Posted by
LadyLiberty on Wednesday, May 07, 2008 11:29:26 AM
Episode 39: The Fish To Bait Man
Everything seems new to those too young to remember the old and too ignorant of history to have heard about it.
(The waning dusk of the sixth hunting shift)
Benjamin: He didn't jump the bow, but he sure leapt out of further buckshot.
Timeus: Past time to bag some game. Let's track him. He can't go far, and there's a full moon rising.
(On Barrett Pond. John, Curtis and Tom in one of the Fish Trap Voyagers.)
Tom: You're not gonna scare up any Brown Trout in deeper waters. This is not the season for it. Just stay put, or the paltry stock we have will scatter.
Curtis: Well, let's hope that buckshot hit home then. Another night of carrot soup and the skin turns orange. One more grievance group for the color coders.
Tom: You'll survive our last day in the wilderness, softie.
(buckshot reverb)
Curtis: What was that?
Tom: Hopefully our dinner.
Curtis: Nah, sounded like a rooster crowing.
John: Now you're hearing things. Buckshot reverb.
Curtis: No. For real. Listen up...
Apparition: America's CHICKens come home to ROOST! Lemme hear you say, "Amen!"
Raina, Mary, Sharmayne: (In the adjacent Fish Trap Voyager) Amen!!
Curtis: Whuditellya? The chicks in the amen corner heard him.
John: Your rooster's chasing his tail to a jihad shift.
Curtis: Or clucking to his New Age choir.
Apparition: Lemme hear ya syncopatin'...
Sharmayne: Same rhythm of my grandmother's church, but those folks spoke in good ol' timey tongue.
Tom: Didn't take this political fork for trash talkin' His house. That ol' rooster has all the appearance of rhythm, but he has stuck himself in one deep groove.
Apparition: Gummint lies!
Raina and Mary: Gummint lies??
Sharmayne: But we, the people, are the government--Constitutionally bound.
Curtis: Yeah. So who you callin' a liar? You better look homeward. The ground's about to meet ya square up.
Tom: That's a shape shifter, that is. Look at him. Looks more like a shark now.
Curtis: Shake-down shark. Swimming in mighty shallow waters.
Sharmayne: Are we in church now?
Tom: She's gettin' delirious with the lack of food...
Sharmayne: It doesn't sound like my Father's house.
Curtis: Look! A second Spirit. Straight up!
Apparition: No! No! No!
Tom: Blaspheming the Holy Ghost! Get thee gone, apparition!
(Shape-shifting apparition disappears. The rooster now crows.)
Apparition: (Wailing from a distance) Lemme hear you say, "End of the church age!"
Fish-trapped Pilgrims: (in unison) Gasp!!!
Tom: (to the second Spirit) ...we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?
Curtis: (To the apparition) Deceiver! Usurping the Spirit!
Tom: Who are you talking to? Watch your words!
Curtis: YOU watch YOURS!
Holy Ghost: I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Sharmayne: By the Spirit of love, Father?
Holy Ghost: He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also;
Tom: Don't bring your one-trick politics into these many mansions, usurper! Don't go lookin' for good religion by way of bad politics.
Curtis: Who you talkin' to? (Addressing the apparition) We're not your suckers on the line, house-of-card shark!
Holy Ghost: If ye love me, keep my commandments.
Tom: Not the dictates of pride. Get behind me!
Sharmayne: We had a moment...did we miss it, Father?
Holy Ghost: ...I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
Sharmayne: (kneeling, head bowed on the frozen ice) My true Lord from whom cometh self-governing--that I should be right with You and this world? My Comforter, my conscience...even in this fog of deception...that I should know You...to know the Way...
(Sharmayne collapses)
Fish-trapped Pilgrims: Sharmayne! Sharmayne!
Holy Ghost: ... even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
Fish-trapped Pilgrims: Sharmayne! Don't give up the Ghost!