Loudspeaker

 

Every morning at exactly 8:00 a.m., the loudspeaker crackled to life. The townspeople would pause whatever they were doing and tilt their heads toward the sound.

“Today, you are joyful.”

The voice was always calm, androgynous, without accent or urgency. Just a statement. An instruction. And like flowers toward sunlight, the people obeyed. Smiles bloomed. Laughter bubbled in the square. Those who had been crying moments before wiped their tears and adjusted.

It was easier this way.

On other mornings, the voice would say:

“Today, you are somber.”
“Today, you are grateful.”
“Today, you are remorseful.”

And emotions would shift like tides. People mourned things they didn’t remember losing. They forgave strangers for invisible crimes. They wept with reverence while sweeping their porches.

The loudspeaker had been installed generations ago. No one remembered who put it there, or why. It hung from the tallest pole in the center of town, wiry and rusted but perfectly functional, always humming faintly when not in use.

And it had never lied.

Until one morning, the voice said, “Today, you are not needed.”

There was a pause. People looked at one another across breakfast tables, in the bakery line, on their front steps. Nervous laughter stirred.

Then Mrs. Carver disappeared. Mid-sentence, mid-pour of her morning tea. One blink, and she was gone. Her cup shattered across the tile.

Then Henry, the mailman. One moment shuffling letters. The next—air.

One by one, people blinked out of existence. No screams. No struggle. Just silence after absence.

Those who remained tried to act as if everything was fine. They baked bread. They worked the fields. They held hands and whispered:

“We are needed. We are needed. We are needed.”

But the loudspeaker stayed silent for three days.

On the fourth morning, it crackled again. Everyone gathered in the square, trembling.

“Today, you are patient.”

A sigh of relief swept through the crowd. Things were back to normal.

That night, a child asked her mother why the loudspeaker got to decide.

The next morning, there was no trace of the child.

Her mother cried, but only briefly. Because at 8:00 a.m., the voice declared, “Today, you are content.”

And she smiled like the rest of them.

***

372 words

I'm hooked on the surreal Twilight Zone style right now since it seems like a nice yet unsettling escape from reality. I could see this playing out in black and white as I wrote it.