Still Valley At 20,000 Feet - Mike Burns (good ebook reader .TXT) 📗

shot by somebody else. That prisoner on the second floor, the one in cell fifteen-B. He escaped and set the fire that killed our UNdistinguished guests, and also shot me. What’s his name?

FRAZIER
That would be Mister Booth, sir. John W. Booth.

PARADINE
Very good, Private. Send a courier over to Dr. Mudd’s place and fetch him. I’m in need of some attention here. Then write your report about Mr. Booth’s rampage.

FRAZIER
Yessir. Take it easy, sir, and I’ll get Dr. Mudd over here, lickedy-split. Boy!

One of the black slaves pops out of the kitchen into the courtyard.

FRAZIER
Fetch Dr. Mudd, NOW!

Gasping at the carnage around him, and the noisome smell of grilled human flesh permeating the courtyard, the slave beats a grateful retreat.

As Paradine strides angrily back toward the table, brooding over the loss of Monumentum De Omnis Magicum Artium, a sudden deep, profound pain strikes him, unconnected to any of the wounds he has suffered. He reaches inside his robe, and pulls forth the pocket Bible from his shirt pocket, the one that intercepted the piece of shrapnel in Still Valley, months before. Now it feels like a red-hot poker, branding him on the chest. In fact, uncovering the flesh beneath, he sees that he has indeed been burned by it.

Looking at it disdainfully, Paradine impusively tosses it up in the air.

FOCUS ON THE BATTERED BIBLE TUMBLING THROUGH THE AIR IN SLOW MOTION. AS IT SPINS END-OVER-END, BOTH ITS COVERS LIFT UP LIKE WINGS, SEEN FROM BEHIND AND FROM SLIGHTLY BELOW.
(CUT TO)

FOCUS ON MODERN JETLINER, SEEN FROM BEHIND AND AT THE SAME SLIGHTLY LOW ANGLE, ITS WINGS IN SAME ATTITUDE AS THE BIBLE'S FRONT AND BACK COVERS WERE IN PREVIOUS SHOT.

(FADE OUT)


END OF ACT II


ACT III

(FADE IN)

FOCUS ON JET AIRLINER FROM PREVIOUS SCENE

(CUT TO)

EXT. CONTEMPORARY CITY STREET IN DALLAS, TX, WITHIN AUDIBLE RANGE OF AIRPORT SOUNDS MORNING

Bob Wilson, salesman, pointing upward at the plane we have just seen, as he walks with his wife from the curb into a hotel room, coming off a contemporary suburban city street.

BOB
...and that’ s a perfect example of what I’m talking about, Julia. That plane represents a monumental change, one that changed the face of human existence. Where would we be if Orville and Wilbur Wright had listened to all the naysayers who said “Man will never fly”?

As he unlocks the hotel room door, he changes subject slightly.

BOB
And I’m fixing to give the world another stiff shot of change. The temperature and light sensors on this lawn seeder and fertilizer are going to change things on a far more basic level: the family lawn. And everybody will end up wanting these things for their lawns. Even people who have NO lawn--people with dead dirt in their yards--will wanna try this thing out, and they’re liable to be in for a surprise. They’ll find they now have a lawn, and they didn’t have to lift a finger to make it. The Baltex Autocultivator will do that for thousands!

A short pause.

BOB
And tomorrow, I unveil it for the world. Richmond will see it first. Richmond is where it’ll all start! Change is in the air, Julia! I can smell it! I can smell a shower of accolades, too! (Bob is grinning slyly now)

JULIA(teasingly) Bob, are you sure the world is ready for something like that? A lot of people get a lot of ego mileage out of the amount of labor they pour into their lawn. You’re taking that away from them, it looks to me.

BOB
Honey, people want change at a very visceral level. It’s the essence of human happiness--as long as you don’t try to fight it.

JULIA (tiring of this often-heard spiel)
Okay, Bob. I’ll be in the bathroom.

BOB: (ignoring her last words)
...and I’m going to make sure fewer people fight it. I’m gonna place at least a hundred advance orders. That’s my goal!
(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


JULIA (from within bathroom)
Bob, I’m going to take a quick shower.

She opens door a crack, leans out, and picks up a towel from the wall rack and withdraws back into the bathroom.

BOB
By the way, honey, why don’t you try airdrying sometimes? Constantly using towels is actually bad for your skin, they’ve shown.

JULIA (muffled, from within bathroom)
Whatever, Bob.

FADE OUT briefly, then back in to the same scene a short time later, we see Bob and Julia in nightwear, settling into bed, Bob still pontificating about the inevitability of change.

BOB
However many thousands of years people used scythes, things eventually DID change, Julia. First, the one-hand sickle. Then mule-and-harness-pulled cutters. Eventually mechanical lawnmowers. Then electric mowers. Then gas-drive mowers. And from each advance to the next, a shorter and shorter time interval. Shorter and shorter lead times.

JULIA
And what do you think will happen when your mower or cultivator, the brand-new, top of the line model that just came out, is already obsolete while you’re still in the line at the store to pay for it? Eventually, the market’s not gonna be able to keep up with the pace of change. That’ll put the brakes on it, if nothing else.

BOB
Nonsense! At that point, they’ll come up with drugs to speed up the human nervous system, our perception and reaction