Alan Gallauresi
ACT 1: EXPLANATIONS
INT. JAVIER’S APT
Cher in shock. Javier confronts Cher over his last host. Cher tells of finding a conspiracy on his world but doesn’t like to talk about how he got to Earth, so he “shows” it instead.
Fading sound of deep frying.
JAVIER
Okay. The toast has been burnt, the FryBaby XL is set to Full Cod, and I’ve lit every scented candle I’ve ever won in a White Elephant gift exchange. That’s got to cover up our smell, or maybe cause the apartment to spontaneously explode.
CHER
Bearer, we must lie down. I am still in the process of removing acetaldehyde from your system from the alcohol and the shock of this encounter is greatly affecting me.
JAVIER
Okay, I hear you, I hear you — but we are lacquered in several types of unpleasant liquids right now, and I’m not going to even touch my bed until we take a shower. I just bought new Boll & Branch banded sheet sets, ethically made, VERY high thread count…
CHER
Bearer, please, I don’t understand this non-sequitur diversion of the conversation and what it is apropos of. I am finding this current situation difficult to deal with.
JAVIER
(slightly pissed)
YOU’RE finding this difficult? You’re the one who’s been lying to me about the danger we’re in.
CHER
That’s not true, I don’t understand how this occurred and…
(fainting)
uugahrh…
2.
JAVIER
Okay, hold on, let’s… let’s head to the tub.
CHER
No water!
JAVIER
No water… we’ll just lie down.
Sound of crumpling body. Long pause.
CHER
Thank you… Javier.
JAVIER
You’re welcome, Cher.
Short pause.
CHER
I suppose you [want some answers]?
JAVIER
[Want some friggin’ answers?] Yeah, I’d like some answers to several questions, such as: what are murderbots? Why are they on this planet when you said they wouldn’t be? And, small follow-up to those two, where do you see yourself in five years, by which I mean — how the hell are you going to stop them from executing us over the next five years?
CHER
Us? It’s out to kill me, remember.
JAVIER
Which it does by…
CHER
Burrowing into your flesh and injecting a paralyzing nerve agent that will cause my cell structure to implode.
JAVIER
Oh okay, then, sounds like I’ve got nothing to worry about, then. Maybe I’ll head down to the florists, get a bouquet for the funeral. You like orchids? What am I saying, everybody likes orchids.
3.
CHER
Alright, I understand — you’re frustrated and worried sick over me. And I thank you for that, Javier. I’m afraid I don’t have all the answers, but I will tell you all that I do know. It begins 33 Earth years ago — uh, that’s your Earth, not mine. I had just returned to my homeworld, Planet One, after a couple centuries of temporarily “hitching” amongst the other sentient races of this cluster. Oh, it was a wonderful time in my lifecycle, one few of my species are bold enough to experience. I had just left the company of my latest bearer, Xivarrion the Magnanimous.
JAVIER
An alien?
CHER
Yes, a member of a wonderful species who call themselves the Gifters. They have an ingrained culture of welcoming hospitality and they are constantly showering friends and strangers alike with presents. Wonderful people, uhmm, have no notion whatsoever of personal property, so they’re, uh, not exactly… invited… everywhere.
JAVIER
You’re saying they steal stuff and then give it away, like outer space Robin Hoods?
CHER
No, no, stealing implies intent, they just acquire from the communal pool and hand off to others.
JAVIER
Ahh, so like communism, or… Press Your Luck spins.
4.
CHER
I don’t… Ah, yes, flipping through the back catalog — I see, yes. Listen, I’m over 600 and that reference was pretty dated even for me. At any rate, I returned to a world much changed from the one I had left. You have to understand, Javier, my planet is, in a word — staid. We had basically no crime, no war, little conflict and frankly, little excitement. Everything was regulated, orderly and sedate. Yet, suddenly, things were different. For the first time in millenia, there was dissension. The rulers, who had once been equitable and measured, now spoke openly against those they considered “different”, targeting and even imprisoning them. And as an intellectual, a known “hitcher” as it were, of course I was one of those who were “different”.
JAVIER
So they imprisoned, you?
