Tad Williams - A Stark And Wormy Knight

BRENT/TOPHER has now arrived weeping at TOPHER’s/BRENT’s feet.

BRENT

I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!

TOPHER

Sometimes it’s too late for “sorry”. Twenty five years… Yeah, I’d say it was too late.

ERIC struggles to his feet.

ERIC (to TOPHER)

Brent…? It’s you?

TOPHER

He took my body just like a thief. Tried to make it his own, like repainting a stolen car. But it’s over now, Holland, isn’t it…?

TOPHER/BRENT pulls BRENT/TOPHER up off the ground and into his arms. The smoke is rising in earnest now, the first flames beginning to flicker from TOPHER/BRENT’s skin. BRENT/TOPHER is screeching and fighting, in pain, but can’t escape.

JANICE

Don’t! Oh, God, don’t…!

ERIC

Brent, we’ll help you…!

TOPHER/BRENT shakes his pale head. As the Roxy Music song comes up louder, he leans close to BRENT/TOPHER, close as a lover, and stares into his eyes. BRENT/TOPHER struggles even harder, like an animal in a trap, but it’s no use.

TOPHER/BRENT (to ERIC)

No, there’s no help now — only loose ends. Only circles being closed. Sometimes the future can’t begin… until you kill your past…

Fire and smoke are leaking out of TOPHER/BRENT’s mouth as he turns back to BRENT/TOPHER. TOPHER

And now I want back all the things you took. The things that would have been mine…

The smoke and light is leaking from BRENT’s mouth, nose and eyes now, being INHALED by TOPHER.

TOPHER (cont.)

A life… you got to live a life… but it should have been mine… BRENT (shrieking in terror)

No… no…!

TOPHER

We got married, didn’t we… and we even had a child! Ah, she’s beautiful…

BRENT

No! Not them! Tracy, Joanie! Give it back!

TOPHER (gently)

No, it’s you who have to give it back now, Topher. Everything you stole. But don’t worry — it’s only for a moment…

BRENT is fighting, struggling, but his life and memories are leaking out of him, being devoured by TOPHER — the real BRENT. The music comes up — Roxy Music, swelling…

TOPHER

So many things, that should have been mine. My memories, my future. Stolen. All you left me was the past. All you left me was that night.

(a beat)

Remember this song, Topher? It used to be one of your favorites… (sings, almost a whisper)

“Inflatable dolly — dee-luxe and dee-lightful. I blew up your body… but you blew my mind!”

As the guitar solo wails in, the flames suddenly become an INFERNO — a wall of fire. We see the two figures writhing within it, hear BRENT/TOPHER’s shrieks grow more and more SHRILL, then descend into bubbling GASPS as the figures in the flames slowly MELT TOGETHER…

A moment later, there is NOTHING: TOPHER and BRENT and the painted EYE on the wall are gone. The music is gone. ERIC and JANICE are huddled together in the deserted empty bedroom, with dawn light filtering through the cracked windowpane.

Silently, and as carefully as if they’ve both been badly bruised, they walk down the stairs, which look quite normal now. They make their way across the bare living room and out onto the front porch, where they stand for a moment, looking out across the empty dirt lot in the early morning lot, to the trees and town beyond.

JANICE

What happens now?

ERIC

The future.

JANICE

Brent… Topher… whoever he was. He has a wife, a daughter. What are we going to tell them?

ERIC (shrugs)

The truth? Or some part of it? (a beat)

Maybe not.

Without looking, they reach out and find each other’s hands, then walk down the porch steps and out into the field that once was an orchard. We pull back, watching two small figures walk slowly, holding hands, across the empty field. Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” comes up, sweet and sad:

“So, so you think you can tell

Heaven from Hell,

Blue skies from pain.

Can you tell a green field

From a cold steel rail?

A smile from a veil?

Do you think you can tell…?”

ROLL CREDITS.

THE END.

It feels good to swing hard, to feel his muscles flex and the blade of the ax bite deep into the wood. It feels even better that it’s the old apple tree, the one whose apples have never been any damn good, puny and sour. But the blossoms, she always says, it blossoms so nice — it makes the whole yard look pretty! Yeah, and who gives a crap about that?

Well, today he’s made his mind up. If there’s one upside of having lost his job down at the salvage yard, it’s that he doesn’t have to pretend to care about anything around here that isn’t pulling its weight. The apple tree is a perfect example: a few useless blossoms versus the need to bring down the heating bills next winter equals the tree is history.

As he finishes setting the cut wood onto the pile, which is getting impressively high, he sees her watching from the window. Oh, God, that face. Like he was killing a family dog instead of just taking down an old eyesore of an apple tree. He gives her a mocking smile and wave, a little twiddle of the fingers. She turns away.

He married her. He must have — everybody tells him so. But he doesn’t really remember it happening and certainly doesn’t remember why. Sometimes, listening to her complain about all the things that (according to her) he should have done and hasn’t, or shouldn’t have done but did anyway, he has a sudden fantasy of just taking a big old swing at her with his fist, like something out of a Popeye cartoon, hitting her so hard she just flies away and he never has to hear that voice again.

He even sees it with a caption, like one of those rumpled, Xeroxed cartoons they used to pass around at the yard in the days before the internet: Bitch In Space.

“That’s just great, Karl,” she tells him as he comes in and sets the ax in the corner of the kitchen. It needs to go out to the garage to be oiled and re-sharpened and put away properly, but he’s going to have a beer first because he goddamn well deserves it. He wipes sweat from his face and the back of his neck. Maybe two beers. He’s only had a couple today so far and it is Saturday. Is there some law that says you have to have a job to enjoy a few beers on Saturday?

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Just great. Spend an hour chopping down a harmless tree for firewood in the middle of July instead of doing something useful. It’s ninety goddamn degrees outside — what do we need firewood for?”

He ignores her, feels the beer sliding down his throat, icy and perfect. If only there was a way to pour cold beer over his whole life. Yeah, drown the bitch with it…or at least drown her out.

“Have you done any of the other things I asked you to do? Did you call the exterminator?”

“We don’t need any goddamn exterminator. Do you know what those cheating bastards charge? It’s just a few ants.”

“Just a few?” She stares at him like he’s crazy. “If you were ever in here for any longer than than it takes to open another beer, you might have noticed that we’re being overrun by the creepy little things. Look. Look!” She’s waving her arm like her turn indicator’s broken. He rolls his eyes, which just makes her more pissed off. “Look in that sink, damn you!”

He takes a long swallow of his beer, hitches his pants up, rubs some sweat from the small of his back and ambles over to the sink. It really would be nice just to plant her one, a shot in the nose to straighten her right up. Yeah, he’d probably go to jail, that’s the way things are nowadays, but oh my God it would be like a dream come true… “So what?”

“Do you happen to notice about a thousand ants in there?” She points at them like he’s stupid — like he really doesn’t see them. “And in the cabinets, and on the table, and all over the floor. It’s gross, Karl, it’s goddamned gross and disgusting! I can’t walk across the kitchen without stepping on hundreds of the things!”