Night Gallery

welcome heart lovers we offer for your

approval of still life if you will have

noise a soundless canvas suggestive of

someone the mouth belongs to Pamela in

life is shrieking battle-ax made up of

adenoids tonsils and sound decibels in

death an unmuted practitioner fish Y

furry undeterred and ungag by what one

would assume to be the great silencer

some ghosts come back to haunt others

come back simply to pick up where they

left off our painting is called Pamela's

voice and this is the Night Gallery

nothing better to do tonight Jonathan

just stand there like a fish out of

water look hard enough and you'll see me

you're blind as a bat

Jonathan Pamela is that your voice whose

voice were you expecting you idiot who

else's voice would it possibly be yes

quite obviously it is you Pamela

nobody else could fire off so many

hackneyed cliches per minute and a voice

like on oiled rollerskates

surprised

at what at my be here hardly in life my

dear Pamela you arrived everywhere

uninvited you and that hiding a mating

call voice of yours

tell me Pamela how are things up there

but they keep keeping you occupied

keeping you contented are their lives or

rather after lives you can destroy with

gossip are their reputations you can

filthy up with your dark little

suspicions and that kitchen knife tongue

of yours oh it's incredible it never

occurred to me you're probably not even

up there you're more likely I'm neither

Jonathan I'm right here I've never left

so you did your level best to get me out

of the way you are out of the way Pamela

resilient you were it all together

immortal and being mortal broken neck

did you in nicely was it painful

I mean when you landed at the foot of

the stairs to hurt didn't it not a

particle it's a pity

rather takes the fun out of it I'd hoped

for at least a few moments of prolonged

discomfort you know tit for tat my years

of marital agony against at least a few

moments of pronounced pain of your own

pity you had it so rough you did you me

and ring Tomcat I could have had my pick

of any man in town why my daddy had a

bar the doors to keep the swains from

forcing their way in the swings indeed

they weren't Swain's Pamela they were a

too platoon system of fortune hunters

and hungry gigolos you say without Big

Daddy's bankroll you couldn't have

gotten a proposal from an all-male penal

colony you couldn't have gotten a

proposition now you listen to me

Jonathan I have listened to you Pamela

I have listened to you for years to the

point of a bleeding ulcer two ruptured

eardrums and a permanent migraine

well you listen to me now Jonathan and

you keep listening because I intend to

keep right on talking you were a swine

as a husband you were a Rotter as a

companion a faithless fancy Dan who do

you think I risk the electric chair just

to suffer more of you that suet pudding

body of yours that was bad enough but

that voice spamela that voice that

screeching fingernail across a

blackboard that fills the room every

time you air your tonsils let me tell

you something that's why I killed you

just that that cacophony of noise that

shrill lunch whistle that that off tune

Calliope that that woke me in the

morning freaked at me during the day and

pounded my head at night that's why I

murdered you Pamela that's why I pushed

you down the stairs so I wouldn't have

to listen to your voice well fancy that

the poor sensitive man with the delicate

ears didn't care for this out of my

voice well Jonathan what do you suppose

you are listening to now what do you

think it is you're listening to what am

i listening

I'm I'm listening to my imagination

yes I I'm listening to a fantasy I'm

looking at a Spectre let's face it Donna

it's beddy-bye time permanent beddy-bye

time it's quarter of eight they'll be

coming for you soon who will the funeral

director and his minions of course we're

going to convey you to the cemetery

how's that again Jonathan the cemetery

Pamela the final resting place the tomb

the Crypt the ossuary dig Boot Hill baby

I swear Jonathan you are still the most

absent minded man I have ever met in my

life

absent-minded why what do you mean why

don't you remember you buried me months

ago what we're just you pushed me down

the stairs on March the 17th my funeral

was the 19th and this is August August

August then and that's what's that

you've only yourself to blame Jonathan

it's no more than you deserve for so

excessively celebrating my demise all

that rich food the late hours the

alcoholic spirits if I told you once I

told you a hundred times

you are constitutionally unfit for that

type of indecency that's sort of backin

aliens self-indulgence but did you

listen to me no of course not like all

the other sound advice I offered you

down through the years which you so

ungrateful II ignored then again it's

not just you it's eye to eye I'm a ghost

yes Jonathan that is precisely what you

are

I reject that as that's probably unfair

when one dies one either goes up or down

you're right as rain Jonathan right as

rain and in heaven you can do whatever

you want to take me as a social person

as a woman who likes to communicate Oh

an extrovert you might say a person who

enjoys communicating well I shall spend

the rest of my eternity talking and you

Jonathan

you push our wives down staircases while

I talk through eternity you will listen

me

eternity but but you said yourself when

one's in heaven one can do this one

wishes in heaven Jonathan in heaven

I'm afraid the organization to which

you've been assigned is not quite so

accommodating now let's see where was I

oh yes now I remember as I was telling

you just before you push me down those

stairs Jonathan it is always been my

thinking that you can judge a man by the

way he listens not by the way he dresses

but by the way he listens now if a man

is really receptive if he's really okay

if a man really cares about what a

woman's talking back then is when you

have something that you

because and unforgiving she usually

buries its secrets beneath itself

warships and ocean liners treasure

galleons and submarines turn into

rusting relics inside a watery lacquer

lost a memory but occasionally there

comes a floating unbidden reminder of

disaster like this lifeboat the painting

is called a lone survivor we'll put it

in tow and see where she came from and

why

bloody art

it appears to be only one survivor sir

Oh God any signs of life

starboard 5 degrees starboard 5 degrees

sir 3 long blasts mr. Wilson yes sir

that would be mr. Richard sir

ask him to come to a bridge mr. Richards

to the bridge nice to be a woman there

be no reports of ships in distress in

these waters no sir yet that's a ship

boat there's no mistaking it sir mr.

Richards I wanted to take starboard

seaboard I'll drop and recover you

underway take a signal you will be

making about 5 knots with it being the

birth of beam I'll give you two short

blasts which will be executive for

unlocking the forward falls and casting

off I said your ship to port and pick

you up in the same position is that

understood aye aye captain well carry on

my ship's boat and no ship around single

survivor woman like that

/ cement for sure check sea boat luring

away handsome laser

all engines first em well they just saw

stern sir

check Siebert at waterline after falls