.:Stygians:. COL-005 Bad Lip Reading

Elijah arrived to the building after reading his letter. What was this about a Lip Reading? He wasn’t sure at all, but wanted to try at least and not feel useless at home.

He walked through hallways until he reach another room where some people were sitting in a large table with papers and pencils on hand, and two other more inside a glass room but you really can’t hear anything at all. A red stygian came walking to him, he has horns and fire alike markings, at least that’s what he interpreted the markings as. 

“You must be Elijah, welcome to the Bad Lip Reading contest. I hope you can manage the sentences.”

“What?” Elijah was crearly confused. “What do you mean by “bad lip reading” exactly?”

“Oh, right. First, name’s Ares. You see, you have to read their lips but this time you don’t have to actually read them properly. Um… you have to read them and change it for something similar to make comedy with it. You think you’re up to it?”

“To be honest, I don’t know, but I can at least try. I’m not the best comedian out there, and never had a comedy contest before nor something like this. Is strange”

“That’s ok, you’ll get to it once you try it out. Wanna start with your first trial?”

“Um, sure, why not”

Elijah followed Ares to the glass room, he showed him a seat to sit down and be in front of the couple that were inside the room. Gave him a pamphlet with some instructions to it, and of course, warned him about the judges being too serious about this comedy bad lip reading. This was the right thing to do, right? Or was there something else at stake? By the look of the judges, he didn’t wanted to know at all.

The first trial started. Of course no one could hear except the people inside and the audio managers at backstage. Ares did a magnificent job, the judges were laughing so hard they even cried and almost choke to death. Some of them were red as tomatoes. Elijah was now more stressed out and nervous, what if he can’t do this at all? Why did he accepted this challenge in the first place? Anyway, he had to try, right?

Elijah finally started. He tried reading as carefully as possible “what?” he didn’t know at all, he was so bad at this that he couldn’t even read the right words even if he wants to. “Tomatoes?” but not clearly, was more potatoes. Probably the couple speaking about the market’s shopping list. “Beaches like that, what?” probably a bad wording mistake, we don’t want to repeat the real one after all, we have kids reading too. Ares facepalmed and sighing on the way. Asked for a five minute recess. 

“What are you doing? You’re supposed to bad lip reading!”

“But I can’t, I don’t even know how to read the right lines!!! Is hard ok? I don’t have that humor like yours!”

“Dang it, man you’re gonna lose!”

“I’d prefer that, I’m not good with this.” 

“Try a second trial, just this time try not to read at all!”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t try to be accurate! Just, speak, just follow your instincts!”

“Which I can have that kind of things with me, I’m useless with bad lip reading.”

“Just do it.”

“Fine!”

After the five minutes recess everyone went back to their places. The judges were almost asleep from boredom.  Elijah sweated and started again. This time following Ares’ advice. Maybe not trying at all and just improvise. That could work? Would it be allowed? He checked one last time to Ares; this one smiled and raise both his thumbs up in approvement or so he thought.

After some hours, the judges were sleeping and Elijah finished. No one laughed.

“Well, I tried…”