The Master Ventriloquist

It was a sad day at the Ventriloquism Society's Annual Talent Show. An audience hall that had once, long ago, been full of life, laughter and unmoving lips was now stale and tired from amateurs and washed up has-beens who didn't even attempt to keep their lips from moving. To add to that their jokes weren't funny and their dummies even failed to be jerks

The stage was unfilled. No one had the courage to take their dummy to the stage and attempt to redeem the day, because they knew that they would turn out be awful. But hope was regained when an old man stood up and moved towards the stage.

To say 'old' is to understate his age. He was as ageless as the stars, and looking at the antiquity of his dummy it seemed that he had practiced ventriloquism for an eternity. His lips were closed so tight, that they appeared as if they hadn't been opened in centuries. This old man truly was a master of the craft.

The audience held their breath as the man took his seat in front of the microphone. The dummy cleared his throat. I should say that the he cleared his throat, but that would be a shame to his craft. He knew that a true ventriloquist never ceases the act, and so it was the dummy that cleared his throat. The audience moved to the edge of their seats as the old man slowly opened the mouth of the dummy. As the old man, or the dummy, spoke, his voice emanated not only from the dummy, but the entire earth. They only entity that the voice didn't come from was the old man.

And thus, the dummy spoke.

"Well back in my day we didn't have ventriloquists. We just animated dolls and talked to them!"

The dummy laughed long and hard at his own joke. But he was the only one laughing. Vegetables were thrown.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, and William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden. This week's theme: 'Ventriloquism'.