WAITING FOR OCTOBER: TO THE MOON
E1.5: “Shelley”
by D.J. Sylvis
ANNOUNCER (Deej): There is a world – one of many that touches ours – known as October. One of the archetypes; one of the realities that is a source for our stories. It is not difficult to reach, if you know the way – you can experience their wildness for yourself, adventure there, and live, and love. But be wary – perhaps more than any other existence, here there be monsters …
Note – there may be advertisements inserted at this point in the episode.
ANNOUNCER (Robin): You’re listening to “To The Moon” – a Waiting for October miniseries.
SCENE ONE
SOUND: Castle elevator background, in motion; then stopping with a shudder and the doors open
SOUND: Castle laboratory background (ongoing)
SOUND: Faintly, in the background, crowds shouting and banging on the door upstairs
SOUND: With each of the next couple lines, we hear Shelley throwing switches
SHELLEY
Okay, lock that elevator down – seal up the stairwell –
SOUND: Crashing noise overhead
SHELLEY
And chimney gratings in …
SOUND: A series of seven muted metallic clangs
SHELLEY
One two three four five six seven, one two three four five six seven …
SOUND: The crowd noises are more muted, but continue in the background
SHELLEY
That’ll do it. They’ll wear themselves out eventually. I might lose a few of the more flammable tapestries, but that just means I can commission new ones! Always look on the bright side … and it’s not like I don’t have plenty to do down here while I wait! Where was I before Hodag and his cohort so rudely interrupted me? And was I at this end of the workbench, or this one?
SOUND: A pile of papers being scattered
SHELLEY
There’s my thermos, at least.
SOUND: A prolonged sluuuurrrrrp
SHELLEY
Oh right, right right right right right. I’ve got that lecture, Pretorious Middle School, two days from now, one-forty-five in the P.M. “The Evolution of Plot Devices.” The things we agree to when facing charges for disturbing the peace.
(she sighs)
Detailed notes would probably be superfluous, but I should at least slap together a brief outline. Not that I couldn’t lecture extemporaneously, but there is a time limit. And less chance I’ll offend the little beasts with spontaneous profanity. And here I mean the teachers. I’ll record a few thoughts. And to keep my hands busy in the meantime, where’s that MacGuffin that needed an overhaul?
SOUND: Some mechanical tinkering noises now and then through the monologue
SOUND: A sudden, distant crash
SHELLEY
Oh! They’ve brought down the chandelier. First they’ve done that in a long while. Dammit.
(she yells up at them)
I HOPE YOU KNOW I’LL HAVE TO LEVITATE TO FIX THAT! AND I HATE HEIGHTS!
(back to herself)
I’ll need to talk with the Burgomaster.
(after a moment)
Okay, Michelleandra Ismene Saville, where do we begin? Where do they begin might be the better question – or where have they already begun, they’re not pre-teens, they ought to know by now how our world works. They understand the thunderbirds and the killer bees, they’ve all had the talk. What an embarrassing age that was … especially in my day when it was all lightning and drawbridges and the mechanicals rattling in at the end of the story.
(she takes in a deep breath, getting ready to begin)
That’s a good place to start from, the evolution of fiction itself. The base reason for fiction is still highly debated, though we’re all grateful for our existence in these Written Worlds … whether we began as a biological adaptation to encourage problem-solving, or a use of symbolism to instruct in proper social skills, or some by-product completely separate from real-life application! Which might be more likely when you look at the current end product, all entertainment and superstimuli. But that might be a bit much, Shelley me girl, these are children, we don’t need to nudge them over the edge into nihilism. Just a quick walk in the park from oral history through mythology into narrative fiction, that’s more than enough to grease the wheels on our way to my particular interest and focus.
SOUND: The mild chaos overhead breaks for a moment, and we hear a chorus of wolf howls
SHELLEY
There we go! I wondered when they’d show up. Not much point in paying for a security company that doesn’t come when called. They’ll keep things moving forward – much like a plot device! People, places, things, all dropped into the story like a little burst of nitrous in the Dragula of life. A touch of hamartia in the ol’ protagonist; a golden fleece at the far end of your voyage; a mystery at the foundation of your pyramid. A lever on which your fictional world turns. Or sometimes, tilts.
SOUND: A bit of mechanical tinkering, the sound of a gear turning
SHELLEY
Speaking of, that should get my MacGuffin back in working order. All I’ve got to do is plug it in –
SOUND: A click, and all other noises in the lab stop immediately
SOUND: The struggle increases above, including a few occasional howls
SHELLEY
Or … not. Somebody thought to cut the electricity. It always takes a while before they notice that I’ve made improvements.
