The Thursday Writers Group

There was something magical, perhaps sinister, in the way we became the Thursday reading group who never met on Thursday. It began innocuously enough, as a poster. Doris volunteered to create a placard that announced we Scribes would meet every Wednesday in the Library conference room. The Librarian volunteered an easel and when Doris completed her rendering we where ready to strut…except Doris had our group meeting on Thursday. At the time it seemed very strange. We all knew Doris as an exceedingly clever person who would never confuse Thursday with Wednesday.

It was a simple matter, in Doris’s absence, to have another scribe modify the sign. Mary Beth volunteered. By the following Wednesday she had done the job that included a slightly different layout. The problem was she hadn’t modified the day. Our sign seemed to be insisting on Thursday meetings. This was more than odd. After some nervous laughter we decided to consider the possibility that there might be a force, not necessarily evil, playing a trick on us. I carefully stored the possibly haunted sign in a dark closet in my basement.

I knew a guy named Morty, who had once witnessed an exorcism, I asked him to help us out. He agreed, practically beaming over the telephone line. On the following Wednesday Morty showed up with an assortment of lights, meters and a book of incantation. First he placed a recording device in front of each of us, and was relieved that no sudden sirens sounded the presence of an alien force. Next he read a series of enchantments, followed by placing little plastic figurines inches from the sign.  All seemed well until Morty , scratching his head, concluded in a whispered mumble “We have trouble!!”. The signs were not good.” He offered no further explanation or suggestions and left in something resembling a drunk racing for the library bathroom.

After an hour of intense discussion we took a vote and decided to: Leave the bewitched cardboard as is, to not offend the strangeness that inhabited this small placard. We would put the sign by the door, in deference to the unholy spirit, but face the lettering to the wall.

It is now five years since that incident. We routinely put the easel in its assigned space and have never experienced the creepy feeling that had surrounded Morty’s pronouncement. We are occasionally asked about the sign that is placed at the entrance to the conference room, in such a way as to make reading its message impossible.