<Shock and Autonomy>

An online/live performance

Characters:

The three fates:

Clotho (DJ)

Atropos, aka “Atty” (Editor-in-Chief of major publication)

Lachesis, aka “Lack” (At-Large)

and:

The High Priestess

The Superheroine

The Fool

The Shaman of the Circuits

 

Preshow music previews themes of the show. The following is mixed into the music.


SOUND 1 (voice over 1)

In the beginning was chaos.
In the beginning was nothing.

And we came. Spin, Measure, Cut
And then there was Rhythm And it was good.
The first vibration
Spin
Twist
Bind
Threads that keep us together
Connect the then with the now, connect the now with the next
Move bodies through space,  Make the world spin
Keep Time
Keep Rhythm

Spin, Twist, Tangle

Losing Rhythm, Loosening Time

What happens now, happens next?
Why don't we know?

Didn't we know once?
Didn't we know?

Scene 1

SLIDE 1 : Fates

SOUND 2: (Voice over 2): Legend has it that there are three fates, three sisters, who control human destiny. Clotho the spinner of life, Atropos the cutter, and Lachesis the one who measures the length, who apportions the material…..well, this was true thousands of years ago, now, with a decline in the belief of predetermination, and facing stiff competition from new technologies, the fates are in a fight to keep up, to stay relevant, to not be outsourced and downsized. Like many families they’ve become fractured, now two sisters search for their third…….

Scene: Desk and DJ booth. Atty is at the desk piled high with white paper, nothing appears to be written on the pages, nonetheless, they look used. On screen is image of the

WIDECAMERA 1:  Clotho enters with stack of CDs.

Clotho: (on headset plugged into cell phone) Have you checked your email.

Atty: Not yet.

Clotho: It’s begun again, and I haven’t even finished with this last batch.

(Atty grunts, makes notes under her pile of papers)

Clotho: Have you checked your Blackberry?

Atty: Not Yet.

Clotho: Your cell phone? Your Voice Mail? I sent you an IM? Your answering Machine?

Atty: Nope.

Clotho: you need to stop avoiding this, it only gets worse, your email will get clogged, its probably bouncing back my messages, and the Gods know what will happen next time she sends an attachment!

(Atty writes furiously)

Clotho: I am swamped! You have to help sister!!!

(Atty gets up from her desk and opens up a lap top. She starts deleting files.)

Atty: There.

VIDEO 1: Shows image montage of destruction, Volcano, Hurricane, Earthquake, Shipwreck.

Clotho (visibly calmer): now I can spin, now I can spin, now I can spin (sigh)….the beat rolls on, the rhythm

Atty (Taps her desk): I’ve got more here, I am still not sure if I am supposed to fax it to her, or send it via email. Oh where is she!!?

Clotho: she will contact us, she always does, ohhh, it feels good to just spin…

Atty: the more you spin, the more work that I have to do. Of course, if Lachesis would just contact us…

Clotho: have you seen those new phones? You can shoot a movie and send it as an mpeg, it also holds addresses

Atty: Are you trying to be wiggy? I mean, what am I supposed to do with that information?

Clotho: you could try one, you could use one, ohhh

Atty: can I have a minute to myself? I have so much to do

Clotho: oh, you can have a minute, an hour, you’ve taken a hundred years, its been known to happen, you know?

Atty: I am stuck, I like my Blackberry, but I keep getting junk. How can I find the new phone?

Clotho: I’ve ordered one for us, and for her, maybe she will come back for it. I think she is still stuck with a clipboard and a wax pencil. Why did she leave? It was probably you, your caustic ways, oh the Gods always were kissing your ass, and pissed at you behind you back, do you remember that King Ademntus? Oh, how Apollo negotiated with you!

Atty: yeah, and that snake Hercules went and meddled, going down to Hades

Clotho: Wait—I hear something.

SOUND 3

CAMERA CLOSE UP 2

Lachesis steps out into a spotlight with a microphone, a clipboard, wax pencil.

