Male voice over scripts

A woman on the evening train told me she was leaving her husband, and I was the first person she had told, because I was nobody. "I'm telling you because you're nobody," she said. "No offence." "None taken." We were an hour north of the city, in the dark. I had a sandwich I no longer felt able to eat. "He isn't cruel," she said. "I'd like that understood. People will want him to be cruel." "He's kind. He brings me tea I don't drink. Twenty-two years of tea, going cold on the bedside table." "I told him once that I don't take it in the mornings. He said, of course you do." "I keep thinking it isn't enough. You can't leave a man over tea." I am not wise. I sell commercial flooring. But I had sat across from my own wife that morning, and I could not have told you, under oath, how she took hers. "I don't think it's the tea," I said. "I think it's the of course." She looked at me then, properly, for the first time. The train slowed. The sign said Harrowby. "This is me." She got her case down herself. At the door she turned. "You're not nobody. I'm sorry I said so." "No, I think I was. It's all right. It was useful." I got home at ten. I asked my wife how she took her tea. She told me. It was not what I would have said.

The curse is very clear. One kiss, freely given, before the last frost, or I spend eternity as a rather handsome statue in my aunt's garden. "So kiss someone," says Brielle, not looking up from her book. "It has to be someone who means it." "You are a prince. Somebody must like you." "They like the crown. The curse can tell the difference. It is irritatingly well made." She turns a page. Snow is falling outside the tower window. I have eleven days and one friend, and I have just realised, with the cold certainty of a man falling down a well, that those are the same problem. "What?" she says. "You have gone a funny colour."

The town meeting in Pell's Corner was called to order at seven, and by five past it was about zucchini. "It's an epidemic," said Hal Brewster. "I left my truck unlocked ten minutes at the post office. Came back, there's a bag of them on the seat. No note." "That's generosity, Hal." "That's dumping, Louise. I've got forty of my own." Everybody had forty of their own. That was the whole trouble. So an ordinance was proposed. No resident shall leave squash of any kind in or upon the vehicle, porch, or mailbox of another. It passed, twenty-two to three. Hal walked out to the lot feeling that democracy, for once, had worked. His truck was locked. He had made sure. But the bed of a pickup does not lock, and in his lay a zucchini the size of a canoe paddle, with a ribbon on it. There was a note, this time. "Ordinance takes effect in thirty days."

I made one mistake in Devon, and I made it in front of witnesses. The scone arrived warm, with a pot of strawberry jam and a dish of clotted cream as thick as butter. I am from Leeds. I did what seemed natural. I put the jam on first. The tearoom went quiet. "You'll be thinking of Cornwall," said the woman at the next table, not unkindly. "They do jam first, over the border. Here it's cream, then jam." "Does it matter?" She looked at me for some time. I did the second half her way. I could not taste the slightest difference, and I had the sense to say that it was much better.

Cassius Vane had survived two plagues, one shipwreck, and the entire eighteenth century. He was not sure he would survive his new neighbour. "Good morning!" she called over the fence. It was six. She had a watering can and a sunhat with daisies on it. "It is morning," he allowed. "I made too many muffins. Do you like blueberry?" "I do not like anything." "Great, so you have no objection." She passed the basket over. "I am Poppy. You look like you have not slept in a hundred years." "Two hundred and twelve." She laughed. She thought he was joking. And Cassius, who had not been surprised since the invention of the steam engine, found himself holding a warm muffin, with nothing to say.

Some things don't need a sales pitch. A good fence post. A cast-iron skillet. A handshake from a man who's worked the same land his whole life. The Halloran Workhorse was built the same way. Honest steel. A frame that shrugs off the load you knew you shouldn't have piled on. An engine with the muscle to pull the camper up the grade and the manners to get you home. Inside, it's all business. Controls you can work with gloves on. Seats that forgive a fourteen-hour day. And a bed liner that's seen worse than whatever you're about to throw in it. It won't write poems about itself. It'll just be there, every morning, rain or shine, ready to go to work. Just like the folks who drive it. The Halloran Workhorse. Built to be leaned on.

A Fourth of July timeline. Noon. You have one hot dog. Reasonable. Twelve fifteen. Someone says, there's plenty. You have a second hot dog and a burger. Still fine. One o'clock. Your aunt's seven-layer dip. You count the layers. You eat all seven. Two thirty. Ribs. You weren't hungry. That has never stopped you. Four o'clock. Somebody's kid dares you to enter the pie eating contest. You are a grown adult. You win the pie eating contest. Five. Corn. Because it's a vegetable. Nine p.m. The fireworks start. Everyone looks up. You are lying flat on a blanket, not because it's the best view, but because it is the only position available to you. Settlewell antacid tablets. Fast relief from heartburn and that too-full feeling, in cherry or mint. Keep a roll in your pocket. Not for now. For around two thirty. Settlewell. You're going to do it again next year. We'll be here.

Hey, Riverton! It's The Kowalczyk Team! That's Ko-WAL-chick. Don't worry, you don't have to spell it. You just have to call it. We are hungry. We are local. And we are selling homes all over the Riverton area, seven days a week. Here's how we're different. When you list with The Kowalczyk Team, you get a professional photographer, a video walkthrough, and a marketing plan built for your street. Not a sign in the yard and a prayer. Last spring, the Hendersons called us on a Monday. By Saturday, they had a full open house and more than one offer to choose from. Mrs. Henderson baked us cookies. We accept cookies. Buying? We'll get you in the door before the other guys even see the listing. So call The Kowalczyk Team. Or text us. Or honk when you drive by the office on Fifth Street. We'll wave. The Kowalczyk Team. Say it with us. Ko-WAL-chick. Sold!

[Jaw clack] Halt! Who goes there? [A pause] It was the cat. It is always the cat. I have guarded this mantel for one hundred and thirty years. I have never blinked. I am, however, nine inches tall. That is why this household has installed Watchpost Home Security. Door sensors! Window sensors! A camera at the front step! Alerts sent directly to your telephone! Professional installation, free. Monitoring from twenty-nine dollars a month. Watchpost Home Security. I am being relieved of duty. [Jaw clack] Finally. A nap.

Mission control, this is Crayonauts. We have liftoff. Sixty-four colours, including Comet Green and Asteroid Orange. Twist-up barrels. No sharpener required. Washable, even from walls. Especially from walls. Status report. Crew has deployed colour to the paper, the table, and the dog. The dog is fine. We have a report of a purple giraffe on the fridge. Can you confirm? Confirmed. The giraffe has a jetpack. Oh, it's beautiful. Crayonauts. Colour outside the lines.