Posted by
LadyLiberty on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 10:12:11 PM
Episode 40: Sealed, the Living Cisterns
Holy Ghost: For a small moment have I forsaken thee: but with great mercies will I gather thee.
John: Wrap her in a blanket...
Holy Ghost: The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
John: Where'd Raina go?
Mary: I don't know. I looked up to ask her to bring some hot tea, but she was gone.
John: I'll call Timeus. Maybe Sharmayne can stay with Olam and Freiah tonight.
(Lightning crack, thunder bolt. Pilgrims gasping, covering their ears.)
Curtis: Whoa! What was that?
Tom: No need to call Timeus. (pointing to the northern edge of the pond) He's right there.
(Timeus, standing on the north bank, Lily on the south, Olam, the east, Lady Liberty, the west.)
Curtis: How long have they been there?
(A sudden lightning cracks, staccato-like, the sky lights up and a whirlwind blows. Pilgrims scream as a volcanic fountain of water bursts the ice. Fish fly.)
Olam:
Waters breaking out of the wilderness four-square!
Distant Apparition: Peace, damn heat!!
Holy Ghost: (to the apparition) Make haste...weakener of nations...For lo, the winter is past...
Olam: (to the melting apparition) Would that you had prayed not for peace, but for heat, you and your well taught oppressor children and their women rulers over you. Did you think I would confuse you with the meek--the chosen--who, like you, sinned, but unlike you acknowleged those sins to Hashem in the Promised Land?
Weakened one who weakens others.
Lady Liberty: Minister of emptied souls, preaching your poll tax with its baby talk for soul-fixing...
Lily: ...and its new and improved super glue...
Pilgrims: (burst of mocking laughter)
Apparition: Hssssssssssssssssssss...
Lady Liberty: Your broken cisterns set as a mystery glue to fix the living waters and stop the holy seed.
Lily: Your ballyhooing Waterloo by way of Malta. Some seige.
Pilgrims: Wu! Wu! (laughing)
Timeus: Futile futurist, you hitchhiking highwayman in time's rearview mirror.
Lady Liberty: Broken cistern, so a cistern breaker for your emptied souls, snared in their own holes, hid in prison houses of their own making. You, their contractor.
Apparition: Hssssssssssssssssssss...
Curtis: Shall one take up a snare from the earth and have taken nothing at all? Snare of the devil takes up not a bird to renew strength, but an empty soul. Self-righteous swallower of air. On the road to nowhere Man.
Holy Ghost: Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil.
(Apparition melts into the frozen forest floor for a season.)
Holy Ghost: (to Sharmayne) Rise up, my love...
Timeus: Arise!
Lily: Shine!
Sharmayne: Wha?? (Eyes blinking)
Holy Ghost: ...They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength...
Olam: Renew!
Holy Ghost:
I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counselors as at the beginning...He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also...
Lady Liberty: Restore!
Sharmayne: Wha happen? Where am I?
Curtis: Well, you ain't in the Church of What's Happenin' Now, honey.
(On yonder ridge top, a shadow inches forward silently, stealthily under the full moon)
Hold my bow, and ride my arrow, Maker. Sweep your wings. Grant me this blessing. May your Spirit continue to live in me and in these pilgrims who were once strangers to me--as theirs were strangers to my people.
Neither death nor the devil of a bad spirit fooled me then, or weakens me now. See me, Creator. No sorrow past can steal my present faith. I am thanking you with my life, well loved, in gratitude for their sacrifice and yours.
(Suddenly a light streaks past the whiz buzz of the sound barrier, striking its drop tine target of 16 points--penetrating cleanly, mercifully, broadside in the vitals, to its last fall.)