CHER
Not at first, no. Upon return, I bonded with a bearer who was part of an underground resistance, a group intent on uncovering the cabal of violence which had infected the rulers of my planet. Well came to call ourselves the Resisters of the Cabal of Violence. We… were very busy resisting, we didn’t have a lot of time for branding. We worked in secret, even as their tactics grew more sinister. They developed forbidden andro-robotic technology; they created detention facilities to punish those who spoke out; and they created murderbots to find and kill those deemed too radical to “re-educate”. Eventually they came for us.
JAVIER
And the murderbots here, they have been sent to assassinate you?
5.
CHER
Possibly, though I can’t be sure of that. There are not supposed to be any of our people on your world, Javier! It’s possible it has nothing to do with me directly, but simply detecting those with the scent of the spirits. But for how they came to be here at all, I do not have an explanation!
JAVIER
You still haven’t told me how you came to be here.
CHER
(sad)
It… it is not easy for me to speak about. I have not yet come to terms with it.
JAVIER
Cher, I need to know what you know.
CHER
I… I cannot tell you, but perhaps… I can show you.
6.
INTERSTITIAL – THANKS
HI FOLKS, THIS IS ALAN/ROB FROM PARASITECOLOGY AND OTHER FINE INTERRUPTED TALES PODCASTS SUCH AS INTERRUPTED TALES.
We want to thank you for listening and hopefully you’re enjoying the show. If not, keep listening, we’re going to have a cross-over with … cancelled NBC show Timeless. Or did we already have it? We didn’t. They got cancelled. We’re on the internet where only self-cancellation exists.
This week I want to be serious for a moment and talk about mental health. While Parasitecology is a comedy, it incorporates the serious and, for us, highly personal topic of mental health, including dealing with anxiety, depression and suicide. If you or a loved one is at risk of self-harm, please: get help and call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255.
Lovelies, I want to get you back into the show, but first I want you to do one thing for us: STOP, go back, actually think about who might be suffering from mental health issues and reach out to them. Send them an email, call them on the phone, go visit them. It makes a difference.
Thanks and back to the show.
7.
ACT: FLASHBACK
INT. ALIEN PRISON (FLASHBACK)
Cher mentally presents the scene of his discovery of a secret cabal with his last host Jar, with Javier playing Jar. Details of his daring escape and the death of Jar. Cher in a room full of small clear boxes with liquid; Jar comes in to save him after and puts him inside him (Coorss – “just say Cher”). Cher wonders how they will escape and how Jar is dying, but all Jar needs to do is get him outside. Sticks ship in mouth.
Sounds of echoing from first episode encounter.
JAVIER
(echoing)
No… do we really have to be back here again? There’s nothing. Just a sharp, stabbing pain in my back. Agrhhrhhh.
CHER
(slight echo)
Sorry, I think we’re slumped against the tub faucet. Just ah… Okay, that’s better. Now, a little bit of theater magic!
Echoing fades and sound of electrical humming and alien beeps. Alien intercom voice in a strange language no one understands.
CHER
What do you see, now, Bearer?
JAVIER
It looks like a cave made of brilliant metal, scored and light in strange patterns. It… it’s freezing!
CHER
Yes, to regulate and slow down the autonomic functions.
JAVIER
The walls are inset with these tiny little cubes, clear, like glass but…
Sound of metallic clink.
JAVIER
They ring like metal.
CHER
Transparent aluminum, a highly advanced material unimaginable to humans.
8.
JAVIER
It was in Star Trek IV.
CHER
The WHALE one, where they travel through time by sling-shotting around a star?? You can’t take any of that science fiction seriously, Bearer — it was all a preposterous setup, for a bunch of cheap self-referential jokes.
JAVIER
Uhm, it was still better than all the others. Except II, VI, First Contact, and the first of the Kelvin Timeline films.
CHER
Don’t TALK to me about the KELVIN TIMELINE, we’ve already had this argument! Now, I’m trying to show you something very personal.
JAVIER
Okay. Okay — sorry. The cubes. There are thousands of them… at least… tens of thousands, maybe. They all look the same, just clear cubes with some liquid in them. There’s some kind of symbol beneath each, each of them different. Like plaques below a really boring Duplo block museum.
CHER
Well, it definitely was boring. But it was a prison, not a museum. A horrible place, designed to punish my people in the most simple yet effective way possible — by isolating us from any contact with our hosts. That’s me, right over there… no, don’t bother, I’m too small for you to see.
JAVIER
Wait. I thought you said you would die within hours outside of a host?
