns a Dell computer and carries it around the gym with her. Her favorite word is yes.
ANNOUNCER: Alright, Buck. Pelly looked! Uwunfu and Hugh both get a marble. Pelly, it’s your turn.
Cheer and applause.
PELLY: There’s this one dude who always used words like thou, thus and shall in his normal everyday language. Nobody talks like that in this day and age! Not for hundreds of years. His name was Wanglinker and he talked like he was authentic 1681 English talk or something. He always sucked on lollypops. Every time you saw him he was sucking on a lollypop. Even on his driver license he was sucking a lollypop. He was a hush hush goofy hoot of a fool and I couldn’t stand him. Now that’s an understatement. I hated him so much I wanted to plough my fists right through his spine!
ANNOUNCER: Sounds like a problem.
PELLY: It was a problem.
ANNOUNCER: Good luck with that. Well, anyway, Hugh and Buck both looked. Uwunfu gets a marble! Hugh, it’s your turn!
HUGH: I own a lock shop downtown and I sell handfuls of keys every single day. 71% of my time I shape duplicated keys. When I’m not doing that I’m picking doorknob locks that folks bring me and I’m making them new keys or I’m answering calls where people are locked out of their houses. This one time while on call I needed to get a laundry room door unlocked. Soap suds were pushing out under the door because the wash machine was overflowing. The overflow of soap suds began to rise. When I finally got the lock unlocked the suds were touching my thighs.
ANNOUNCER: I thought you said you sell cars for a living.
HUGH: I do both.
ANNOUNCER: You must be a very active man.
HUGH: You could say that.
ANNOUNCER: Alright. Pelly looked. Uwunfu and Buck both get a marble apiece. Uwunfu, your turn!
UWUNFU: I was checking my email and one letter in my mailbox was entitled, “Youthful Toplofty Bookshops with Joyful Slot Machines near you!” I thought to myself no, I don’t need to go there. So I erased the email and added the sender to my block list. I noticed an email in my outbox that I was yet to send off. The unsent letter was entitled, “Giving Jolly Kudos”. I wondered, was there a paranormal connection between my unsent “Jolly” letter and the “Joyful” junk mail? Was it that my email provider has a scanner that reads my emails and sends keywords to junk mail advertisers? I might never know.
ANNOUNCER: Neither will we. But what I do know is that everyone looked this time and so everyone gets a marble deducted! Buck, your turn.
BUCK: I was driving my jeep along this long road in the country. Speed limits weren’t strict so I went speeding. The wheels of my car were getting bare because the tires hadn’t been changed in eight years. I drove carefully to ensure I didn’t slip on the pavement. That afternoon I was married to my lovely wife Jessica. We were deeply in love and we pledged to never part.
ANNOUNCER: What a heart warming story. Thank you for sharing that, Buck. Pelly and Hugh looked! Uwunfu gets a marble. Pelly, your turn!
PELLY: I like to go to the pub and get buzzing until I’m spun. I think that’s really funny. Sometimes I will wear my fuzzy hat and put on my fuzzy scarf and people think I’m a nut. My fuzzy attire is a great ice breaker and conversation starter.
ANNOUNCER: Great! Hugh looked. Buck and Uwunfu both get a marble. Uwunfu is in the lead. Hugh, it’s your turn.
HUGH: I was a stuntman once upon a time, performing stunts in televised advertisements. I enjoy jumping out of a plane and hurtling through the sky. Skydiving is a fun sport as well as a high paying stunt. That will sum up my statement about that.
ANNOUNCER: Pelly looked. Uwunfu and Buck both get a marble. Uwunfu, it’s your turn.
UWUNFU: I like to read books. I own a lot of books. I don’t outdo it though. I only read a few here and there. I am a careful reader, absorbing the words thoughtfully. And although reading late takes it’s toll on my sleep time I remain a stout reader, jogging my imagination and making my mind sharp.
ANNOUNCER: Buck looked! Uwunfu and Pelly both get a marble. Buck, it’s your turn.
BUCK: I told the people at my favorite ski shop “Fox Hut” that they were fools because they wouldn’t show me the elf skis that were too high to reach. They didn’t tell me why they wouldn’t help. They were jerks, so I never went to “Fox Hut” again.
ANNOUNCER: Uwunfu and Hugh looked! Pelly gets a marble. Pelly, you’re up!
PELLY: I always liked clouds. Clouds are goodsome goodly things, all rolling around in the air above us. Clouds drift along with a slow soft flow of soulful peace. I always wanted to reach out and touch a cloud. I would pull out two clouds out of the bright blue sky above and put them on like fluffy asymmetrical socks. I could walk around with my cloud socks on and feel wholly good about it. That’s all I got to say about that.
ANNOUNCER: Alright. You sound like you don’t got enough marbles. Nobody looked! Everyone gets a marble. And now, a word from our sponsors! Sit tight and we will be right back.
That was where the manuscript ended. Although it was a terribly dumb show I read the whole thing. I wondered where it came from. Was it real? Authentic? Whose was it? Was it my father’s? My grandfather’s? My mother’s? My grandmother’s? We didn’t know anyone in show business so it’s anyone’s guess where it could’ve came from. I looked close at the print on the manuscript and it looked like a xerox duplication. I decided that the manuscript was probably newer than the house. I tossed the manuscript into the chest carelessly and let the lid fall closed. I looked around the attic one final time and didn’t see anything of real interest. I left the attic and closed up the ceiling ladder. The house was as my father left it. There was a lot of work to do.