INT. THE THRONE ROOM OF POSEIDON - TEMPLE OF POSEIDON - UNDER THE SEA - THAT EVENING
The throne room of Poseidon is a white-washed room encircled with an inner colonnade. The columns are embedded with green and blue sea gems. There is a shallow pool of water in front of Poseidon's throne, which rests on a raised platform.
Poseidon is sitting on his abalone throne. He is drinking and watching a real-living chess-like game in the shallow pool. Young, healthy MERMAIDS and MERMEN stand in the pool on the underwater board. They slide to different squares when Poseidon directs them with his trident. He controls both teams, for he is playing alone.
Amphitrite ascends the platform and sits at the feet of Poseidon.
AMPHITRITE
Who's winning?
POSEIDON
I am.
Poseidon waves his trident at a sexy Mermaid, who slides to another square.
Demeter has entered the room and stands beside a column. She is completely soaked from her journey under the sea. Water drips everywhere.
AMPHITRITE
(seeing Demeter)
It's your sister.
Using his trident, Poseidon, signals her over. To approach, she must walk past the board game with the Merpeople.
DEMETER
(r.e. his trident)
Don't use that thing on me!
POSEIDON
You don't want to play?
DEMETER
No, I do not want to play!
(addressing Amphitrite)
Hello, poor dear. I pity your nuptial bed.
Demeter wipes off the water dripping down her face.
DEMETER
Listen to me, Poseidon! Damn you if you are responsible for the abduction of my only daughter, Persephone! The only flower from my garden. She is gone and I seek information - or a confession! - from you.
POSEIDON
My dear sweet sister-
DEMETER
The sweet sister you don't deserve!
(remembering her recent encounter with him)
God of great equestrian skill.
POSEIDON
Demeter, it was not I. Your prized blossom is not here. My word.
Demeter sits down on the platform, exhausted. Amphitrite hands her a glass of wine.
DEMETER
(defeated)
I am lost without her. Where is she, brother? Which evil god or doomed man must I hunt down and destroy with my black torch. Help me lay barren his own seeds in deserved repentance.
POSEIDON
August sister of our Mother Earth, you will know the truth, for I do know of your grief.
AMPHITRITE
Go on. Tell her.
POSEIDON
No mortal man is at fault. In truth, it was a god. The Cloud-gatherer Zeus--
DEMETER
Zeus?! Zeus took my love?
POSEIDON
(continuing)
The Cloud-gatherer Zeus has decreed the rape you so seek to avenge.
DEMETER
His bolts. Your tridents.
POSEIDON
The Olympian Father has given his consent to his own brother Hades to take Persephone, she with the lovely ankles, as his underground bride. She has been seized and carried off, sealed away in the gloomy depths of the Land of the Dead.
Demeter throws her glass across the room.
POSEIDON
But desist in your great anger, goddess, and control that impetuous fury.
Demeter picks up a nearby pitcher and drinks from it.
POSEIDON
Indeed, Hades is a fit husband for your daughter. He is your own Olympian brother. As he is mine. Born with the same ichor blood that flows through our divine bodies. And as for divinity, does he not rule over the populated lands of kings, heroes, and athletes? Can he not give Persephone the honorable title of Queen?
DEMETER
Queen of the Dead? No! I will not have it!
POSEIDON
But you must have it. She is his now, Demeter. Our lonely brother Hades now has the bride needed to propagate his own kingdom.
DEMETER
Zeus, the loud-thundering tyrant. And Hades, so deep in the earth. How will I go after both?
POSEIDON
Desist, Demeter. Let the course of events the Fates have spun even for us gods unravel. Your comely daughter has been chosen for great things.
Demeter turns to contemplate the Merpeople in the water.
DEMETER
Those there are great things. Beauty, strength, youth. Prized ideals. Not death, darkness, and decay.
AMPHITRITE
Come, Demeter. Let me comfort you.
Demeter takes one last swig and exits with Amphitrite.
POSEIDON
There goes an undiluted dame.
Poseidon directs a Mermaid to another square.
POSEIDON
Right there, sweetheart.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Sailing in Egypt
An excerpt from my novel. Here, the group of Americans does its best to sail around Aswan without any more booze.