9.
CHER
Our jailers kept us in a sugar and pinene rich nutrient bath that provided sustenance and nothing else. It’s make-up is similar to the conditions of our oceans during our evolution; we didn’t always live inside hosts.
JAVIER
Dunked you in 7-Up and put you on a shelf, got it.
CHER
There’s no need to make light of my situation, Bearer. For seven years, I waited in that cube, in complete solitary abandon. Few understand how horrifyingly lonely it can be.
JAVIER
(quietly)
I can.
CHER
(nodding)
Yes, I know.
Distant rumbles, and explosions echo. Far off laser pew-pews.
JAVIER
(perking ears)
What’s that? I hear explosions or something.
CHER
Just wait…
JAVIER
The door!
A blaster explosions and a whoosh of a door.
JAVIER
Wait… what’s happening… the perspective is all different… Why am I holding a laser pistol? Now I’m running to the wall, searching through the shelves. I can read the language… I…
10.
CHER
It’s not you, Javier — you’re just playing a part in my memories. Speaking the role of another as the words appear in your mind.
JAVIER
You want me to act?
CHER
No, I want you to… BE! Really LIVE in the moment. Let the words flow forth.
JAVIER
Ok, ummm… let me just get set…
Javier begins speaking in a heroic but vapid tone (think Prince Valiant or some such) of Cher’s former host, JAR.
JAR
(calling pitifully)
But… my spirit, my spirit!? Where ARE YOU!? My spirit, Coorrssasethallllllic uhhh ….
CHER
Alright — Cher, just say Cher.
JAR
Cher! I must find you and flee this wretched prison we have been entombed in. THERE!
Tapping on metal and glass sound.
JAR
Is that you, my sweet guiding light? Come, my flesh is ready, bond once again with your former bearer, JAR!
(JAVIER’s voice, interrupting)
JAVIER
(astonished and offended)
WAIT, WHAT!? Sorry, but — your highly sentient host — with whom you had a supposedly equitable symbiotic relationship with — is called JAR?
11.
CHER
Well, technically their real name is, once again, unpronounceable by your crude tongue… but can be translated roughly as “the sacred and noble vessel that carries the bright flame of light” — sorry if you don’t happen to have a single word that conveys that complex conceptualization into a name. Plus, they got a nickname quite similar to the word JAR during pledge week at the University of Galaxy Study — for, let’s say, unrelated reasons. Really, I mean, you want to get into ALL THAT in the middle of a memory sequence?
JAVIER
Okay – but “JAR” — I have to say, it’s not that far off from Javier. I mean — JAR. Javier. Cher. There’s a real Sauron/Saruman thing going on here.
CHER
(sarcastic)
Oh, I’m sorry — should I invent whole new identities for intelligent beings because it’s inconvenient for you?
JAVIER
Yeah! That’s exactly what you did with the name Cher.
CHER
Well, I’m just glad she can’t hear you, I don’t believe she would be very happy with your attitude. Now, can we move on? You’re ruining the pathos of this dramatic scene.
JAR
(after pause and breath)
Enter me, oh iridescent one!
JAVIER
(aside)
Wait, are we going to…
Splooshing sound.
12.
JAVIER
Oh, sweet Elcor emotions!
CHER
(pausing, then annoyed)
LINE!
JAR
(strange noises)
Incandescent soul, have you now returned to me?
CHER
(speaking a bit similarly florid)
Yes, I have returned, Jar! For lo, though many cycles of the five moons have passed, I have thought about you constantly during my unjust internment. But how did you wrest free from your own cold prison cell?
JAVIER
(interrupting)
NOPE. No. I’m calling bullshit. YOU do not talk that way. If this is your memory, you’re definitely remembering wrong.
CHER
Listen — I don’t judge you for the summer, right after you spend a semester abroad in Australia, where you called everybody MITE and everything was NO WORRIES. The bond between spirit and bearer affects both with the passage of time, as they slowly take on each other’s speaking habits, mannerisms, even accents.
JAVIER
Okay… but I don’t sound like a cross between a con-man and a stuffy professor, so…
CHER
(Larry David)
Ehhh… you’ll get there.
(continuing, clearing throat)
Tell me, quickly, Jar, for we have scant moments until our jailers respond!
13.
