Post by spideyfan914 on Jan 18, 2010 16:53:28 GMT -6
PITCH-BLACK BACKGROUND
EZEKIEL awakens in utter darkness. He does not panic, but rather, he looks around and muses at his surroundings.
EZEKIEL (V.O.)
Interesting. This is not the room I went to sleep in. It’s very dark, though it has a touch of class. Late French colonial, perhaps? No, no, more of an.... Italian style. Actually, it seems kind of as though it may have been from the mid-70s. No, early 800s. Yes, that’s it. Must be paint. Yes, it must take quite a mind to devise something such as this. You’d have to be quite sadistic. I imagine he made it past the security as well. Or rather, she, for the guards are always lenient on young women. They must’ve assumed that she was courting the Nazi Soviet upstairs, as usual, and I can’t really blame them. She’d have to have been quite good-looking, though. Blonde hair, blue eyes, freckles, no glasses, large chest, small hips, curls, left-handed, likes to surf, Polish, 34 years old, smokes, has owned three dogs, recently enrolled in law school, favorite musician is Deana Carter, hates Greek food, has never heard of Iron Man, and her favorite hobby is building armchairs out of toothpicks. Yes, that’s his usual pick. The guards would’ve let someone of that nature go by for sure. So this Polish blonde toothpick-lover walked past the security guards, raided my apartment, and painted the walls in black Italian paint from the early 9th century. Now that I think of it, that describes the woman who sat next to me at the pediatrician last week. Wait, no, she left for South America last Thursday. Unless she came back, of course. But no, I remember seeing someone else who fits the description in the Sunday paper! I believe it was in the obituary section? Well, I suppose the coroner was mistaken. Yes, it must’ve been her. Actually, come to think of it, I don’t remember returning home last night, and this paint wouldn’t account for my removal from bed anyway. Let’s see – what’s the last thing I remember? Perhaps it was when I got into the car with Gerald? No, I remember getting out. Or was that yesterday? Wait, I know – the last thing I remember is when Anthony Perchosi said “Go to Hell!”
Just then, DEVIL appears in front of Ezekiel.
EZEKIEL (V.O.)
Interesting. Perhaps an illusion? A prank?
DEVIL
Hello, Ezekiel.
EZEKIEL (V.O.)
It would have to be a very committed prankster with a lot of time on his or her hands, and since no one has any time in the current economy of the world (and I say “of the world” just in case it is no longer implied), there only remains one explanation: I am in Hell. Whether this is because Anthony Perchosi requested it, or because I am dead, is yet to be discovered.
DEVIL
Let me explain: I am the mythologized Lucifer, Mephistopheles, Pluto, Hades, Satan, Prince of the Underworld, God of the Dead, Stealer of Souls, in a word – the Devil!
EZEKIEL (V.O.)
Amazing. All those cultures referred to the same thing. One would think that at least one philosopher was wrong. Well, I suppose atheists are mistaken. I’d like to take this time to point out that I am not hallucinating on drugs, for I have not taken any of late, and I am not dreaming for, as I discussed earlier, I did not go to sleep. Still, it is most interesting how closely the Devil resembles his popular depiction. Maybe he just appears in whichever form you expect? A shape shifter of sorts – yes, that has to be it.
DEVIL
You, Ezekiel Summers, died on the day of February 29, 2010, at 1:07 PM and 31 seconds as a result of a gun wound to the genitals at 12:33 PM and 17 seconds, shot by Victoria Macaulay while in the process of robbing the pet store to which you were providing birdfeed. Your last words were, “I’m sorry, what was that?”
EZEKIEL (V.O.)
Interesting – I don’t remember any of that. I remember Anthony Perchosi saying “Go to Hell!” but I don’t remember requesting a repetition. I suppose you don’t remember your final moments after you die, which really takes away a lot of the meaning they’re supposed to have. But of course, that also makes the accepted theory of my death just as likely as the hypothesis that I’m dreaming or high.
DEVIL
Now, I suppose you’re wondering why you’re down here instead of in Heaven.
EZEKIEL (V.O.)
An interesting question, though perhaps I should first establish that I am, indeed, dead. Of course, if there be no explanation for my descension to Hell, then it would help to disprove the possibility of my demise.
DEVIL
The fact is simple: As one dies, he is expected to pray and repent for his sins. You, however, outwardly refused, and so He did not hear your pain, and I was able to take you first!
EZEKIEL (V.O.)
Yes, I should’ve prayed. Though in all fairness, I’ve been an atheist for most of my early life, so it should have probably been taken into consideration. After all, I was never given significant reason to believe in God or the Devil. But then again, I’m not really in position to question Heaven.
DEVIL
Now, for you punishment. For the rest of Eternity, you will be doomed to this very room. Dark, silent, alone. You will have no contact with anyone. Not even I will ever accompany you. You will not be excused from such sufferings as hunger or exhaustion, but you will not be satiated either. You will be trapped here in total isolation, complete solitude, until the highest clock stops ticking. You will be left with nothing. Nothing but your thoughts.
