Testing Testing

This is a test.

This is a test of the outdoor emergency response system.

This is only a test.

Please continue with your day, free of fear, contented by the idea that if a real emergency were to occur you would be made aware of it via this outdoor speaker system. Repeat, no emergency, only a test. If there were a real, actual, life-threatening emergency, this outdoor response system would be providing information on the nature of that emergency, a flood or earthquake or inbound nuclear warhead, to name a few examples, and also be providing guidance on your best recourse to survival, namely stopping, dropping, and rolling, staying out of the shadow of large buildings, the addresses for local fallout shelters, emergency rations, proper wasteland etiquette, appropriate circumstances for panic, addresses for local panic rooms, either near or far from the shadow of large buildings, but again, none of that information and guidance will be provided at this time, because this is a test, and only a test, of the outdoor emergency response system.

Please be aware that the outdoor emergency response system is currently funded by federal tax dollars and is beholden, however loosely, to the interests of the current administration, and if that administration were to see little use for an outdoor emergency response system, these loudspeakers could fall out of use. Please, for the sake of the general welfare, call your local congressman/senator and ask that they vote in favor of AB1075, the Freedom from Fear Initiative, which will guarantee funding for the outdoor emergency response system for the next ten years and ensure that the language used by the outdoor emergency response system remains independent of political bias and dependent on scientific fact, as in: whether or not an emergency is actively impending.

If, somehow, AB1075 fails to pass, the sanctity of the outdoor emergency response system might come into question. The announcements made every Tuesday at exactly noon might lose their punctuality, or worse, all connection with reality, become yet another loud speaker for a corrupt regime, or an incessant mouthpiece for unscrupulous commercial interests, noisily declaring the restriction of personal liberties or the latest price reductions on all your favorite designer brands, or both, or neither, potentially becoming, if things really grow dire, something even worse, just a constant eeeeeeeee sound, night and day, one singular tone, eeeeeeeee, wouldn’t that be awful? All the time, wherever you are, whatever you are doing, EEEEEEEEE. The sound will become a part of the din of public life. All but the happily deaf will need to plug their ears whenever they step outside into the blast zone of the former outdoor emergency response system turned outdoor guilt and consequences delivery system.

The outdoor guilt and consequences delivery system will modulate its tone on a regular, if unpredictable, basis, one day, the whole day, sounding the familiar eeeeeeeee, while suddenly, at midnight, switching to percussive bongo music that will play on a loop for three hours straight before switching to a recording of your nephew’s newborn baby shrieking with displeasure. The pacifier will never be at hand. For years, this will go on. You will forget that there was ever a time when the rusted loudspeakers of the outdoor guilt and consequences delivery system ever performed a test at exactly noon every Tuesday, much less that this test had anything to do with the public good, and much much less that this test came and went, the echo of the former outdoor emergency response system fading from memory. How lucky you were to have a system that was silent for ninety-nine percent of the week, speaking only to reassure you that it was still on-duty, still ready to sound itself at a moment's notice, to rouse you from your blissful slumber lest the flood waters drown you, the roof cave in on your precious little heads.

The outdoor guilt and consequences delivery system may, at some point, go quiet. The sudden silence may come as a shock. One moment the air was filled with the sound of silverware caught in a garbage disposal, the next moment: pure silence. You might be unnerved by this sudden absence. You might breathe a sigh of relief. You might think, well that was weird, three years straight of senseless noise and now nothing. You might conclude that the powers that be finally heard your complaints and mercifully pulled the plug on what used to be the outdoor emergency response system. You would not be entirely wrong. The silence will last exactly six and a half hours during which the outdoor guilt and consequences delivery system would become the outdoor remorseful penance delivery system. The tranquility will suddenly be broken by the words ‘I’m sorry’ spoken from the loudspeaker with all the grace of a car alarm at 3am. These words will repeat, loudly, ad infinitum. At exactly noon on the following Tuesday, the language will change from English to Mandarin, but the message will still be the same. The outdoor remorseful penance delivery system will continue its apology without interruption, changing languages every week until all six official UN languages, English, Mandarin, Spanish, Arabic, French, and Russian are exhausted. The outdoor remorseful penance delivery system will then switch to Tagalog. Then Hebrew. Then Japanese. On and on until all languages, including the dead language of Latin and the fake language of Esperanto, are given their week in the loudspeaker. And then all the dialects of the world will get their turn. And then morse code. And then a dog will bark apologetically. And then a whale will sing sorrowfully. And then, finally, there will be silence. For six and a half hours, at least.

Now, all of this can be avoided in one of two ways. A group of like-minded citizens may, at some point, decide they’ve had enough of the outdoor bullshit delivery system, as they call it, and they might gather in large crowds around the telephone poles upon which hang the loudspeakers of the city-wide system, donning axes and chainsaws and torches. They may succeed in felling a few of these speakers, they might even get them all, smashing the loudspeakers to splinters, burning the telephone poles in effigy, but after they lay down that night to slumber in the newfound silence, sweaty with relief, they will be jolted awake by the screeching eeeeeeeee issuing from every smartphone, every television, every radio, walkie talkies, baby monitors, wall clocks, turntables, and yes, loudspeakers, those hung in prisons and schoolyards and subway stations and public plazas. Everything that can screech will screech, and it will never end, not until you call your congressman/senator and demand that they pass AB1075, or draft a similar piece of legislation that ensures the outdoor emergency response system will be here to stay, because it will be, whether you want it or not.

This is a test.

This is a test of the outdoor emergency response system.

This is only a test.