Question Mark Town Roundup for the week of 9/18 -9/24
Town Announcements
Half-off all dogs and cats at Meow's the Time!
Like many of us, maybe your beloved pet has gone missing recently? We know how much the loss of a companion can hurt. Love is eternal but the life of your favorite pet is not, unfortunately. Especially lately.
We at Meow’s the Time know exactly how painful that loss can be as a number of our most adorable animals have also disappeared from our shop. Which is why, this week only, we’re offering half-off on all our fluffiest, cuddliest pets so you can take home a dog or cat of your choice and begin creating new memories today. Or maybe take home two, just in case?
Also, we’re pleased to announce our new return/disappearance policy. If your new pet disappears within the first thirty days of purchase, we will refund your money as long as you provide a receipt. We do not accept returns of any kind, but especially exotic reptiles and kangaroos.
Please stop by Meow’s the Time today to get your discount, we're located on Tower just across from Professor Chik n Crunch. Don't forget to say hello to Pierre, our beloved pink cockatoo!
Posted by Macy Gibbs, owner, Meow’s the Time on September 18, 2023
Books about uncertainty and disillusionment
Please consider visiting the Question Mark Public Library for my latest Librarian's Bookshelf recommendations. This week I invite you to explore some sensational books about living with uncertainty while searching for meaning including The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.
As I may have mentioned, I, too, have been facing some moments of uncertainty recently. I am hopeful that these reading suggestions will offer solace to us all.
At the Question Mark Public Library, we believe that inquiry is at the root of all understanding, including understanding ourselves. We hope to see you at the library soon.
Posted by Greta Twombley, Town Librarian on September 19, 2023
Historical evidence there is something very dangerous out in the woods
As I mentioned in my previous town announcement, I am pretty sure there is a weird, circular light in the woods and it is somehow responsible for all the things missing in town even though I can’t prove it.
Over the last week, I learned that there is evidence this circular light has been in the Question Mark woods for a very long time, probably for thousands of years. I met with Ms. Patsy Elske, a graduate student at the University of Ohio, and she showed me several documents and artifacts that suggest the void was here before 400 AD.
After that I discovered that a French missionary from the 1800s named Jacques Blanchet made a map of the region and detailed a spot in the woods called le vide. We tried to find his final letters but were unsuccessful.
But then, with the help of Pierre from Meow’s the Time, Mr. Bruno Ellis, Iris Engelbrecht, and I found one of Jacques Blanchet’s diaries near a strange-looking tree. The diary was titled Une confrontation avec le vide. Mr. Peter Lefebvre, my high school French teacher, was able to translate some of these pages, which seem to explain exactly what happened to the French colony that disappeared here in the 1740s.
Here's what we found:
14 October, 1748
On a recent circular path across this most wondrous region, where the Lord has seen fit to have me stationed these last two years, I have seen many fantastical and impossible sights. But nothing in my training at seminary or in my last twenty-five-years of life could prepare me for what occurred a week previous in a small, unnamed colony in the southeast river valley.
Formerly a great civilization must have lived here as their markings and shapes in the ground are all about this territory. These shapes give air of something important and perhaps tragic happening, but their mysteries remain a secret.
I had traveled to this small colony many times. There were maybe twelve or thirteen small families, each with a small home of mud and wood, and some fields for plowing. But when I passed back through the region last week, the village was entirely empty of life. I called out many times but without reply. Then I heard a strange sound coming deeper in the woods and ventured there.
I found a young girl crying behind some rocks and so I asked her who she was and what had happened. She said she was from a family named Reinold and her name was Elodie. She was perhaps the age of eight or nine but no more.
I looked down and saw the girl was clasping something to her hand and I was revolted to see it was a human appendage. I asked what had happened and she said the entire village had discovered a bridge to heaven, and all in the village but she had climbed the bridge, and that all that was left was the girl and the hand of her mother, the hand which her mother had offered to the girl as she stepped inside the bridge of light herself.
I asked the girl to show me the hand. At first she refused but eventually relented. On the ring finger of the hand was a ruby ring, which the girl said her mother always wore.
I carefully removed the ring from the unattached hand and offered it to the girl but the child refused to take it as she believed it was now haunted. And so I said a blessing to consecrate the earth and we buried both the ring and hand together.
Then I asked the girl to show me where this bridge of light was. She shook her head, terrified. Again I asked and she led me to a small hidden field and, there before me, was a circle, entirely empty of all color. And if it was sinister or not, I did not know.