EZEKIEL (V.O.)
A fair and reasonable punishment, I suppose.
Devil disappears.
EZEKIEL (V.O.)
I’m in the mood for a pineapple. Juicy and sweet – yes, pineapples are delicious. I once met a man who didn’t like pineapples. Or was it a woman? Actually, it was the man who lives upstairs, Robert. I didn’t understand, and couldn’t help but question whether he had ever actually eaten a pineapple. As it would turn out, he was once stranded on an island during World War II after Axis war ship shot his plane down, and ate a pineapple there. He hated it so much that he lived on bananas for the next three years until the Japanese found him and he became a prisoner of war. BANANAS! He says that pineapples are painful in his mouth. Though he does not remember it, I’m sure that this means he forgot to take off the spikes before eating it. I suppose that it makes sense he doesn’t like them, then. After all, he now associates the taste with a sharp pain in his mouth. Though I personally love pineapples, I imagine that if I hadn’t removed the thorns my first time, I would hate them as well. But then again, if one knows that his taste is biased by such an irrelevant factor, why would one not want to try it again? I tried to convince Robert to eat a pineapple once, but he simply said, “Ezekiel, this Polish girl I’m dating is coming over in a few minutes, and I’d prefer to greet her in privacy,” which is Latin for, “Go to Hell!” I wonder why.
CREDITS roll while Ezekiel continues.
EZEKIEL (V.O.)
Could it perhaps be that we, as people, will do what we are expected to do? This would explain why salesmen sell and waiters wait. It would also explain why schoolteachers persistently give homework, and why students persistently do or ignore it. And it would shine reason on why writers tend to one set genre, one set formula. It would even suggest probable cause for politicians to support their party’s majority opinion, and for soldiers to murder against the will of their conscience. The world would almost make sense. And yet, such an idea suggests that there is no free will, that man does not control his destiny, for if we could do what in all logic and reason we should do and would do, then my neighbor would by now surely be feasting on freshly picked and peeled pineapples! If my neighbor does not like pineapples, can there be a such thing as free will? No, surely there is another, more logical explanation: my neighbor does not ingest pineapples because a greater force willed it so, and we are nothing more than the creations of a free-willed mind; an author, or publisher, would not let Robert eat pineapples for all this – the entire world – is, in fact, but a work a fiction!
EZEKIEL awakens in utter darkness. He does not panic, but rather, he looks around and muses at his surroundings.
EZEKIEL (V.O.)
Interesting. This is not the room I went to sleep in. It’s very dark, though it has a touch of class. Late French colonial, perhaps? No, no, more of an.... Italian style. Actually, it seems kind of as though it may have been from the mid-70s. No, early 800s. Yes, that’s it. Must be paint. Yes, it must take quite a mind to devise something such as this. You’d have to be quite sadistic. I imagine he made it past the security as well. Or rather, she, for the guards are always lenient on young women. They must’ve assumed that she was courting the Nazi Soviet upstairs, as usual, and I can’t really blame them. She’d have to have been quite good-looking, though. Blonde hair, blue eyes, freckles, no glasses, large chest, small hips, curls, left-handed, likes to surf, Polish, 34 years old, smokes, has owned three dogs, recently enrolled in law school, favorite musician is Deana Carter, hates Greek food, has never heard of Iron Man, and her favorite hobby is building armchairs out of toothpicks. Yes, that’s his usual pick. The guards would’ve let someone of that nature go by for sure. So this Polish blonde toothpick-lover walked past the security guards, raided my apartment, and painted the walls in black Italian paint from the early 9th century. Now that I think of it, that describes the woman who sat next to me at the pediatrician last week. Wait, no, she left for South America last Thursday. Unless she came back, of course. But no, I remember seeing someone else who fits the description in the Sunday paper! I believe it was in the obituary section? Well, I suppose the coroner was mistaken. Yes, it must’ve been her. Actually, come to think of it, I don’t remember returning home last night, and this paint wouldn’t account for my removal from bed anyway. Let’s see – what’s the last thing I remember? Perhaps it was when I got into the car with Gerald? No, I remember getting out. Or was that yesterday? Wait, I know – the last thing I remember is when Anthony Perchosi said “Go to Hell!”
Just then, DEVIL appears in front of Ezekiel.
EZEKIEL (V.O.)
Interesting. Perhaps an illusion? A prank?
DEVIL
Hello, Ezekiel.
EZEKIEL (V.O.)
It would have to be a very committed prankster with a lot of time on his or her hands, and since no one has any time in the current economy of the world (and I say “of the world” just in case it is no longer implied), there only remains one explanation: I am in Hell. Whether this is because Anthony Perchosi requested it, or because I am dead, is yet to be discovered.
