Microphones

The Microphones

   Dream Journal

I AM IN THE OLD KINGDOM HALL AT RETFORD. It’s the circuit overseer’s visit. I turn up early at the Kingdom Hall to fulfil my assignments. It is my job to get the platform ready. I meet the new circuit overseer. His name is Logan Berry. He seems a little strange but nice enough. I’m setting up the platform microphones as I usually do, but Logan has his own ideas about where the microphones should be placed. 

He tells me he wants four microphones, but we only have three inputs. He has all kinds of props with him—visual aids on easels, and a strange, cross-shaped wooden ruler to mark the exact position he should stand at the rostrum. Logan tells me he wants the reader to sit behind the stone literature counter on the far right of the platform. I remember I am the reader. “No,” I say to Logan. I tell him the reader needs to stand on the other side of the platform like normal, otherwise, the brothers on the sound desk will get confused. The presiding overseer, Tim Smith, enters the scene. He backs me up.

I set up all the microphones and ask Pete Jackson on the sound desk for a microphone check. The initial check is good. Logan is impressed. I sense he will recommend me as a ministerial servant, but then I remember I’m disfellowshipped. Pete nips out leaving Lewis Gaze to work the PA desk. Logan continues asking me to add extra microphones to the platform until there are seven. I go to the sound desk and ask Lewis to do a final microphone check. He refuses. I ask him if it’s because he thinks I’m a bad person and he concurs. I call him a “silly little twat” and walk out of the Kingdom Hall.

As I leave, I remember I’m divorced from Bex and I’m seeing my ex-girlfriend, Ava, again. I find myself running down the street eating doughnuts. After a while, I double back and return to the Kingdom Hall. It’s boiling hot outside. I’m wearing a blue, pinstripe, three-piece suit. Back at the hall, there are brothers using the sister’s toilets. I ask my friend, also called Tim, to sort Lewis out. We re-enter the auditorium together. I see governing body member, Stephen Lett, talking to a group of Witnesses. I approach and shake his hand. He asks me if I will be a game show host at a wedding anniversary party he’s having. I say yes.

I look over to the sound desk and notice Lewis has gone. My ex-father-in-law is now on the desk. I walk up to him and tell him we have seven microphones on the platform. I ask him to do a sound check. Unlike Lewis, he’s more than happy to oblige. There are now three brothers on the platform, including Logan. Each is stood at a microphone. There are lots of PA mixers and speakers on the platform. It looks more like a music concert than a Kingdom Hall meeting. My ex-father-in-law plays some boy band music as a joke. The brothers on the platform start singing and everyone laughs, even Stephen Lett.