As long as I can remember, I’ve had a fascination with music.
My parents always told me I was the kid who danced before he could walk.
Dancing eventually progressed to singing and my favorite place to sing was in the back of my dad’s Camaro.
It felt like I was strapped to a jet, set to go, and I just sang along to the radio.
It didn’t matter what song it was, whether it was the 80s hair bands my dad loved or the modern pop hits my mom enjoyed, I just belted out the words as long as I knew the song.
On a day like any other, we were driving to the store, my mom and I singing along to whatever bubblegum pop song was on the radio that day when a sound I never heard before interrupted that generic melody.
A siren sound blasted through those speakers and a monotone voice pierced our ears with the words “EMERGENCY ALERT, EMERGENCY ALERT” .
My mom turned up the speakers slightly to hear what the man was going to say.
Eventually, it said it was only a test but that test was long enough. We lost any chance of enjoying a rhythmic route and instead had to listen to the man who slithered into our ear canals.
Those tests made frequent appearances as I grew up and even when I got my own car.
They always went off at the wrong time too.
Whether I was singing to a song that reminded me of a girl I loved or screaming to a song that reminded me of the things I hated, it would go off right at the best part of the track.
There was never an actual emergency, I just learned to turn the radio off, wait about five minutes, and turn it back on to return to the regularly scheduled programming.
I look back at it now and realize if there ever was an actual emergency while I was on the road those days, I’d probably already be in heaven.
That’s because they were frequent and made so much noise, I tuned them out.
Just as you have, Tag and Ether.
There has been constant noise, an ever present discussion of who Viper’s snake was.
Emergency alerts that you paid no attention to because you thought they were a false alarm.
You thought they were something to ignore until you heard a sound that got you excited again.
Sorry, it won’t be a sound to excite the senses you hear next.
No, the sounds you will soon hear are your bones crunching as the new snake in town constricts you and makes you realize the reason emergency alerts exist in the first place.
Maybe if you paid attention to them, you’d notice him slithering his way into your inner circle.
Maybe you would be able to do what Adam and Eve couldn’t and survive the snake’s ways.
Now it’s too late and Tag, you’ll soon get your namesake on your foot to go with a shiny black bag.
And Ether, soon the only way you’ll get to eat is through a feeding tube.