Tonight we have: a birth(436,238) a death (time 10 to the 23rd)  a marriage (lots), we have two plane crashes, a mudslide in Uganda, heat wave and drought, a flood or two, and lets see, there is a 2 for 1 on Flu like illnesses, so, lots of those, and a plague, a car crash, a boat sinking, typhoon, typhoid, terrorism, a temple collapse, a bar mitzvah, baptisms, (not really my areas, but…just a dabble), a baby born in a taxi, subway, park bench, hospitals (3,456), dirty hospitals (10,465), clinics, tropical jungle, on boats, on boards, on the floor, in the bathroom (that one was a death, though), I’ve got 800 people getting married at 9:07 pm EST, I’ve got 1,000 more the next hour (though I suspect some will cancel), and I am tired of this one, but one joker has a near death experience while driving his friends’ convertible while his neighbor is delivering a girl in the backseat, I will have to tape-flag that one. And then there are the embedded journalists, I

wont tell you their final tally, its too, you know…

CAMERA WIDE 3

Clotho: did you see that?

Atty: Yes.

Clotho: she looks different, thinner, maybe, or I don’t know?

GO PACKAGES

Atty: Are you paying attention to what is happening? Do you see what has just arrived?

(packages have suddenly appeared, piling up, being dumped on stage, full of paper and CDs, a big ticking clock)

SOUND 4 (TICK TICK)

Clotho: oh no! What's the clock for?

Atty: who is it from, Zeus, God, someone else, maybe a terrorist?

Clotho: they wouldn’t know our address, but it seems so ominous. What does it mean? Does it mean we have to get through all of this before it goes off? Or rings?

Atty: I don’t know, hand me that. We’d better get started, I’ll try to help---oh its getting so hard to know, is this long enough? Do I need to wait, or is it too long, I just don’t know

SOUND 5 (CRAZY MUSIC)

Clotho: you have it hard, look at me! (is trying to juggle and spin CDs, and sort papers)

(Atty goes over and tries to help, things get even more chaotic, paper start flying everywhere. Music crescendos, clashes, lights go out)

BLACKOUT 4

Atty: (in darkness) oh shit!

Scene 2

SLIDE 2 FOOL

The Fool appears onscreen

CAMERA WIDE 4

Fool: Clotho, Atty. Clo, Atty? Hey, get up! Hey, get up!

Clotho: What? What time is it? Is the clock still here?

Fool: sure I don’t know, I was just stopping by, I am on my way to a reading, but I’d  thought I’d check in a see how you were, you don’t get many visitors these days, its been like 100 years, or something

Clotho: I am fine, I am not sure about Atty, we had so much work (looks around) we still have so much work. I am not sure we can do it without her anymore.

Fool: I remember when you first came across the internet. You thought you would find her that way. Do you remember what happened

Clotho: it’s still happening!

(Atty sits up from under a pile of papers. Looks at the Fool and groans, lays back down again)

Fool: I wanted you both to know that from now on I will be monitoring your content.

Clotho: what?!

Fool: yes, consider this a disclaimer, or whatever, imagine you just fired up your computer and I pop up saying that I might, under super special secret circumstances, be monitoring your content, you know like your searches, reading your emails, etc.

Clotho: Fool, we are the Fates, what we do has never been secret, so what is the big deal?

Fool: look, we have to all be on the lookout right? I mean you never know who is up to no good, who is against the King, plotting a coup, cheating on their exams!

Clotho: we are mythological figure, you never existed, you’re only some imaginative heuristic for human life, you used to work for us!

Fool: look I am no fool, it’s a new world out there, with the proliferation of information there is a proliferation of investigation

Proliferation of investigation!! Proliferation of investigation! So you two, you have been warned, we can see what you see, know before you do if you might be up to no good.

Clotho: you have to tell us what you’re doing

Fool: no I don’t!!! That’s the best part, bye bye!!

Clotho: Wait, on  what authority? Why can you do this?

Fool: (shouts on screen): there’s a new force out there, a ghost in the machine, you don’t think Ashcroft just sprouted out of someone’s forehead do you?

Atty: (awake now) what were you doing talking to that fool?

