Minutes of the weekly Silver Gulch City Council meeting, convened 5/4/89 upon satisfactory reconstruction of the provisional council chambers. Stenographic services provided by Interim Secretarial Understudy Priscilla Brooks, following the death of previous Council Secretary Laverne Woodward-Willoughby during the events hereafter referenced.
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Let the record show that that at approximately 7:45 pm on this, the first day of May, in the year of our Lord Eighteen Hundred and Eighty Nine, Sheriff Maximilian Pratt did serve to distinguish himself most exceptionally in the service of our community, the defense of public order and decency, and ostensibly also the quote, “protection of all of space and time”, end quote, according to one of the unidentified individuals whose lives were lost during the incident. While the exact nature of what transpired on that day will likely never be fully understood, it is clear that the, er, entities which manifested in the town square that afternoon were of an unarguably hostile character, and debatably unnatural in their composition.
The being which witnesses described as being a quote, “man-shaped hole in the air, filled with a starlit night sky containing two malevolently glowing red eyes”, end quote, caused relatively little immediately obvious harm to public facilities (apart from partially destroying a cache of blasting supplies which Councilor Matthew Hayes has claimed were his lawful property, though he denies responsibility for the improper disposition of these volatile munitions). However, the second, er, creature spoke openly of its desire to, quote, “annihilate the entirety of your pitiful existence”, end quote, and as its body appeared to be constructed of a crystalline substance similar to the two large towers which inexplicably appeared shortly earlier, and appeared to be preparing to manipulate these constructs to some unknown purpose, we cannot rule out the possibility that this, er, being was actually capable of some action resembling its boast.
Regardless, while several individuals (whom, interestingly, appeared to be mostly female), appeared to be engaged in combat with these two creatures, and focused primarily upon attacking the crystalline entity with what are presumed to be some form of experimental high-technology weapons, they were attacked in kind and rapidly incapacitated by the strange being. One of these counter-combatants, speaking in what was believed to be a heavily Scottish accent, said something about how the intruder was about to activate the quote, “focus of power”, unquote, and would quote, “double remove the last environment”, unquote. It was at this moment that Sheriff Pratt stepped forward, waiving the customary warnings under the circumstances, and shot the crystal creature directly between its eyes. Apparently this was no less lethal than it would have been against a more, er, conventional malcontent against the public peace; the entity was observed to shatter into hundreds of crystalline shards, most of which immediately vanished along with the second tower, the fallen remains of its counterpart (pulled down using some manner of grappling hook by one of the unidentified female combatants), the “starry night” creature, the incapacitated combatants, and most other detritus of the incident.
While little physical evidence of these events remains, the eyewitness testimony of nearly one hundred bystanders, notably including the majority of this council, forms adequate demonstration of the knowable truth, however improbable it may seem to the authorities at the county, state, or federal level. It is therefore the nigh-universal decision of this council (the sole dissenting vote being from councilor Matthew Hayes), that Sheriff Pratt deserves to have the highest possible commendation entered into his public service record, for valor and competence in the prosecution of his duties. He shall also receive an immediate increase of thirty-five cents to his hourly wage, and this amount would likely be higher, were the city’s finances already severely strained by the ongoing cost of reconstruction. Additional commendations may be offered to some or all of the other combatants who assisted in subduing the entity, should their identities ever be successfully determined.
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