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Conventional Murders

  D. T. Majors

  Copyright 2016 D. T. Majors

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  All was still. The villa park was a peaceful place in the hour before dawn, as all the revellers from the night before had finally made it back home, either theirs or someone else’s. All except Peter, whose dead body lay face down in the parking lot. A blood-soaked trophy that he had won the previous day rested serenely beside him, and its profile neatly matched the indentation in his skull. Eventually, a young woman dressed in her pyjamas emerged from one of the villas, looking to experience the serenity of an autumn Tasmanian morning before everyone else began to stir. She looked around, inhaled the cool, clean air, and heard a chorus of birds chirping merrily among themselves. Then she turned and saw the body, screamed, and within seconds hastily-dressed people came running from the other villas. They all stopped short, reluctant to approach too closely, and formed a circle around the body. None of them would have imagined a scene like this only a few days earlier...

  * * * * *

  Good god… who are these heathens? And what are they all blathering about? And why can’t they just sit down and shut up like normal people?

  Laura couldn’t believe her bad luck. It was as if she walked into a parallel dimension when she stepped onto the plane. Everyone around her was carrying on… loudly. Very loudly. And they all seemed to know each other. One word kept coming up in their chatter: Talkies.

  What the hell is that, anyway? Some kind of support group for compulsive talkers?

  She did her best to maintain an even composure, despite the escalating din going on around her.

  Thank god I remembered my noise-reducing headphones.

  With the headphones in her ears and favourite Death Metal cranked up to maximum, she started to be able to hear herself think again. Laura was on her way to Tasmania for a weekend of camping and hiking with some of her old friends from her university days. Why she agreed to this trip she didn’t know, because she liked neither camping nor hiking, and these people had never been close friends anyway. Three days together spent climbing up hills just for the privilege of climbing back down again and sleeping on the cold, hard ground in tents wasn’t her idea of a good time. But she had become bored with life these days, so she said yes. And here she was.

  Looks like this trip is starting off badly…. let’s hope it doesn’t go downhill too quickly from here.

  Someone a few rows ahead of her stood up and started proclaiming something, in what looked like a bad impression of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. And she could hear it over her music. Deciding enough was enough, she took her headphones out and listened for a while.

  After what seemed like many more minutes than it actually was, everyone started clapping and cheering like lunatics.

  Oh for heaven’s sake!

  She couldn’t stop herself any longer. When the person sitting beside her stopped applauding and sat back down, she turned to him and asked, “What’s ‘Talkies?’”

  There are blank stares, and there are incredulous blank stares. And then are mouth-gaping “I can’t believe you just said that”-type incredulous blank stares. That’s the kind of stare the man gave Laura.

  Recollecting himself, he said, “I’m so sorry… hi, my name’s Dave. Pleased to meet you…?” He put out his hand, and Laura shook it.

  Nice firm handshake! Hmm...

  “Laura.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Laura. I’ll try to answer that as briefly as I can, and I’ll try not to convert you, promise. ‘Talkies’ is a public speaking club. We’re all going to the annual convention in Tasmania this weekend.”

  And with that, he stopped talking and sat back.

  Convert me? What did he mean by that?

  Laura took the bait.“Public speaking?”

  “Yes, we’re all members of clubs where we practice our public speaking skills.”

  Laura didn’t know what to say in response, so she simply repeated “Public speaking?”

  “Yeah, it’s great fun!”

  “And you do this… on purpose?”

  “Oh absolutely!”

  I’m going to have to change seats.

  Dave continued on. “See, you’re having the very same reaction I had when I first heard about it. It’s not really as scary as you might think. Only in the beginning. Then it becomes a major high!”

  I’m going to have to change seats, right now. Or maybe I should ask to change planes.

  “Look,” he said, “have you ever wanted to communicate a message -- whatever it is -- so that it’s clear? So that people will listen to you and maybe do what you tell them to do? Or maybe you want to make the laugh? Did you ever look at someone on television, or see someone speak at a function like a wedding, and wonder how they do it? Did you ever think ‘maybe one day I’ll do that too?’”