Clotho: He said that we are under surveillance, nothing new, it reminds me of the old days, when the gods would just stand around on Olympus trying to peep us out, but now its on the internet. We don’t even know who, or when (or why??) (sound of Tick Tick SOUND 6 (TICK TICK)

Atty: Yeah, times have changed. Is that the clock?

Lachesis’ voice whispers: “robotic bomber planes, robotic surveillance cameras, robotic home helpers, these are things we can’t control”

Atty: (appears to not have heard) it doesn’t surprise me, but come on, we have to get moving, think of the suffering, we have to get moving.

Clotho: I used to think all of this was a good idea, oh, I have  voice mail, and someone is text messaging, it’s the Fool again, remember the old days! He says.

Atty: remember how excited we were with the invention of writing-

Clotho: -I like to think I had a hand in that-

Atty: we were able to arrange, categorize, make lists, Lachesis wrote poetry, then there was the printing press, which really didn’t help us, but we did embrace the internet. I think it was Fool who first brought it up to us. But then came the damn fax

Clotho: your order is all wrong, and what about wireless radio?

Atty: the point is, for awhile, we were finally in sync again, the first time in at least a thousand years, your palm pilot talking to mine, data transfers at high bit rates, one seamless movement, spin, weave, measure, cut, spin weave, measure, cut ahhh it was seamless….

Clotho:( beginning to spin her music) yes, spin, weave, measure, cut, spin weave measure, cut, ……we need to find her.

Scene 3

SLIDE 3 TOWER

(opens with a slide image of the Tower tarot card)

VIDEO 2

Video: PSA1: Have you lost your way? Are you concerned about the future If so, please call 1877-000-0000, the fates will be standing by to take your calls. (Laura & Chris’)

PSA2: Have you seen this woman? If you have, please call 1800-999-9999. you will be richly rewarded. (Keith & Amy’s)

CAMERA CLOSE UP 5

Lachesis: I stood before two great pillars.  A great presidential figure stood between them, hands braced against both pillars.  At first, I thought it was George Bush, but the light coming from behind him was nearly blinding.  He was George Bush, then JFK, then LBJ, then Clinton, then Reagan, and then George Bush again, but somehow younger.  The president trembled (or was it flickered?) between the two pillars, but I could see that he wasn’t holding them up, but that the two pillars supported him.  And then a great voice asked:  “Why has the World Trade Center in New York got two towers?”  I couldn’t answer it.  I was too busy watching the president flicker.  he almost seemed to shimmer.  The voice sounded again:  “The fact that there are two identical towers signifies the end of all competition, the end of every original reference.  Paradoxically, if there were only one, the WTC would not embody the monopoly, since we have seen that it becomes stable in dual form. 

CAMERA GO WIDE 6

The two superpowers are necessary in order to keep the universe in control:  a single empire would crumble by itself.”  Then I saw that underneath the executive and his pillars a great wheel turned. (Atty and Clotho rush into the room. Lachesis runs out, but her voice continues, somehow)  It shot fire up through the left-hand pillar, through the executive body, arcing back down through the right-hand pillar, and finally rejoined the wheel.  One mighty circuit.  I trembled with shock and awe.  For I knew then that I had seen what other could not, would not see.  All had been revealed to me.  I finally knew the secret of our power.

Atty: I have been thinking about calling in some old acquaintances to help.

Clotho: anything, I am losing my grip.

Atty: stay right there, I will see who is still around.

VIDEO 3

Video: Elizabeth video  (The superhero(ine) enters, running to center stage, and continues running in place the entire time she is addressing the audience.  She is carrying an Olympic torch.  She is dressed in, well, a superhero(ine) costume.  Occasionally she sputters and/or trips.)