For then I saw a bird fly too close and, all at once, it seemed to vanish inside. It was then that I realized this was no bridge to Heaven but an emptiness, a void, a place where perhaps All Time Ends, a hole in the Veil of His Most Remarkable Creation.
I quickly took the girl and we removed ourselves from the village. Further north on my route I left her in the care of some nuns who had a school nearby. I have alerted the Archbishop of the situation as well. I believe this emptiness, this void is perhaps the Mark of Cain. I fear the unsettled spirits of this colony will live on for many years after as the ground itself has been fouled by the corruption of this tragedy. My only hope is that the girl lives on to have a productive, joyful life.
I have promised to visit with the girl on my return trip across the region next March. But let whoever finds these pages be forewarned of the danger hidden in these woods. And let no one underestimate the catastrophe this void poses.
In service of The Righteous Spirit of God,
Father Jacques Blanchet
And so the question is now what, Question Mark? Are we going to face the past together or are we going to keep pretending everything is somehow just going to be okay?
Posted by Violet Bookman on September 20, 2023
Photos from Third Grade Show and Tell
We’re excited to share these photos revealing how families process disappointment
As part of our unit studying loss and grief traditions, students brought in objects that signified a recent loss. Students were asked how their families helped support them facing this difficult subject.
It was a moving day in class, and I am happy to share a few photographs of the items our learners brought in.
For updated learning materials and information about my own relationship to loss, please consult our classroom site.
Posted by Holly Peterson, Third Grade Teacher on September 21, 2023
British Soldier Field Annual Reenactment Canceled
I am so disappointed.
In all of you.
Although this weekend was supposed to mark one of our town’s most steadfast traditions—the occasion of the disappearance of the British regiment, celebrated with a reenactment that many have prepared for for months—it makes little sense to hold the reenactment when the statue that adorns the field that bares its name is still missing.
Maybe my expectations for the men and women of the middling Question Mark Police Department are just too high? Maybe the faith that they would have the competence and ability to find an enormous statue in time for a celebration in which it plays a critical role was misplaced?
Until someone manages to provide an answer to the numerous objects, pets, and statues that have gone missing, and until someone can prevent hysterical young people from posting ridiculous, panicked announcements on this exact website, I will not be spending my time faking my way through another meaningless public event.
And neither should you.
This town would do much better if everyone thought just a little more highly of themselves.
Please feel free to take your lead from me.
Posted by Mayor Elizabeth Zisk on September 22, 2023
Read all our Town Announcements.
Community Notes
Good morning, historical reenactors, amateur kite-fighting enthusiasts, and other assorted townsfolk.
As you know, our well-meaning mayor canceled this weekend’s reenactment at British Soldier Field. It was one of our oldest and most meaningful town traditions and had been performed without interruption for one hundred and nine years. Although it may seem easy to ignore the influence of past events on our particular contemporary moment, some of us at the Historical Society consider that extremely short-sighted.
The reenactment is traditionally the Society’s most popular event and as a result of the cancellation, our coffers are now all but empty. It was our hope to use those funds to create our first Historical Society website, which will now have to wait.
All this begs the question: What is a town that refuses to acknowledge its rich, complicated, or even unpopular history? Are we afraid to face the truth of our mistakes? And what does that mean for who are now or who will, one day, become?
Any of you with a passing knowledge of the town recognize that the past is never past. Our shared history–from the Hopewell to the French to the British to the arrival of Reginald Willey and everything that followed–will continue to shape the future.
But in order to do that, the Historical Society needs your help. Please consider volunteering or donating in order to preserve the truth and the continuity of the past, present, and future. You can talk to me at this Sunday’s kite-fighting club. But please remember: no crybabies.
—Jock Reynolds, Historical Society president, retired person
Crime Reports
If you have any information regarding the recent explosion and subsequent destruction of our town water tower, please reach out to the Question Mark Police Department.
Please continue to distribute missing persons fliers to help notify the public about the disappearance of Quentin Quinn.
Read all our Crime Reports.
Upcoming Events
October 8, 2023
Experimental Crop Station Oversized and Irregular Fall Harvest. Please bring your own wheelbarrow or other conveyance. 12pm.
Town Square
October 14, 2023
Eclipse Viewing Event Bring your own viewers or make your own at the Question Mark Public Library. 12pm
British Soldier Field
See all our Upcoming Events
Did You Know?
The British Museum of Wigs and Finery was one of the town’s first museums. Established in 1863, by Reginald Willey’s wife, Virginia Willey, the museum and all of its artifacts went missing after a once-in-a-century flood in 1890.