Listen up! Listen up! I'm leaving the industry

LISTEN! LISTEN!
My career as a town crier is not progressing and I am leaving the industry. I recently met Bertram and found out that he is now a town crier in Canterbury.
Canterbury!
From the stories!
Bertram started moaning at the same time as me and I'm still here in Skunthorpe. Sure, I know you have to deal with shit for a while before you get your big break. Literally – because the audience will throw shit at you if they don't like you.
Oh, that reminds me –

LISTEN! LISTEN!
Please follow the latest public health guidelines and leave your feces in a neat pile in front of your house –not scolded your diligent crier!

Also, we're running out of room in the Witch Drowning Well – there are now more drowned witches than wells here, so if you know of another well, please let the Chief Witch Hunter know.

In another context, we would like to inform you that we no longer have drinking water.

Wow, nobody is listening. What am I doing out here with my stupid scroll?
They would listen to Bertram.
Bertram is my age and yet he has so many followers – people in Canterbury who literally follow him everywhere.
When I think of Bertram's undeserved success, I feel sick. Or maybe it's because of the fermented witch's drinking water.

LISTEN! A new game called chess has come from the East.
So now you can play this instead of the traditional Skunthorpe sport of throwing hammers at each other.

Should I just move to LA?
By that I mean Lake Ass, the lake where everyone gets tuberculosis.
But I've heard that if you can't drive a cart, it takes forever to get anywhere, because you're constantly having to step over the bodies of all the people who died of tuberculosis.

LISTEN! LISTEN!
The wild dogs are back and angrier than before, so if you find one in your house, leave or die. You can't defeat them in battle.

I've been a town crier for a decade and I'm pretty damn bad at it. By that I mean the only thing I technically own is a chamber pot. And it constantly attracts the wild dogs.

I should quit and become a shoemaker, like my father always wanted. Whenever I talked about my dreams, he would cough up blood. But that was always the case when I talked about everything. He used to live in Lake Ass.

At least I try to do something different with the form. I am an observant crier.
I am not an amateur.
Oh, “Hear! Hear! Take my wife, please—she is for sale.” We've all heard that one. It involves ranting about courtship, thoughts of intimate relationships, and then prostrating oneself before God for one's sins.

I guess I could try to work with the crowd.
LISTEN! LISTEN!
Is there anyone here from out of town?
NO?
Has no one here ever been anywhere else?
All right then.

I just thought that town shouting was my calling. When I was younger, everyone would say, “Percival, you are so loud”, and I just knew it.

I've been thinking about writing an epic ballad about a town crier trying to make it in the big city. You know what they say: shout about what you know.
I need to stop waiting for opportunities and create them for myself, like the woman who goes from town to town parading her burlap sack full of live fleas. Maybe one day I'll have my own “flea bag” and win as many awards as she does. That would be a nice change from the reason I'm currently covered in fleas – I'm also covered in human shit and there's no water to wash it off that isn't contaminated by witches. Maybe then I'll finally stand out from all the other people screaming and delirious in the streets. One can dream…

Until then-
LISTEN! LISTEN!
If you have leprosy and your arm or leg falls off, don't just leave it on the street. That's probably why the wild dogs keep coming here. ♦