Question Mark Town Roundup for the week of 2/26 - 3/3
Town Announcements
Elizabeth Zisk has been reinstated as mayor
It is my duty to inform the community that the town of Question Mark, OH has decided to reinstate Elizabeth Zisk as mayor via petition as per Appendix Nine in our town charter. At the end of the allotted 24 hour window, the petition had amassed 3571 signatures, exceeding the 51% threshold by three signatures.
The Town Council very much looks forward to working through the many problems that Question Mark continues to face with the newly-reinstated mayor. It is my personal hope that this experience has humbled my fellow members of the Town Council and that we may now enter this new period with both humility and a spirit of compromise.
Apparently this somewhat bizarre, helter-skelter process is exactly what Reginald Willey and the founding fathers of our country had in mind when first creating this system of democracy and that progress and change never seem to move in a straight line.
Onward!
Posted by Tom Weathers, Town Council on February 26, 2024
Celebration of Reginald Willey Day and its relevance to this particular moment
On this Leap Day, as we do every Leap Day, we celebrate the life of town founder Reginald Willey, born this day. On this special day, I gaze out the window of the mayor’s office and am struck by how beautiful this town appears, but also how temporary, how vulnerable that beauty actually is. As the children pass below dressed as Reginald Willey, holding tightly to their cardboard top hats—which, honestly, could be better—I am reminded how quickly things in this town often change.
For wasn’t it Reginald Willey, in both his writing and his keen understanding of community, that first asked us to reckon with how powerful that sense of change can be, as it upends, overturns, and disintegrates the very things we come to rely upon? Isn’t Willey’s greatest lesson that we must seize the moment to find joy in those around us, in this grand community we have built, while we still can?
As someone who was unreasonably and forcibly removed from the position to which she had been democratically elected six times, I am certain there are those citizens in our community—especially certain members of the Town Council—who would expect me to be bitter, to be contemptuous, to be spending this Reginald Willey Day plotting my revenge instead of celebrating Willey and all his contributions.
And those citizens would be right.
For while I celebrate the incredible achievements of Reginald Willey today, know that for the disloyal, repugnant few who sought my dismissal, a time of reckoning will soon be at hand. I will act at a time of my own choosing, but when I act, you will know. And you will regret.
I am deeply grateful to those citizens who supported me over the last challenging week including Violet Bookman, Iris Englebrecht, and Officer Ron Dublowski. Each of you make me proud to live in a town such as this.
To those that supported me through the hastily-assembled petition, I thank you, even if it seems that some of you signed out of some sort of misguided form of self-entertainment, and not out of a sense of civic duty. But certainly there are those among us who hold their civic duty dear, as Reginald Willey did.
And on this Reginald Willey Day, look up from your own self-interest for once, and celebrate what it means to be a part of a community, a town, and a place as singular as Question Mark. As Reginald Willey once said:
Question Mark, Oh Question Mark.
Posted by Mayor Elizabeth Zisk on February 29, 2024
Field recording of strange musical signals being broadcast in Question Mark
With the help of several inquisitive members of your community including Violet Bookman and my cousin, Theophilus Willey—who, although he was forced to leave MIT under suspicions of academic fraud has shown an uncanny ability to pursue questions of temporal entanglement—we have recorded an audio pattern, perhaps musical in nature, being transmitted at various frequencies from a number of places in town.
This particular signal was being broadcast at your defunct radio station, WQMO. Your input would be greatly appreciated in resolving this odd, musical mystery.
Please contact Violet Bookman via the social media internet using your normal communication techniques if you have any pertinent information.
Posted by Dr. Amodeus Harrington-Willey on March 1, 2024
There are SEVEN Voids
Over the last ten months, I’ve heard odd music coming from strange places in our town. Other people have reported the same thing, even if they are not comfortable admitting it. Sometimes the music seems to be coming from the woods, sometimes it can be heard near the old factories in the Industrial Corridor, sometimes you can hear it coming from the field near New Tomorrow Industries’ gigantic particle accelerator.
Yesterday Dr. Harrington-Willey, Theophilus Willey, and I discovered that the old radio station in town was broadcasting a repetitive musical signal at a low frequency, which exactly matched the music I had been hearing.
Theophilus Willey was able to decipher the first few notes, which suggested the music was in the key of E minor. Using this key, we followed the many musical signals around town, including out to the Question Mark woods.
And there we discovered there are actually seven Voids in different locations around our town: the one I discovered in June near the endless circle, one near the disappearing well, one near the Falls, one in the parking lot of the Question Mark Motel (which is the site of the Ames Rifle tragedy), one beside the House of Dazzling Glass, one near New Tomorrow Industries (where Something Blue Bridal burned down) and one near Foreveland Pet Refrigeration which, due to some time-related disaster, never even opened.
I look at the warning Tanner Pratt left us in his presentation right before he disappeared or I glance back at the evidence gathered by former FBI Agent Oberman and realize this danger was here all along and now I am afraid nothing in this town will ever be the same again.
Posted by Violet Bookman on March 2, 2024
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Community Notes
3-4-24
People of Question Mark. I have some terrible news to share with each of you.
This morning when I went to open the store I noticed nothing was there. The entire store was gone and in its place was only gravel and dirt. In my mind I could see the door handle, the glass door which always has kids’ fingerprints on it no matter how many times you clean it, I could smell the delicious odor of waffle cones and hear the squeak of the tile floor which had been mopped last night, but it was gone, all gone.
I know things have been vanishing from this town over the last few months: one of my sweaters and a pair of slippers seemed to walk off on their own. But this, nothing like this, has ever happened to me before. Maybe this is what it feels like to lose a business or home in a tornado or hurricane?
Or maybe this is some kind of elaborate joke? But what I feel in my stomach tells me it’s not. The original Mr. Freeze-E, home to more than fifty years of laughter and fun, is gone and I have no idea who I am even supposed to call. The corporate office? The police? The mayor? Isn’t this why we reinstated her? To stop things like this from happening?
I am sitting in my car right now, staring at the blank space where the building is supposed to be, and blinking really fast to stop myself from crying.
I just thought everyone would like to know.
—Marlene Winters, Mr. Freeze-E manager-in-training
Crime Reports
March 1
7:09 a.m. — East Avenue and 20th Street, criminal trespass. Former pyrite mine located within Question Mark woods broken into. A Question Mark man, seventy-one, on a hike reported seeing a golden figure entering the mine. Officer T. Holland reported to the scene.
Read all our Crime Reports.
Upcoming Events
March 5, 2024
Reginald Willey Jr. Day of Remembrance. Please take time to peruse a work of literature for one hour today and enjoy free hot tea and cocoa. 12pm.
Question Mark Public Library
March 14, 2024
Town Magic Show featuring Parker and Dash Holland and their Circle of Death. 7pm.
Veterans Hall
March 21, 2024
French Halloween. Dress as your favorite character from French literature. Trucs et friandises at participating shops. 5pm
Main Street
See all our Upcoming Events
Did You Know?
You love Mr. Freeze-E Ice Cream, but did you know it started right here in Question Mark? It did! The ice cream store you know and love originally started as a frozen meat processing plant before moving to delicious desserts!