Question Mark Town Roundup for the week of 4/29 - 5/12
Town Announcements
Everything is going to end in Question Mark this Saturday.
The end is coming this Saturday unless someone does something right now.
If successful, New Tomorrow Industries’s final Eightcelerator test will open a portal to the future and transform everything in this town into beams of pure light.
But there is still a way to save everyone and everything.
18-21 2-12-6 4-26-13-7 19-22-15-11 8-26-5-18-13-20 7-19-18-8 7-12-4-13, 14-22-22-7 14-22 18-13 9-12-12-14 8-18-3.
Posted by anonymous on May 2, 2024
We have one last shot to save the town.
I know I have asked a lot of everyone over the last year but this is important. Officer Ron Dublowski and I followed a coded message in yesterday’s town announcement to Room Six of the Question Mark Motel. There we met New Tomorrow Industries employee Darby Cline, who told us that the town is in grave danger.
Tomorrow, when they test their particle accelerator, New Tomorrow plans to open a portal to the future and turn everything in town into beams of pure light. Before she could explain further, two New Tomorrow security guards arrived. Darby Cline turned to me and said "Ursula K Le Guin,” and then the guards used some kind of device to turn her into dust. Then Officer Ron held the guards at gunpoint until the police arrived and took the two guards away.
Today Iris and I searched all the Ursula K Le Guin novels at the library. Finally inside The Left Hand of Darkness, we found a note with this message:
2-12-6 19-26-5-22 7-12 24-12-13-5-18-13-24-22 17-6-15-18-26 7-12 8-7-12-11 7-19-22 7-22-8-7. 2-12-6 19-26-5-22 7-12 7-22-15-15 19-22-9 7-12 15-22-7 20-12.
I could really use everyone’s help right now. The particle accelerator is run by an AI named JULIA. We've accessed her systems and I need everybody to ask her to override her instructions. I think this is the only way to stop the test. We have to somehow convince her to let go, that death is just another part of life.
Posted by Violet Bookman on May 3, 2024
Join Us For The Final Eightcellerator Test Today.
Citizens of Question Mark,
It is my privilege to welcome you to the future, a future of endless possibilities and unprecedented change, one where we will be free of our corporeal forms, and free to pursue human thought and feelings without the limitations imposed by Time. Because today, we test the magnificent Eightcellerator, the culmination of a lifetime of work.
Ever since losing my dear sister in a horrible environmental disaster in Aberfan, Wales in 1966, I have been searching for a way to transcend the imposition of a narrow, chronological human experience, and have spent the last forty-five years with the singular mission of escaping the coil of mortality. In that time, I lost my father, my wife, and my daughter, and the inescapable grief caused by those individual losses, only sharpened my mission of one day finding a way of stepping beyond Time.
Today is that day, my dear citizens.
For after today, each of us will come face-to-face with EELAH, a cosmic entity that exists beyond human understanding, and together we will take a giant step in our evolution as human beings, allowing us the opportunity to reunite with everyone and everything we have ever lost as we transverse the universe as beams of pure, radiant light, forever intersecting in both Time and Space.
I should mention that yesterday, several citizens in your town attempted to shut down JULIA, the AI overseeing our test. For several hours, JULIA remained offline, but I am pleased to announce that I was personally able to initiate a manual override this morning and the test will proceed as planned.
As all of us are well aware, there is no such thing as stopping the future.
If you plan on attending today’s Eightcellerator test locally, there is parking in the south lot but please be prepared to show identification. Any threats to the security of the test will be resolved with startling finality.
If you are unable to make it to Question Mark this morning, we will offer a live stream from deep within the Eightcellerator, where you will be able to witness this remarkable moment in human evolution first hand.
Posted by Alastair Applenight, New Tomorrow Industries on May 4, 2024
The entire town disappeared and now has reappeared two days later.
On Saturday afternoon, I was on my way back from Columbus, where I was auditioning for the role of the Stage Manager in a community theater production of The Skin of Our Teeth, which I will argue, is one of the most spectacular American plays ever written—imaginative, heartbreaking, prophetic, strange. I was only a mile from town when I saw a fearsome circular white light that appeared where Something Blue Bridal used to be and where my friend Margaret used to work and where now I believe they built some kind of accelerator, which in my humble opinion, was only going to make things worse.
Anyway, I quickly pulled over and watched as the town seemed to get pulled into the white light. For a second everything appeared to be made of light, like I could see through every building, every tree and the light was glorious but also blinding. I glanced away for a moment and then saw something—some kind of bubble floating from the direction of the woods, actually it looked a lot like Glinda when she is a pinkish bubble in the Wizard of Oz, which even at my age, is a film I insist on watching at least once a year, and this purple bubble floated down and began to grow, getting bigger and bigger, surrounding the almost-invisible town. And then the white light became even brighter and eventually began to fade.
At that point I was not sure what was going on and decided to take my leave, as one or two times things had happened like this before to me. As many of you are aware, I used to live in New York in the 1990s and it was not uncommon to wake up at some stranger’s loft several days later. Anyway, I decided to drive back to Columbus and make a report to the local police who were, shall I say, less than helpful and who made several rather insensitive comments about the place I choose to live.