DEVIL
Let me explain: I am the mythologized Lucifer, Mephistopheles, Pluto, Hades, Satan, Prince of the Underworld, God of the Dead, Stealer of Souls, in a word – the Devil!
EZEKIEL (V.O.)
Amazing. All those cultures referred to the same thing. One would think that at least one philosopher was wrong. Well, I suppose atheists are mistaken. I’d like to take this time to point out that I am not hallucinating on drugs, for I have not taken any of late, and I am not dreaming for, as I discussed earlier, I did not go to sleep. Still, it is most interesting how closely the Devil resembles his popular depiction. Maybe he just appears in whichever form you expect? A shape shifter of sorts – yes, that has to be it.
DEVIL
You, Ezekiel Summers, died on the day of February 29, 2010, at 1:07 PM and 31 seconds as a result of a gun wound to the genitals at 12:33 PM and 17 seconds, shot by Victoria Macaulay while in the process of robbing the pet store to which you were providing birdfeed. Your last words were, “I’m sorry, what was that?”
EZEKIEL (V.O.)
Interesting – I don’t remember any of that. I remember Anthony Perchosi saying “Go to Hell!” but I don’t remember requesting a repetition. I suppose you don’t remember your final moments after you die, which really takes away a lot of the meaning they’re supposed to have. But of course, that also makes the accepted theory of my death just as likely as the hypothesis that I’m dreaming or high.
DEVIL
Now, I suppose you’re wondering why you’re down here instead of in Heaven.
EZEKIEL (V.O.)
An interesting question, though perhaps I should first establish that I am, indeed, dead. Of course, if there be no explanation for my descension to Hell, then it would help to disprove the possibility of my demise.
DEVIL
The fact is simple: As one dies, he is expected to pray and repent for his sins. You, however, outwardly refused, and so He did not hear your pain, and I was able to take you first!
EZEKIEL (V.O.)
Yes, I should’ve prayed. Though in all fairness, I’ve been an atheist for most of my early life, so it should have probably been taken into consideration. After all, I was never given significant reason to believe in God or the Devil. But then again, I’m not really in position to question Heaven.
DEVIL
Now, for you punishment. For the rest of Eternity, you will be doomed to this very room. Dark, silent, alone. You will have no contact with anyone. Not even I will ever accompany you. You will not be excused from such sufferings as hunger or exhaustion, but you will not be satiated either. You will be trapped here in total isolation, complete solitude, until the highest clock stops ticking. You will be left with nothing. Nothing but your thoughts.
EZEKIEL (V.O.)
A fair and reasonable punishment, I suppose.
Devil disappears.
EZEKIEL (V.O.)
I’m in the mood for a pineapple. Juicy and sweet – yes, pineapples are delicious. I once met a man who didn’t like pineapples. Or was it a woman? Actually, it was the man who lives upstairs, Robert. I didn’t understand, and couldn’t help but question whether he had ever actually eaten a pineapple. As it would turn out, he was once stranded on an island during World War II after Axis war ship shot his plane down, and ate a pineapple there. He hated it so much that he lived on bananas for the next three years until the Japanese found him and he became a prisoner of war. BANANAS! He says that pineapples are painful in his mouth. Though he does not remember it, I’m sure that this means he forgot to take off the spikes before eating it. I suppose that it makes sense he doesn’t like them, then. After all, he now associates the taste with a sharp pain in his mouth. Though I personally love pineapples, I imagine that if I hadn’t removed the thorns my first time, I would hate them as well. But then again, if one knows that his taste is biased by such an irrelevant factor, why would one not want to try it again? I tried to convince Robert to eat a pineapple once, but he simply said, “Ezekiel, this Polish girl I’m dating is coming over in a few minutes, and I’d prefer to greet her in privacy,” which is Latin for, “Go to Hell!” I wonder why.
CREDITS roll while Ezekiel continues.
EZEKIEL (V.O.)
Could it perhaps be that we, as people, will do what we are expected to do? This would explain why salesmen sell and waiters wait. It would also explain why schoolteachers persistently give homework, and why students persistently do or ignore it. And it would shine reason on why writers tend to one set genre, one set formula. It would even suggest probable cause for politicians to support their party’s majority opinion, and for soldiers to murder against the will of their conscience. The world would almost make sense. And yet, such an idea suggests that there is no free will, that man does not control his destiny, for if we could do what in all logic and reason we should do and would do, then my neighbor would by now surely be feasting on freshly picked and peeled pineapples! If my neighbor does not like pineapples, can there be a such thing as free will? No, surely there is another, more logical explanation: my neighbor does not ingest pineapples because a greater force willed it so, and we are nothing more than the creations of a free-willed mind; an author, or publisher, would not let Robert eat pineapples for all this – the entire world – is, in fact, but a work a fiction!