We all laughed at Finneas’ remark and drank some more. The Coke and whiskey was still cool in Dawn’s pouch and it went down smoothly and warmed my stomach. The combination of this coolness and warmth comforted me nicely for the rest of the bus ride and while I was eager to reach the river, I was perfectly content sitting in the back of the bus with my drinking companions. Kirk continued to relate his midnight wanderings to us as Dr. Olebowski instructed the rest on the bus about some interesting history on Aswan and the islands. Kirk’s excursion, however, took us down a dark labyrinth of dark alleys and streets not mentioned in our initial brochures. As he followed his newfound friend from the suq through town, Kirk nervously looked back over his shoulder in case insidious brigands or outlaws, shrouded in the darkness like the conspirators of Cassius, waited to ambush the misled American. Kirk expressed how nervous he was as he passed a group of men in an alley who suddenly stopped their smoking of a shared hookah as he neared. Was this the end, he thought. Would he be robbed and killed and never heard from again? But the enticement to see forbidden, naked belly dancers was too great for our college instructor, so he bravely pushed on.
Kirk was no Genji. It was funny to me how dangerous he had described the evening, and I thought about Lady Murasaki’s Genji, the fearless lover-prince who spent his nights roaming the gridded streets of medieval Japan looking for illicit rendezvous. Genji flourished at night like a prowling cat and only the most secretive of maidens does he visit and seduce in the narrative. This wasn’t our Kirk, and we all knew it, which is probably why his harrowing tale became so entertaining to us. The only victim would be his wallet, for Egyptians are culturally adroit at inflating unmarked prices and then convincing travelers that negotiating fixed rates is unheard of and mortifyingly insulting.
Kirk did arrive safely at the show and he did see three or four voluptuous dancers who didn’t really take it all off as promised. The evening cost him eighty dollars, which Kirk was convinced was a fair price for a verboten evening of danger, hookah, and skin. Frankly, he probably paid twice as much as it was really worth, since everything here in Egypt is negotiable. But the adventure made Kirk happy and gave him years, if not decades, of relatable stories for his friends and colleagues back home.
When our bus stopped at a pleasant curb lined with palm and date trees, the group began to disembark, and Dawn alerted us to a disaster of colossal proportions: her pouch was dry. Until we could find a duty-free shop or return to the ship that night to refill her backpack with more whiskey, she informed us that we would only have water to drink. This made Dawn a tad moody because it wasn’t even noon and as she said, “It’s so nice to sail around with drinks.” I reassured her that I had plenty of bottled water in my backpack which she was welcome to share. Dawn thanked me politely and stroked my shoulder, and we all caught up with the group being led to a fleet of feluccas awaiting us on the pier. Two of them were for us, and as we boarded, we were asked to remove our shoes and find a seat. My felucca held me and my drinking companions, Kirk, Dawn, and Andrew, along with the Hoskins and Margot. The other skiff accommodated Dr. Olebowski, Finneas, Brick, Carol, Chip, and an unknown German couple in baseball caps and pink noses who had been waiting on the dock to join a sailing party. When Brick heard them speaking to each other in German, he introduced everyone in his vessel with “und das ist” and “und dies ist” and everyone shook hands.
Our felucca captain and his sailing mate were a silent pair, so once we began to move, the details of our sights were left unexplained, leaving us to imagine the historical significance of ruined temples here and fallen pylons there. No matter how ancient the stone structures seemed, healthy green palm trees flourished on these tiny islands, marrying old civilization with new life. The disparity intrigued me, as did the large formation of rocks which resembled bathing elephants. Gigantic effigies emerging out of the seas. We sailed around these mighty mammoths in our assailable boat, and I felt incredibly insignificant as a momentary creature passing around their solid domain. It was one more incident to convince me that we tourists weren’t needed for Egypt to continue to thrive. She had done so for thousands of years without us and whatever would become of me and my companions, the land would outlive all of our passages. I once heard in English class that it takes a reader for a book to exist but I don’t think that this applies to places. Elephantine and the other islands with their nesting birds and swaying date trees would all survive just fine without us.
Dawn was drying out quite well during her unprepared prohibition, and as our boat caught a powerful gust of wind, she ran her fingers over the top of the rippling water and uplifted her face to the sun. The Nile had calmed us all. The warmth of the day and the movement on the water had soon transported me to a far-off place and I began to daydream about nothing at all. I might have sailed far off on my own if it had not been for the rattling of a tambourine which broke my trance, and as I looked up, our captain was shaking a rusted instrument in the air and singing a quick tune. We had left our ship the Serenade only to be captively serenaded.
