(700 words)
“This is WKKZ, bringing you the brightest music and the brightest discussion!” announced the smooth voice of DJ Kenny Bright, “and just before the news at one a.m. we have Donny on the line, I believe. Donny, hello, can you hear me?”
“Hi, Kenny, yes, I can, how are you doing?”
“I’m great, Donny, how are you?”
“I’m good, thank you, Kenny.”
“OK. I believe you wanted to talk about cover-ups. Is that right?”
“Yes, Kenny, that’s right. You know, I don’t believe we’re told the truth about anything anymore.”
“Well, I know there’s been a lot of talk about ‘fake news’.”
“Well, there’s fake and there’s fake, isn’t there?”
“How d’you mean?”
“Well, for example, they tell us that plane, MH370 just disappeared off the radar. Damned pilot just flew off and murdered two hundred and fifty people!”
“Well, no one knows what happened.”
“That’s just it, Kenny, of course someone knows, probably quite a lot of people know, as a matter of fact. But the media here just follow the party line. Suicide-murder pilot and all the rest of it. Anything else is just a ‘conspiracy theory’!”
Bright coughed a phlegm-laden cough. “Excuse me.” He continued, “Surely they’re just reporting the information put out by the Malaysian authorities?”
“Well, you know that base we have, Diego Garcia, in the middle of nowhere?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Did you know they closed it for twenty-four hours the night MH370 disappeared? Seems under the cover of darkness a very large unidentified plane landed.”
“So what?”
“So what, man! Put two and two together.”
“Well, I’m not going to put two and two together to make five!”
“Listen, man, someone on that base blew the whistle. Told people that hundreds of passengers were taken off a ‘mystery plane’ that landed in the middle of the night, divided into groups and flown off to different interrogation centres.”
“Someone on that base,” Bright’s tone turned sarcastic. “Like who?”
“Well, he gave that information incognito, obviously. But he gave evidence that showed he knew the intimate workings of the base.”
“And you’ve seen this evidence?”
“Listen, Kenny, man, you know I haven’t. I’m taking the word of certain investigators – Barney Murillo, Ruben Pemberton, Rhys Gray, you know those guys?”
“I’ve heard of them. Conspiracy theorists is about right. Although some might have stronger words to say about them!”
“Look, man, Barney Murillo was the guy who first blew the whistle on that English paedo DJ, Jimmy Saville. Everyone knew he was at it, no one spoke up. Barney wrote about it time and again on his blog and got called every name under the sun for it. Turned out, after Saville died, the British police announced he was one of the worst paedophiles ever!”
“Well, Britain … England has paedophiles coming out of the woodwork, that’s what they’re like over there.”
“Yeah, man, right. The point is that Murillo had a ‘conspiracy theory’ that turned out to be correct! Based on investigation and facts!”
“OK, OK, but, look, there’s a list of conspiracy theories out there as long as my arm!”
“So, let’s talk about another. 9/11.”
“Sorry, Donny, I’m not going to go there, I don’t want to upset our listeners.”
“I’m not going to go there, Kenny. I just wanna talk about the Solomon Brothers building, that huge office block that came down the same day.”
“Yes, it was set on fire by falling debris from the towers and collapsed due to burning office furniture. It was proven.”
“Yeah, it was in the report, sure. The government report. Problem was, a load of people heard demolition charges going off, just before it collapsed.”
“Rubbish!”
“It’s on camera, as is the building going down.”
“Maybe it was fireworks?”
“Fireworks, my ass, that building went down in free fall! Only way it could have done that was by demolition.”
“Says who?”
“Demolition experts. Want me to name ‘em?”
“Well, actually, no, Donny, we have to break now for the news. Well, thank you for your interesting … ideas. But the rest of us have to live in the real world. Nice talking to you.”
A jingle for a foot deodorant commercial cut in. ‘When something stinks ….’
–
Featured in the book and audiobook, To Cut a Short Story Short, vol. II: 88 Little Stories
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