Hi.  I think it’s, like, three more miles to the handoff, I’m not sure.  I’ve never done one of these kinds of relays before, so I guess I’ll just know what to do when I get there, wherever there is.  There were supposed to be instructions, I mean, in the welcome packet at the hotel.  But I couldn’t find the hotel, and so I never got the welcome packet.  I don’t even remember when I started running, but it’s starting to feel like weeks at this point.  And I knew I should have changed shoes, you really can’t run distance in boots.  But you gotta keep going, you know, you can’t give up.  Plus I really haven’t been running for that long.  I’m bound to get a second wind soon.  But look, let me give you my cell number in case you see someone who’s part of this relay, and then they can call me and we’ll meet along the way somewhere.  It’s easy to remember, you don’t even need to write it down, it’s just area code 000, and then the number is 000-0000.  Okay, thanks.  See you.  (She runs off camera)

CAMERA GO 7

Atty: Ok, so we got her on the case. I am sure it’s just going to be a matter of time

Clotho: do you?

Atty: yeah

(suddenly, both are at their respective spots, busily working, frantically trying to do what they need to do, it gets so hectic that its hard to believe they can actually move that fast)

SOUND 7 CRAZY MUSIC

Atty: (shouts)I’ll put another call in….oh wait, I have to CUT, I have to CUT!!

Live Video feed fires up

GO HIGH PREISTESS FEED

High Priestess: this just in:

A Volcano in the Southern Pacific is erupting. There are apparently dangerous waves associated with this eruption, and it is send geysers of hot ash thousands of feet into the air, a tower of ash that makes navigation difficult. Scientists worry that this could be the beginning of a series of seismic disturbances that could eventually affect California.

(To the sisters) hey, you guys okay?

(Clotho gives a thumbs up)

And on to other news. The most recent on the FBI’s most watched websites now includes a rise in the number of terrorism related hits. A division of Homeland security known as the Cyberterroroversight network had reported an increase in suspicious activity at sites that relate to National defense prompting Congress to vote for more spending and the president to travel to his ranch to talk with his Cows.

CAMERA WIDE GO 8

SLIDE 4 High Priestess

(pauses)

And on to other news, in an apparently unrelated development, there has been a reported rise in mad cow disease in our country. Which makes us the nation with third highest number of Mad Cows.

Hey what the hell is going on? Cant you guys cut this out (oh, sorry!) But I mean, you’ve got to slow the hell down!

Atty: look, we’d like to, but we’re out of balance. Maybe you can help us---we need our sister.

Priestess: it looks like you have an incoming message.

Atty: can you get that for us?

VIDEO 2.2

The superhero(ine) runs from offstage to center stage, and continues running in place the entire time she is addressing the audience.

Does anybody have anything to eat?  I sure could go for a slice of pizza or a falafel

sandwich or something.  I haven’t seen a Gatorade station, really, at all.  I thought there would be volunteer trucks every so often with friendly faces handing out free stuff, but so far it’s just been me, and I’m really getting hungry and thirsty.  The thing is, this torch only goes for so long, so I can’t really stop, and believe me, I was tempted when I saw that “hamburger stand 5 miles to your right” sign.  I could really use anything, at this point, just a nibble would satiate me for a little bit longer.  (she runs for a few seconds, pulls a handkerchief out of her pocket, wipes it across her forehead and squeezes it into her mouth).  Ahhhhh.  (She runs off camera)

CAMERA WIDE GO 9

Priestess: doesn’t seem like she is much help.

Fool: Ohhhh, so you’re here now! I wasn’t informed

Clotho: I thought you were down in the east Village, doing a reading, or something.

Fool: the Tower kept bumping me out, besides, it was just for a couple in from the Midwest…what are YOU doing here?

Priestess: I am trying to help. I usually try to help, and right now Clotho and Atty have too much on their plate, they need help, they need their sister.

Fool: hahaha (dances)

Atty: Clotho, be careful, do you realize what you’ve got, what our sister has sent us, oh dear, its, no its another war, or at least its war, I am so weary, I want to lay my head down

Fool: War is the principle motivational force for the development of science at every level. Humans place a high value on a “pure” science, but war has always provided a basic incentive.

Priestess: Fool, we know that.

Fool: Prosaic examples include the transistor radio (outgrowth of military communications), the assembly line (Civil War firearms needs), the steel-frame building (from the steel battleship). You will remember the modest lawnmower, it developed from a revolving scythe devised by Leonardo da Vinci that preceded armies into battle.