(she shouts)
COULD YOU MAYBE FIGHT FASTER UP THERE? I’VE GOT PROJECTS THAT’LL GO BAD WITHOUT POWER!
SOUND: We hear her get up and pace a bit; another random sluuurrrp
SHELLEY
(normal tone again, to herself, amused)
Or … go worse. All right, back to the things I can do in the dark. The point is – fiction evolved, thus, plot devices evolved. Stories grew and split off and tropes sharpened themselves to a fine point. No more deus ex machina when you wind up in a corner on the next to last page – now we’ve got cliffhangers and false endings and that “To Be Concluded” at the end of Back To The Future, Part 2.
(pause)
I hated that.
(brief pause)
No more shoulder angels or devils these days when you hit an emotional fork in the road – instead, throw in a voiceover or a dream sequence with your dead mentor, “Use the Force, Luke … ” Coyote stealing fire to Aslan singing the world awake to the Allspark. Red herring after red herring until you reach Inception. Postmodernism – deconstruction, framing devices. Elvira and Beavis and Butthead and Mystery Science Theater 3000 – we’ve got movie sign! Remakes on remakes, tributes, combined universes, the invention of the montage, love triangles into friends to lovers into meet cutes!
SOUND: We hear her fall over a toolbox or some such thing
SHELLEY
Shit! To-do list for tomorrow, install emergency lighting. Anyway … plot devices kept adapting, refining, reshaping. The Maltese Falcon to the Millenium Falcon. Flashbacks to time travel. They became more specific, tied to particular stories or genres or even writers – ask Vonnegut about the Author Avatar, or McGuire about her use of Portal Doors! And then those stories literally hang on the use of that device – you wait for it, you expect it, it becomes so much a part of the lore that the plots shape themselves around that need. The characters mold themselves to it.
(brief pause)
And don’t forget, characters themselves can be plot devices! As mutable as any other – I have a theory when sci-fi became a thing and begat Singularity, they took our favourite monster tropes and made them into aliens. Klingons are werewolves, Vulcans are vampires, Ferengi are goblins … Wookies are werewolves – or maybe Bigfoot, Yoda is a goblin, Darth Vader is Frankenstein. Well, not Frankenstein, you know what I mean, Frankenstein’s creation … beneath that mask and cape beats the heart of the modern creature.
(aside)
Which reminds me, I better hide my, umm, secret project in case they break in again … once I can see to do so. It’s been a while since I’ve heard anything but minor mayhem, I might be safe this time around, but better that than sorry. Who knows how long those chains will hold …
(brief pause)
But my point! Plot devices, literary tropes, et cetera, have been forced to evolve like any other aspect of our fictive existence. Sometimes perhaps a bit too much, becoming inextricable from the story itself. The danger in that direction … the throw-away reference, the inside joke, the meme shared everywhere for a day then vanishing into obscurity. That way madness lies.
SOUND: Everything comes back on at once, with beeps and motors and lights flickering
SHELLEY
The Wilds must have things under control now, at least enough to reach the fuse box.
(shouting)
THANK YOU! LET ME KNOW WHEN IT’S SAFE TO DROP THE DEFENSES!
SOUND: Somewhere above, a lone howl replies
SHELLEY
Five more minutes. I was starting to get a bit frantic – I need to run up and down the stairs a few hundred times to burn off some excess energy. But yes! Evolution, adaptation, transforming how we live so the stories don’t leave us behind. Howling at the moon to landing on its surface. Friday the 13th to Jason X. That’s how we keep our world going, whatever the critics may say.
(brief pause)
That seems like a good place to leave the little fiends, doesn’t it? Now, to make these piles of doom a little less chaotic, give that MacGuffin a final polish, and see how the battlements and bailey have survived the night!
SOUND: We hear her starting to gather up fallen tools, etc.
SOUND: Background fades out
(The episode ends.)
ANNOUNCER: Thank you for listening to Waiting For October: To The Moon! Our slightly sci-fi, but still monster-world miniseries. This episode was produced by D.J. Sylvis, Tina Case, and Robin Regalado. D.J. wrote the scripts; Trace Callahan wrote the music and did our dialogue editing; Caroline Mincks did our sound design. Our To The Moon cover art is by Clare Bernik.
This episode featured Maddy Searle as Shelley. We’ll be back next time and I swear, that episode will take place on the Moon! Until then!