We all laughed at Finneas’ remark and drank some more. The Coke and whiskey was still cool in Dawn’s pouch and it went down smoothly and warmed my stomach. The combination of this coolness and warmth comforted me nicely for the rest of the bus ride and while I was eager to reach the river, I was perfectly content sitting in the back of the bus with my drinking companions. Kirk continued to relate his midnight wanderings to us as Dr. Olebowski instructed the rest on the bus about some interesting history on Aswan and the islands. Kirk’s excursion, however, took us down a dark labyrinth of dark alleys and streets not mentioned in our initial brochures. As he followed his newfound friend from the suq through town, Kirk nervously looked back over his shoulder in case insidious brigands or outlaws, shrouded in the darkness like the conspirators of Cassius, waited to ambush the misled American. Kirk expressed how nervous he was as he passed a group of men in an alley who suddenly stopped their smoking of a shared hookah as he neared. Was this the end, he thought. Would he be robbed and killed and never heard from again? But the enticement to see forbidden, naked belly dancers was too great for our college instructor, so he bravely pushed on.
Kirk was no Genji. It was funny to me how dangerous he had described the evening, and I thought about Lady Murasaki’s Genji, the fearless lover-prince who spent his nights roaming the gridded streets of medieval Japan looking for illicit rendezvous. Genji flourished at night like a prowling cat and only the most secretive of maidens does he visit and seduce in the narrative. This wasn’t our Kirk, and we all knew it, which is probably why his harrowing tale became so entertaining to us. The only victim would be his wallet, for Egyptians are culturally adroit at inflating unmarked prices and then convincing travelers that negotiating fixed rates is unheard of and mortifyingly insulting.
Kirk did arrive safely at the show and he did see three or four voluptuous dancers who didn’t really take it all off as promised. The evening cost him eighty dollars, which Kirk was convinced was a fair price for a verboten evening of danger, hookah, and skin. Frankly, he probably paid twice as much as it was really worth, since everything here in Egypt is negotiable. But the adventure made Kirk happy and gave him years, if not decades, of relatable stories for his friends and colleagues back home.
When our bus stopped at a pleasant curb lined with palm and date trees, the group began to disembark, and Dawn alerted us to a disaster of colossal proportions: her pouch was dry. Until we could find a duty-free shop or return to the ship that night to refill her backpack with more whiskey, she informed us that we would only have water to drink. This made Dawn a tad moody because it wasn’t even noon and as she said, “It’s so nice to sail around with drinks.” I reassured her that I had plenty of bottled water in my backpack which she was welcome to share. Dawn thanked me politely and stroked my shoulder, and we all caught up with the group being led to a fleet of feluccas awaiting us on the pier. Two of them were for us, and as we boarded, we were asked to remove our shoes and find a seat. My felucca held me and my drinking companions, Kirk, Dawn, and Andrew, along with the Hoskins and Margot. The other skiff accommodated Dr. Olebowski, Finneas, Brick, Carol, Chip, and an unknown German couple in baseball caps and pink noses who had been waiting on the dock to join a sailing party. When Brick heard them speaking to each other in German, he introduced everyone in his vessel with “und das ist” and “und dies ist” and everyone shook hands.
Our felucca captain and his sailing mate were a silent pair, so once we began to move, the details of our sights were left unexplained, leaving us to imagine the historical significance of ruined temples here and fallen pylons there. No matter how ancient the stone structures seemed, healthy green palm trees flourished on these tiny islands, marrying old civilization with new life. The disparity intrigued me, as did the large formation of rocks which resembled bathing elephants. Gigantic effigies emerging out of the seas. We sailed around these mighty mammoths in our assailable boat, and I felt incredibly insignificant as a momentary creature passing around their solid domain. It was one more incident to convince me that we tourists weren’t needed for Egypt to continue to thrive. She had done so for thousands of years without us and whatever would become of me and my companions, the land would outlive all of our passages. I once heard in English class that it takes a reader for a book to exist but I don’t think that this applies to places. Elephantine and the other islands with their nesting birds and swaying date trees would all survive just fine without us.
Dawn was drying out quite well during her unprepared prohibition, and as our boat caught a powerful gust of wind, she ran her fingers over the top of the rippling water and uplifted her face to the sun. The Nile had calmed us all. The warmth of the day and the movement on the water had soon transported me to a far-off place and I began to daydream about nothing at all. I might have sailed far off on my own if it had not been for the rattling of a tambourine which broke my trance, and as I looked up, our captain was shaking a rusted instrument in the air and singing a quick tune. We had left our ship the Serenade only to be captively serenaded.
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