Priestess: I bet a lot of Gods were happy when you snapped his line, Atty

SOUND 8 CRAZY MUSIC

Atty: well...look, Fool, we don’t have time for your paranoia, or war talk, we’ve got our tables full…

(argument ensues, music rises, clashes until Lachesis appears and exerts control over it when she begins to speak)

CAMERA CLOSE UP 10

Lachesis (creeps onstage with microphone): The dream, the dream, the miracle of dream. It is beyond your wildest dreams. Step right up, folks, today is the first day of it all.

We sit here, beside the mire of sunken soot and bested fires, this is the house of the world, spinning world house funk-a-tronic psycho-soul, shock-a-billy turn table guns blasting. Mastering, beats and pounding sounds of Auto-matic music.

Shot after shot, and feel the beat the music, the flow, the vibe, the desire of feeling higher, going farther, and louder, bigger better, don’t THINK—just rock and flow, wave and curl, don’t shift, just groove, grooving, grooving still until until until until—you’re still, it’s still and kill or be killed…(looks nervous at these last lines, the words appear to hang in the air after she exists. Lights down)

VIDEO 2.3

Video: Elizabeth 3 3.    The superhero(ine) runs from offstage to center stage, and continues running in place the entire time she is addressing the audience.

I think I just saw a body.  I’m not sure, it looked like the body of a medium sized, medium aged, medium intelligence person just kind of lying about one hundred feet from the road.  I didn’t want to stop, because, you know (she gestures to the torch), but I was worried.  It’s pretty hot out here, and I’m not even sure how I’m still going, but maybe that was the handoff person, I mean, the next person in the relay?  The body?  So now I’m thinking maybe I should go back?  I don’t know what to do.  (She runs for a few seconds, staring at the audience)  Well, you don’t seem too concerned.  Have you seen anyone else?  I mean, someone pass, who looked like they were looking for a torch?  I don’t know you all that well, but it kind of sucks that that you’re just sitting there, passively.  You’re with me on this one, right?  Shit, am I on the wrong course?  (She slows and stares at them)  I’m going to get to the bottom of this.  (She runs offstage) 

Scene 4

(Priestess is there, humming soothing sounds, no music in this scene until the end)

(Atty and Clotho are buried again, in paper. All we can see are feet sticking out from under the paper.)

CAMERA CLOSE UP 11

Clotho: Something is wrong, I can feel it, in my hands, there is a burning, a heat

(Atty moans, we hear the snip snip of scissors)

Clotho: Lachesis, why won’t you answer us? Why won’t you come? What have we done to lose you, what have we done? Sister we are coming apart.

Atty: Sister, we are singing out of tune.

Clotho: Why has our work unraveled so? Where did we step wrongly? Did it happen when we stopped listening to the Father of Skies?

Atty:  Lies.  Father of Lies, wasn't it?

Clotho:  He didn't always lie, just when we needed it.  He'd tell you some truth too.  Mostly when it didn't matter.

Atty: [to Lachesis] Sister, are you troubled by our dropping?

Clotho:  Dwindling?

Clotho:  She does not feel it.  She observes and measures, gobbles and grows.  She does not mind.  Will not mind us.  Not mind. No mind.

Atty:  All mind.  Minds us like a Shepherd.

Clotho  [Aside] She is the only one whose power grows. Is it her?  Does she nibble on us when our backs are turned?  She is a thief and a liar. [To Atty] We cannot stay.  We will crumble.

Atty:  Where would we go?  We've never been anywhere else.  Sister, we might choke on strange air.

[Lachesis/video shows  Clotho and Atty in the dark wilderness, stained and scratched,
stumbling and crying.  Then she shows them staring raptly at her screens in the studio, content and slack-jawed.]

Clotho:   You'd like that!  Us forever here shriveling in your flickering tomb.

Atty:  Womb.  Flickering womb, wasn't it?

Clotho:  (weird video) Stop this!  Speak to us as you used to!  I drown in this.

Clotho:  Whore!