JAR
Our brave companions of the resistance infiltrated the compound, risking their lives to free me and the other hosts accused of false crimes. They set many free in the wing housing the bearers. I’m afraid I may be the only one left alive, the only one allowed the glorious hope of reuniting with my guiding candelabra! Come, we must leave this fortress and escape to the ship.
Sounds of running and leaping. Shoosh of doors. Sounds of pew pew.
CHER
(various exclamations)
Watch out! Look, over there — armored guards. Even their masks brand them as the devils they are.
JAVIER
Wow, the whole laser “pew pew” thing and everything?
CHER
It’s your line.
JAR
Right. And hellish murderbots to do their bidding. Come, this way…
(pew pew)
CHER
Uhhh, no, it is best if we go back the other way.
JAR
Fear not, luminous spirit, I have spent all my time in this foul place planning our escape to the tiniest detail!
(dodging blasters and shooting back)
Hyaah! Hru!
14.
CHER
Alright, but I think there was an EXIT sign back there…
JAVIER
(agreeing)
What are they doing, did they not see the sign or something?
CHER
Jar? JAR!
Laser noises continue, and sound of impacts as Jar yells various phrases.
JAR
(rolling R’s)
Crane kick! Graphic exorcism! Get over here! Knights of the round! Fiend’s Grip!
CHER
Jar? Come on back!
JAVIER
Are these real moves we’re doing? They seem… mmmmm kind of, WEAK? Although I’m a little surprised how human these arms and legs look…
CHER
(hushing)
Sshh shh… enough from the peanut gallery.
(heroic again)
We have bested the guards, and our freedom is within sight. Quickly!
JAR
Yes, my ever untouchable flame! We are but steps away!
Big clunking doors opening. Alien mood music and light wind/rustling play. Running, then stops.
CHER
What… what is this, Jar?! For so long my eye-reading tendrils have longed to see the sight of our glorious planet again, but… there is no ship to carry us to freedom!
15.
JAR
(sadly)
No, not us. The resistance couldn’t sneak in a spaceship designed to carry bearers past the defenses. Just this… tiny… ship. Just large enough for the kindest, most gentle, most noble, most capable, most…
(breaking into Javier)
Come on, Cher.
CHER
WHAT?! IT’S WHAT HAPPENED, OK! This is EXACTLY how I remember it.
JAR
Most beloved spirit in the cosmos. I’m just sorry I won’t be able to see the stars with you.
CHER
(weepy)
No, it is I who am sorry. I will tell tales of your bravery and sing your name for all to hear, Jar.
JAVIER
Today’s the first time you’ve mentioned his name. I’ve heard more backstory about Xivarrion the Magnanimous and… Kosher Pickle Harry… than about this Jar person.
CHER
(sad but pissy)
BECAUSE IT WAS TOO SAD TO SPEAK OF!
JAVIER
Right, but there also haven’t been any tales of bravery…
CHER
(pissy and clapping inbetween)
THAT’S WHAT WE’RE DOING RIGHT NOW, JAVIER!
JAVIER
(calming)
Okay. You’re right, this is your moment — sorry.
16.
CHER
Sorry, it’s just very emotionally RAW for me, and also we’re right in the middle of the cathartic denoument and, to be frank, you’re not exactly selling it…
JAR
(over the top)
And now — now, I give to you my last breath and with it, the HOPE of a BETTER future…
CHER
(aside)
P.S. — it’s a fine line between enthusiasm and cabotinage…
(dramatic)
No, Jar, don’t leave me alone!
Alien noise and single loud blaster charge.
JAR
(dying noises)
Cher, I will — The… ship!
Whirring noise of small ship.
JAR
Cher… I will
(fiddling and making uncomfortable noises)
always… be with… you…
CHER
No!!!
Sound of footsteps and commotion.
JAR
(quietly, urgently)
Quick…
Pause as ship noises spin up and then blast off.
CHER
(distant echo)
Goodbye, my friend.
JAR
(in pain)
Oh, that one hurt a lot more going out than going in! Ohhh! Wow, that’s a LARGE… hole…
(dying voice to approaching steps)
17.
Ahh… fair-minded captors, could I trouble you for a gel capsule of Morphil or, less enthusiastically, a generic equivalent…
Single blast, then a dozen overkill ones plus a few trickles at the end.
18.
OUTRO PART 1