Storming the Pearly Gates
Chapter 6: Stick in the Mud
From: johnsd2@jec316.its.rpi.edu (Dan Johnson)
Subject: Storming the Pearly Gates, Ch 6
Date: 7 Mar 1994 01:24:50 GMT
Here is the long (at least 12 hours!) awaited Chapter 6.
I do hope it's all obvious enough. I'm afraid it may
be a bit labored. Ah well, I'll do a better job with
the next Chapter.
Chapter 6: Stick in the Mud
[Fade to a swamp, looking very.. swampy. What else? Camera pans up to
look at the sky. We see a speck.]
Speck: [faintly] "....aaaaaaaa!"
[Hmmm.. camera zooms up after it]
Speck: "aaaaaAAAAAAAAA!" [getting louder and closer]
[The speck drops past us -- it's Scott Sauyet, learning the
True Nature of the Force of Gravity, the hard way.]
Sauyet: "AAAAAAAAaaaaaaa....!" [drops away from us]
[Definitely a scoop. Let us zoom down after him.]
<SPLOOOSH!>
[We stop to avoid getting splashed. Seems like Sauyet has made
contact. He swims to shore and drags himself out.]
Sauyet: "Wow! I guess that seraphim was right. That first
step IS a doosy. I must do him a kindness some day."
[Sauyet sits down, produces a blow-dryer, and begins drying
his clothes]
Sauyet: "You know, there's something very odd about this place..
I get the feeling..."
Figure in a Tree: [Faux-Grover voice]
"Yes? Feeling?"
Sauyet: [spin around to face the Figure]
"Like I'm being WATCHED! What are you doing here?
How do you find me so fast? How do you managed to grow
enough food to eat in this sludge?"
[The figure, a skinny, muddy, part-cherokee man in a dark
blue robe, covers his face with his arms]
Figure: "Away put your logic! I mean you no harm!"
[A pause, looks out past his arms] "I am wondering..
why are you here?"
Sauyet: [looks at Figure suspiciously]
"I'm looking for someone."
Figure: "Found someone you have, eh?"
Sauyet: [tolerantly grinning]
"Yes.. I suppose so. I was kind of looking
for for the Holy Ghost, though.."
Figure: "I know him! Yes! Take you to him, I will!"
Sauyet: "Oh? How did you managed to befriend the All Powerful,
Ever Present, All Knowing, etc, Holy Ghost?"
Figure: "AWAY put your logic, said I! Get hurt, someone might!"
Sauyet: "Sure..."
Figure: "All fun and games is it, until looses an eye someone does! Yes!"
Sauyet: "Oh, very well. But what is your name, anyway? I can't
just call you 'Figure'?"
Figure: "Stowell, call me!"
Sauyet: "And can you please talk normally."
[But Stowell ignores this and leaps out of the tree. Then He and
Sauyet trudge deeper into the swamp.]
[Fade out, and fade in to the Main Force, approaching a large stone
wall across the road. It's rough masonry, but at least 300 feet
tall, and at least 10 feet across, and perhaps 20 feet deep]
Dan Johnson:
"Damn! Just what we needed, a wall."
Arturo Magidin: "No problem! Let's climb!"
Ray Ingles: "I have it! Let's go.. AROUND!"
Dan Johnson: "Good thinking!" [and all begin to troop
around the barrier.. except Magidin]
Magidin: "Hmph. Dan.. you know what I always say. If there's a
complicated, long and difficult way of doing it, why do it the
easy way?"
Dan Johnson: "Ummm.. perhaps because we don't want to spend three
hours here?"
Magidin: "Time well spent, though!"
[Magidin starts scaling the wall]
Dan Johnson: "This must be some strange new use of the
word 'well' that I was unaware of."
Magidin: [pausing] "Now, Dan, no using other people's
copyrighted lines!"
Dan Johnson: "I think that one is the least of our problems."
Magidin: "Whatever you say." [resumes climbing]
[And as the Main Force yells and rants below about wasting
time, Magidin scales higher and higher..
[Fade back in to a plastic tent, deep in the swamp. We zoom
in a bit, then cut to the interior. Stowell and Sauyet. Stowell
is rummaging around for something.]
Sauyet: "I don't see why we can't go find the Holy Ghost now!"
[Stowell stops rummaging, turns and offers a granola bar to
Sauyet]
Stowell:
"Patience! For the Ghost it is time to eat as well!"
[Sauyet sulkily tries to eat the tough granola bar, with
little success]
Stowell:
"Anyway, something there is you must learn, before the Holy Ghost
you find."
Sauyet: "Huh? Whazzat?"
Stowell: "Stand a chance you will not! Learn the ways of The
Script you must!"
Sauyet: "Actually, I just couldn't parse your grammar. But
do go on about this 'Script'.."
Stowell: [produces a small pile of paper]
"Yes! All things follow the script! You, me, the rock,
the tree, everything!"
Sauyet: "Hey, believe what you want. There's no all powerful
force controlling MY destiny! It's all a lot of simple
tricks and nonsense."
Stowell: "No! No! In character you must stay!
No more Han Solo stuff! Written out you must not be!
The 42nd to last chance are you!"
Sauyet: "How do you know that?"
Stowell: [brandishes paper]
"Through the script, things you will see. Old jokes,
long gone. Stuff like that."
Sauyet: "Don't you mean: 'that, stuff like'!"
Stowell: "Good! Yes! Taken into a larger world
your first step have you!"
Sauyet: "I have a feeling this isn't going to be any fun."
Stowell: "<snort> Fun. <hrumph> Feeling. A comic craves not
these things!"
Sauyet: [rolls eyes]
"So, what lies ahead for me, eh, oh one so wise
in the script."
Stowell: "Difficult to say. Always being rewritten is
the future. Past too, these days. Damn annoying."
Sauyet: "Enough! Lemme see that." [grabs the script]
[Sauyet reads for several minutes, then..]
Sauyet: "It would plan such a thing? It would do such a thing?
Incredible!"
[Stowell smiles]
Sauyet: "But, wait, if this controls everything.. THIS is the
Holy Ghost! This must be it! I've figured it out! Hah!"
Stowell: "Unexpected this is... and unfortunate."
Sauyet: "Unfortunate that I know the truth?"
Stowell: "NO! Unfortunate that you rushed to understand.. that
incomplete was your training.. that unready for the burden
were you!"
Sauyet: "I have to get this back to the main force -- this
is hot stuff! They don't know what happened in the forest,
and what's going on with the metropolitan angels... they'll
be crushed!"
Stowell: "If you go now, help them you could.. but you would
destroy all for which they have fought and suffered."
Sauyet: "Toodles!"
Stowell: "You must not go!"
[But Sauyet is gone already..]
[Fade out]
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