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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