  Oh my god… it’s like he knows.

  Her maid-of-honour speech. It was the single-most horrifyingly embarrassing moment of her life. She got up to give her address to the bride and was so nervous that she vomited all over the head table, and then promptly fainted, hit her head and had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance. It happened three years ago and people still hadn’t stopped talking about it. Laura still hadn’t stopped wishing she had hit her head a bit harder and died.

  “Most of us have had some kind of horrific public speaking disaster,” he went on. “Maybe you’ve had one of your own?”

  Gulp.

  “Y-y-y-yes.”

  “Public speaking is a skill like any other, and if you haven’t trained and practised, then you really didn’t stand much of a chance. Think of it this way: you wouldn’t walk out on stage at Carnegie Hall and sit down to perform a piano concerto if you’ve never even touched a piano before, right?”

  “Of course not!”

  “There you go, it’s the same thing.”

  Why didn’t anybody tell me this before?

  “Okay, I’m going to talk to someone a few rows up ahead for a few minutes. You sit here and try not to hyperventilate, and we’ll talk more when I’m back.”

  * * * * *

  “And you just show up and, what, start talking?” Laura asked Dave as he sat back down.

  “It’s much more systematic than that, so that we work on one aspect at a time. It usually takes a few tries, but most people really get into it after a while and find it fun.”

  And terrifying! I’d rather grab a pair of pliers and yank out three of my own teeth!

  “How many people start screaming and run out of the room?”

  Oh dear, I said that out loud.

  That gave Dave a good chuckle. “I’ve never seen it happen yet. But even if someone did that, it’s okay. Maybe the next time they actually make it to the front, say six words and sit back down. And they’d get a huge round of applause.”

  “I like applause.”

  “Doesn’t everybody? After you’ve finished speaking, and your legs are doing a good impersonation of a wet spaghetti noodle, there’s nothing better than having half-a-dozen people come up to you and tell you how great you did and how proud of you they are.”

  Laura let that sink in for a moment.

  How amazing would that be? Maybe I’m not such a freak after all. Maybe...

  “And then the third part of every meeting is the evaluations.”

  Bloody hell! Evaluations? So someone gets to evaluate you? Like I don’t
deal with other people's’ judgment enough as it is.

  Laura’s jaw was frozen, her tongue inoperable, her mind seized up. Terror filled her eyes.

  “Listen, what are you doing this weekend?”

  What? What was that? Did he just ask me out on a date? Because that’s what it sounded like to me. It’s called ‘timing,’ buddy. Learn some.

  “Um…. I’m supposed to be going hiking and camping with some old friends. To be honest, I’m not really looking forward to it”

  “Oh really? Where are you going?”

  “Well, we’re starting off with a day around Launceston, and then they’re taking me down south to Mount Wellington.”

  “Listen, how’d you like to come along to the first morning of the convention? I’m on the organizing committee, and we’re always encouraged to bring guests along. Now that you’ve heard about it, how’d you like to see what it’s like first-hand? Do you think you have time for that before you join your friends?”

  He is kind of asking me out on a date. But not. Weird. Still, he’s kinda cute… for a crazy man.

  Laura weighed up her options. It occurred to her that if she went to the convention, it would probably be indoors, and she could sit down and drink coffee the whole time. Alternatively, she could be outside, clambering through the Tasmanian bush, probably drenched by the rain.

  “Okay, why not? But only the first morning, and then I’ll have to go. And… where is it? How will I get there?”

  “Don’t worry about that. Tell me where you’re staying and I’ll have my hotel’s shuttle bus come pick you up in the morning.”

  I must be insane. I just agreed to go to a Talkies convention. A public speaking club. Maybe this plane will crash into the sea and we’ll all be eaten by sharks.