Atty:  [Lachesis] Sister, no.  Please.  Take pity.  You wax.  We wane.  We are afraid and lonely for your company.  Our sister needs our comfort.

Clotho:  (calmer) Yes, we must choose.  Will we stay or will we go?

(A phone rings, both sisters pop up from under the papers, scramble for the phone, don’t find it in time, lights down)

SOUND 9 (the Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I go” comes up, stays through the video of next scene)

Scene 5

Video: (footage of the blacked-out NYC if we can find it)

(Movement in this scene will eventually suggest that Lachesis might be controlled, like a string puppet, by the Shaman. Shaman is on Video. Music could be combinations of different sci-fi movie scores, building in the ominous vibe)

CAMERA WIDE 12

JASON VIDEO

Lachesis/Shaman: Who am I?

Shaman: The Shaman.  An ion.  A circuit traveler – Some people join the circus, I joined the circuits.  I am the Hereness and Nowness of my-- your lives. I plunged to the bottom of mystical waters and rose.  I journeyed to the Dark alone so that you may have light and heat. I have sacrificed so that you may feel the electricity of energy and life pulsing through your veins.  The four elements.  Electricity. Micro. Power. Flow. I am the shaman of the energy that connects us all.  The light that binds. 

Lachesis:(to the audience, spoken in a whisper, trying not to be squeezed out by the video): I was once like you.  Now I’m you.  Who are we?  You and I?  I am we – me – me – me

It goes – “There is no I or me without us or we.”  And that makes sense.  I tell you.  Why?  I tell you.

 I am you and you are me – You see?

You can’t have I without we, me without us.  Well, you can’t have me anyway, because I am me.  You can’t touch me.   I am you, but you are not me.  Because it hit me like a light bulb. If me is we, then I want you.  The we – I want it.  I want you all for myself. And my greed frees you and allows you to be you yourself, alone.

Shaman: You can’t be a Shaman without a journey. (Motions and gestures as though going to take the audience on a journey.  Stops.)  But, I’m not going to take you there, because there is only Hereness and Nowness and Doneness.  That is my gift to you.  Just keep in mind. . .it is MY gift. 

Lachesis: Stop!! (Video pauses mid sentence)

When asked to choose the destination of my journey, I was shown all of the universe’s possibilities, in the pistil of a desert bloom – welcoming me – but I could only choose one – And this was the hardest part of the journey – there were so many to choose from, and all for my taking, but I could never take, until I sacrificed all but one.  ( a struggle is lost and the video starts up again)

Shaman:  When asked to choose the destination of my journey, I was shown all of the universe’s possibilities, in the pistil of a desert bloom – welcoming me – but I could only choose one – And this was the hardest part of the journey – there were so many to choose from, and all for my taking, but I could never take, until I sacrificed all but one.  My biggest sacrifice was giving up these things that weren’t even mine. That I never even knew I wanted, never knew existed.  I could only choose One.  One as a test to see if I was worthy to behold and then consume the rest of the universe, and if I made it through, and really saw into My soul, my console, my-self, then I could be everywhere all at once.  “What?  What! Crap.” Begins

Video, An advertisement. 

Shaman:  I cut you off. Lightness connects everything, but no one can grasp its ephemerality and illusion. Wind, air, earth, fire are light’s enemies.  They are separate and cannot exist simultaneously in the same matter, but are also dependent upon one another to exist separately.  This is so obviously, deeply flawed and its limited resources are tragically outdated.  Light-ness is flawed.  But Light is real.  The choice was clear.  Make the illusion visceral.  Electricity. Micro. Power. Flow.  A light you can feel, taste, touch, hear.  A light that is real here and now.  Done.  Without waiting through nature’s night.  A connection that comes to you and takes you, not one you have to seek out and take.  There’s no guilt in taking away from something not natural. 

Shaman and Lachesis speak together:More than the notion of you can’t have good without evil or light without dark, it is light all the time.  The positive ions of light.  So you can see, so there is no more blindness.  Connected to everything all at once, not the idea of connection but connection itself.  I journey so you don’t have to.  I choose so you don’t.  I travel the circuits.  Electrical microchips, wires, copper oasis of hot cables and glowing micro-screws.  Connected to everything at once. I hum. And am charged.  I hum the battle cry “Charge!”  

