PTA Moms

     "I promise, Susan, the void was better yesterday!"

     "Kathy, what it was like yesterday doesn't matter if it's swallowed three volunteers and a janitor today! Get that black hole out of the teacher's lounge or you're no longer secretary."

     Susan (you know, the president of the Parent Teacher Association?) bustled out of the lounge carrying a box full of t-shirts that would be on sale in front of the school within the hour. Kathy, the newly elected secretary, stared into the nothingness where the vending machine that only sold Coke usually was with something between apprehension and desire. 

     "If I walk into it, I won't have to deal with Susan's crap anymore. But then Andrew won't be able to go on the end-of-year field trip. Damned conditional scholarship; whose idea was that in the first place?"

     Kathy began by putting up caution tape between the wall and the counter, careful to not fall into the black space, which was now emitting a sinister whispering. Or maybe it was just white noise; she couldn't quite tell over the screaming of the principal down the hall. It was a third Friday, which was Presentation Day (as everyone knew), and giving a PowerPoint displaying the school's monthly progress to the county superintendent was every administrator's worst nightmare. The secretary then printed a sign in large Comic Sans font, displaying "CAUTION: VOID HERE - DO NOT ENTER", though she knew it was practically useless since everyone thought they were the exception to the rule. If they wanted to have their person absorbed by the pulsating shadow for the sake of an ice-cold Coke, so be it.

     Kathy left for five minutes to put the sign-up sheets for the next bake sale on the front table, where two visor-wearing mothers were exchanging money for tickets as they gossiped about Sharon ("She just remarried!" "So soon after her divorce? Very suspicious." "I know! And he's an accountant!" "Oh, this won't last."). The two lines of parents waiting to enter stretched down the steps, but Kathy knew that asking the women to hurry it up would only make her less popular, so she headed back through the office past the secretary, who was feeding the odd new fish, to the lounge.

     The void had spread, and now it was gnawing away at the edge of the pushpin-punctured announcement board. Kathy put up a new strand of caution tape and sat to ponder a solution in one of the red leather armchairs, where the attached sensors read her heart rate, her body temperature, her current emotions, and her opinion on the state of the decreasing whale population before sending the information to a satellite, which sent it to the county office to be read by someone in the Statistics Department and filed away, never to be seen by anyone else ever again. Kathy was comforted by the fact that there was someone out there paying attention to her feelings. 

     The darkness began to whisper- definitely whisper, not just emit vague noise. It was a little loud to be considered a whisper, but it wasn't normal volume talking and Kathy couldn't think of a better descriptive word. She listened to it, and moved perhaps closer than she should have in order to hear its message better. There were no distinctive words, although it had plenty to say, and she knew that it wanted something. This void, like all people and most living, self-aware organisms, wanted something.

     Susan came back.

     "Kathy! What are you doing?! It's still here! Do you want to lose your position? The fair is filling up and teachers and volunteers are going to be flooding in here for a break from their booths! Do you realize how much work goes into the snack stands? Or the educational presentations where we teach students and their parents to adhere to the status quo and accept the knowledge approved and censored by our county office and benevolent state government? Or the games, like Pin the Sacrifice to the Superintendent on the Altar, and Vote For the Right Candidates? Do you?"

     "I..." Kathy paused. She did know how much work went into the booths, and felt shamed for a moment before remembering that she helped set up the fair earlier that afternoon, and submitted most of the booth ideas at the committee meetings. She had done more work than, perhaps, even Susan had. 

     The void whispered. Kathy listened. 

     The void whispered to Kathy personally. Kathy listened, personally, to the void. 

     Kathy knew what it wanted. 

     She did something, whatever the pulsating blackness wanted, and Susan screamed some, and then she was gone and so was the void and what Kathy did never happened, and neither had Susan or the void.

     Tricia (you know, the president of the Parent Teacher Association?) entered to see Kathy taking down the caution tape from in front of the vending machine. 

     "Kathy? What are you doing!? You have to go man the costume stand! Everyone is vying for it to open; they all want their fake mustaches and personalities!"

     "I know, Tricia; I was just about to go. This caution tape was here for some reason and I thought I'd clean it up." Tricia bustled out in the privileged way that only rich soccer moms can.

     Kathy paused to put two dollars in the slot of the vending machine that only sold Coke, and considered her choices briefly before deciding and pressing the button for a Dr. Pepper. The little screen above the slot went black for a moment, reminding Kathy of something significant, also black, but she couldn't remember what she was reminded of. The screen flashed "$0.25 CHANGE" in neon green lettering, breaking her unremembered recollection, and a can of rootbeer tumbled down. Her change went somewhere else, but Kathy wasn't allowed the knowledge of where.