The Chair calls the meeting to order. The banter and catching up by the members subsides, and the mostly symbolic gavel is lightly struck on the block. Items brought to the table are a short list of the usual sort.
New member candidates
Hosting for guest presenters
Budget priorities
Surplus allocation
New Business
First orders are handled, then, per usual, the members recess briefly to refresh before New Business is presented.
What I do is this. As soon as I wake up, I prepare myself with a normal morning routine, and then I sit down and write a story about whatever comes to mind. More often than not, it is a surprise.
After the recess, the members reconvene and there is the request for New Business. It’s not necessary to inform the Chair in order to bring New Business, but the facilitator usually has a list of what is to be brought. When a member wants to be the last business, they might withhold their itinerary.
The Chair reads down the list of items. One member wants to restore a fire truck as a legacy project. There is a discussion about what is appropriate signage around the High School. The usual argument about whether to tuck and point the brickwork on the hall. Everyone knows it needs to be done, but no one agrees on who should do it, or how.
Then, a man named Bill Nelson has some business. Everyone knows Bill, he’s an older man, he’s been around for a long time. He has moved away for business a couple of times but always returns. One of the funnier people in the group, all he has to do is look around the room and smile, and everyone chuckles for the memories.
“What’re we gonna do about these spaceships.” He says.
“Everyone’s talking about the dang spaceships. Are we gonna be able to control this? We all know the same things, we’ve known for years. We don’t have the juice we used to have. People are using the internet to learn things. Some of the men are starting to talk. The controlled burn and the inside people ain’t cutting the mustard like they used to. Nobody trusts any TV anymore. People are not accepting censorship. The bushel basket is burning. Are we gonna be able to keep this?”
The members are all nodding their head in agreement and voicing their approval for what he is saying. “I’m keeping mine.” A member chimes in. They all laugh and concur.
The members have a conversation concerning the special privileges they enjoy and their relishing in the suppression of prosperity at large. They begin to doubt their mystical narrative, and the reality of their self-aggrandizement could be moments from emergence.
They adjourn their meeting after agreeing that it may become necessary to support a full Police State.
It is unclear whether they will ever understand that the pride that comes before a fall lives in the pocket of presumptuousness.
The End
456 Words
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