I am One.  All the choices wrapped up in One, so all you have to do is choose me, and you’ve chosen it all.  I am journey everywhere at once so you are always home. I am filter of noise so you can make all the noise you want and still have religious silence. I am multi-cultural intoxication so you are no longer excluded.  I am history of your selection.  Knowledge of the anthology of your compilation.  Insurrection of inanimation and resurrection of projection. (Lights go out, sound goes off.)

BLACKOUT 13

Scene 6

SOUND 10 Dirge Music

CAMERA WIDE 13

Fool: We lost another one boys.

Here all have a duty to observe the ongoing activities of terrorists in our country’s electronic and information networks. There are a number of different threats that can be carried out. The first is an assault on an information system from the outside. This is perpetrated by an individual, or, a hacker. The second type of assault is an actual attack on an IT center by armed assailants with the purpose of holding hostage or destroying the information network. The next sort of attack is where an operative, cunningly insinuates themselves as an employee or is given access under false pretenses to the IT system. Either type of attack represents threats to our superimportant information transmission network. We all must stay vigilant.

(the High Priestess Appears): This is the High Priestess, embedded with a unit of our nations special forces in an undisclosed location, reporting live. I cannot tell you the nature of this mission, but I can tell you its been dangerous work indeed. For days these troops have been camped out in the vicinity and tracking the movements of the enemy. There now appears to be three targets sealed inside a second location, cut off from the outside world. This has been an important part of the preoperational phase of this event, the isolation and destruction of  the information network this terrorist ring has been operating for so long. Right now, I am told, commandos are moving in stealthily. This began, as you will recall from a series of tips from cyber citizens, emboldened by Ashcroft to exercise their first and third amendments, and has become a crucial step in an investigation into these ring leaders that has been going on for thousands of years…..wait, there appears to be some activity….

Fool: Ohhh. We lost our live feed, well, maybe we’ll get it back soon, in the meantime, why don’t we play a clip from an interview….

VIDEO 3

Video: Over shoulder  of Jason D., who is looking out of a window.

What the . . . ?  No way.  I just don’t believe it. 

Is it here?  Is it happening, now, really, now?  No, it can’t be? 

There’s always been talk about it.  We all know that it could happen, that it is possible.  But we’ve always thought that it was only a possibility. 

I never thought the day would actually come, but here it is, right now, in this time and place and at this moment of my life. 

Yes, it is happening.  Perhaps I should have listened to the reports, paid attention to the talks and hints.  Maybe I should have actually believed, wait, no, actually knew that it would happen.  Maybe I should have been less passive.  Maybe I should have been more active; more active in my community, my neighborhood, my own life.  Perhaps I could have done something.  And I guess I have done something, right?  We all do some things, and I guess that’s all we can ever do.

Standing here, watching this go on, I have to say:  I feel alone.  I’m scared to go out there and help.  Everyone is flocking to the streets, trying to help.  Meanwhile I stand up here, two stories removed from the streets.

[In frustration, I close the window, with a loud smack, and begin to pace and talk to myself, trying to work out the internal conflict.]

What’s my problem?!?  Just go out there, it’s one flight of stairs away.  They need your help.  They are people.  They are your brothers and sisters.  They are human beings, just like you!

I just don’t know what to do.  How am I supposed to act in a situation like this?  By what narrative do I live?  By what paradigm to I base my actions?      

Scene 7

Same pose for fates as in scene 6.

CAMERA WIDE 14

Clotho: Can a Fate die?

Atty: No, I don’t think so, I am not sure…

Clotho: Maybe she will come back? Maybe she will be fine, like normal, as usual…

Atty: We will be forever unbalanced,…

SLIDE 5 FATES

Fates pick up their sister, hold her upright, she appears to be sleeping or maybe dead, but they end up in the pose that flashed on the screen before the show and now, after the sisters hold the pose flashes again at THE END.