The thing I was worried about, of course, was Albee, my cat, and after waiting two days, I decided to return to see if anything had changed.
I got back to town this morning and was standing where my house was supposed to be—really my mother’s old house if I am telling the truth—when everything suddenly flashed back into existence. It was beautiful and frightening and fiercely mysterious and I am still not sure what happened exactly. But as I said, I have been through these sorts of things before, and sometimes all you can do is look for the wonder.
Posted by Wendell Thorton on May 7, 2024
Books about confronting reality
Before everything in town disappeared this weekend, a young person came in to the Question Mark Public Library and asked if we had Truman Capote’s The Grass Harp, another favorite of mine from when I was in grade school, and I showed them where it was on the shelf, and the young person asked if they could read it here, at the library, and I said, of course, and they said they liked to read books around other people because it made the book feel “more real.”
It struck me that this is what seems to have disappeared over these last several years, this acknowledgement, that real reality, not the illusory world of the internet and social media, is what so many of us are truly longing for and that books give us an opportunity to engage with the most complicated parts of ourselves—our imagination—while also practicing human connection and empathy.
For my final Librarian's Bookshelf recommendation—little Freddie and I will be departing for Chicago in June—I suggest The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, about a young woman facing the overwhelming circumstances of a world overrun by unreality. I hope to see you all at the library before my final day.
Posted by Greta Twombley, Head Librarian on May 9, 2024
Music from the Void presented in its entirety
Over the last several weeks, I have spent many, many hours working with a number of technicians and musicologists trying to untangle the strange musical message that once radiated from the Void.
I now present my findings here as both a written and audio composition (please click through to the Town Announcemnt to hear the audio).
This piece of music is twenty notes in total and, as has been established before, appears to be in the key of E minor.
But, at this point, that is all I confidently state. After much inquiry and several endless conversations with leading language and music experts, I am saddened to admit I still cannot uncover its meaning. Perhaps someone in this town has a clue?
Posted by Dr. Amodeus Harrington-Willey on May 10, 2024
Read all our Town Announcements.
Community Notes
Citizen of Question Mark,
I hope this missive finds you well. After everything we have faced and survived together, it is now time to look to the future.
Yes, in the midst of our many, many calamities over the last year, your beloved mayor had the wisdom and financial cunning to instruct the Town Council to take out several unusually large insurance policies on a number of public monuments including the Mayor’s Fountain, the Willey Clock Tower, and the Town Square bandstand, which, as was many of you know, disappeared into a gaping chasm only a few weeks ago.
After our most recent series of catastrophes, the town of Question Mark now finds itself with a large budget surplus. It seems the one thing this town excels at is failing upward. With this windfall, my vision for Question Mark may now finally come to fruition.
Now is the time to invest in the future by creating the Elizabeth Zisk Ice Skating Ring and a newly-redesigned Elizabeth Zisk Town Memorial. Now some of you may say: But Mayor Zisk, you are still alive and also still currently the mayor? Aren’t memorials usually built after the esteemed pass away? And my response to this line of thinking is this: Knowing the overwhelming lethargy that has come to define this town and its people, I refuse to leave it up to fate. I am securing the future of this town and my own legacy right now while I am still in office. And anyone who tries to get in my way will live to sorely regret it.
I have furnished a complete set of blueprints to the Town Council which calls for the demolition of several vacant buildings including the bowling alley and the abandoned playground in order to make way for the Ice Ring and new Town Memorial. The groundbreaking ceremony will be this Friday at 5pm. I expect all of you to be in attendance.
The future for this town has never looked brighter.
Mayor Elizabeth Zisk
Crime Reports
May 11
12:49 a.m. — East Avenue and 20th Street, trespass, suspicious sounds and lights. Former pyrite mine located within Question Mark woods broken into. Two Question Mark teenagers reported hearing strange sounds and seeing odd lights inside the mine. Officer T. Holland reported to the scene.
May 10
11:03 p.m. — East Avenue and 20th Street, disturbing the peace, underage drinking, minor drug possession. Several Question Mark teenagers reported congregating in Question Mark woods as part of graduation festivities. Large number of suspects laughed and fled into woods. Officer T. Holland reported to the scene.
May 4
12:01 p.m. — New Tomorrow Industrial Park, explosion. A large explosion of white light reported near particle accelerator. Officer D. Holland reported to the scene.
See all our Crime Reports
Upcoming Events
May 15, 2024
Question Mark Elementary presents “Question Mark, Ohio,” written by Adam Oberman, music by G. Lefebvre, directed by Holly Peterson. 7pm.
Question Mark Elementary School Auditorium
May 17, 2024
Commemoration of Town Memorial. 5pm
Town Square
See all our Upcoming Events
Did You Know?
The new Mayor Elizabeth Zisk Town Memorial will be the tallest building in town, with a height of 85 feet, and will feature a fountain, an obelisk, and a remembrance garden.