Scribblers go Victorian! Part 2

The scene is the same as before, but about 10 minutes later.

AMITY and LYRIC have been making tea on the kitchen stove, SHIFT is experimenting with Victorian posture, and WRAITH has decided to embody his Victorian counterpart, the Invisible Man. He is completely invisible apart from a hat and his glasses.

CHRONAL is watching FINESSE apprehensively. FINESSE is pacing. She does not look happy.

FINESSE: The Victorians. Why the Victorians? Well, I suppose it’s obvious, really. What other era would a semi-literate ignoramus with an inappropriate gift choose for himself? Everyone knows the Victorians. Apparently. And what a perfect choice for a man who thinks you can learn to write by following a set of rules broken down into week by week lessons. No creativity, no divergence from the standard. Frankly, the Narrator is the most Victorian villain we’ve ever come across.

CHRONAL: Ignoramus?

FINESSE: Yes.

CHRONAL: I don’t think I’ve ever heard you use that word before. It’s rather...Victorian.

FINESSE: Good point. And that was a rather 19th Century English colloquialism.

SHIFT: We’re still changing. Can you feel it? Our language is altering to fit the tropes of the age. Our natures, similarly, will begin to (she laughs softly) shift to accommodate them.

CHRONAL: You do not propose that we accept this state of affairs?

SHIFT: The idea could not be further from my thoughts.

LYRIC: The powers my errant brother employs have limits, just as my own do.

AMITY: I think I begin to see.

SHIFT: We must fight, Scribblers. Resist the change! We must clutch our own lexicon between our teeth, wrap our minds around the 21st century and refuse to accept our new personas.

WRAITH: What evs, bruv.

SHIFT: Quite.

FINESSE: OK. We talk normally, we keep a handle on our own reality, he can’t turn us into his pawns. Remember what we are to each other, really. Amity, my new memories are telling me you’re Mr Alun’s, sorry, you’re Chronal’s ward, and I’m fighting the urge to take you aside and warn you not to flirt with Lyric, because he is a renowned bounder.

AMITY: Wow, we really are in a terrible narrative! My new memories say I’m secretly engaged to a man from another part of town and we plan to elope. Shift knows, and wants to help.

SHIFT: Yes, but only because I’m Finesse’s sister and I know Finesse will be disinherited if Amity runs off with the wrong man.

LYRIC: 17 weeks of lessons and he’s still writing Eastenders in cravats.

FINESSE: OK. As soon as I get anywhere near him I can start getting him to reverse this, but for now we’re inside his narrative so we have to take care of ourselves. Watch your language. Remember who we are. Any ideas how we find him?

LYRIC: He’s the Prime Minister.

CHRONAL: Ah. Naturally. When one is not bound by the veil of ignorance, and may pick one’s own position, it is logical to choose something highly defensible.

FINESSE: Rephrase.

CHRONAL: Sorry. It’ll be hard to get at the Prime Minister.

LYRIC: Not if you’re the Prime Minister’s disreputable elder brother, always turning up asking to borrow money for his waster friends and their crazy ideas. Chronal, you spent £300 trying to build a zeppelin last month.

CHRONAL: So I did.

FINESSE: Shall we go?

SHIFT: I’ll meet you there. I’m going to fly. It’s a good chance to see Victorian London, even if it is the Narrator’s idea of it.

FINESSE: OK, but no bats. We’re not doing anything that resembles a Victorian narrative. In fact, Wraith, take off that hat.

The HAT drifts slowly down onto the chaise longue.

WRAITH: Just jokin’, innit.

FINESSE: Thank you. Let’s go.

The SCRIBBLERS walk through the ‘Victorian’ streets. They pass about three street boys who offer to shine their shoes, at least 4 ladies of negotiable affection, and 7 groups of young dandies out for a night on the town.

FINESSE is seething.

FINESSE: I hate Victorians.

AMITY: They aren’t Victorians.

FINESSE: I know that.

AMITY: I think they do, too. They feel pretty strange. Their surface emotions are all what you can see, but there’s a sort of underlying confusion to them all too. It’s like their true natures are buried, rather than converted.

FINESSE: Can they fight it?

AMITY: I’m not sure. We did. I could try boosting their confusion so it’s dominant, but I can’t help them understand what they’re confused about.

LYRIC: This is huge. I can’t do this. He’s altering people’s minds.

AMITY: But it isn’t real, Lyric. When you speak a rope into existence, then we’ve got a rope. He’s only creating a fiction and getting everyone to play along. The scale’s bigger, but the real change is less.

FINESSE: The effect on the world is real, though. I am seriously dressed like Ralph Nickelby’s mother.

They walk past Sweeney Todd’s barber’s, next to the pie shop. No-one comments.

A few streets down, they come across an old man with a youthful face, white hair and a high, aquiline nose. He speaks to a young woman in an Eastern European accent. She seems oddly hypnotised. Oh, and she’s wearing a nightie. She turns and begins to walk away with him.

An owl swoops down and heads straight for the old man, who promptly turns into a flock of bats. They peck at the owl, but are no match for the strength of the beating wings, and eventually they fly off.

The owl re-materialises into a slightly dishevelled Shift. Everyone looks very proud of her.

AMITY (to the girl): Are you all right?

GIRL: I...believe so. And yet I seem to be in the street clad in nothing but my night dress, so I am compelled to seek a second opinion.

LYRIC: Can you tell me your name?

GIRL: Lucy.

AMITY (Looking at her hard): Are you sure?

GIRL: I...I...what sorcery is this? I find I am two people. I am Lucy, and also Amy. And Amy is so very strange. So cruel to a man who adores her and off she runs, chasing the vampire. The things she has done. She can’t take them back. No. I shan’t be Amy. Leave me. I know you mean well. Good night.

The GIRL runs off towards a house with an open window and a white curtain billowing from it.

The SCRIBBLERS look awkwardly at each other for a minute.

AMITY: Yes. You can fight it off.

FINESSE: Good to know. Come on.

The SCRIBBLERS arrive at the Houses of Parliament.

DOOR MAN: Excuse me, ladies, you should know that no woman is permitted to pass into this House.

FINESSE: Really? Well my friend here is a tiger.

SHIFT obligingly makes this so.

FINESSE: Does that change things?

The 6 walk through, and SHIFT growls at the door man on her way past. He is very scared, of course.

WRAITH steals his keys on the way past, and uses them to open all the doors in their way. When at all possible, he does this in full view of a stranger so it’s not long before the halls echo with screams of people who are sure they’ve seen a ghost.

They arrive at the main chamber of the House of Commons, where the Narrator is in the middle of a rather mediocre speech which is nonetheless being very well received. He reaches a rousing conclusion.

LYRIC: Hello, little brother.

NARRATOR: Ah, Mr Jones. Come to ask for a loan, I suppose?

His insufferable lackies laugh.

NARRATOR: And I see you’ve brought your circus. Still, I really must protest, old boy. The tiger is one thing, quite a novelty, in fact, but the women? Why you let them get involved in your little games I’ll never understand.

More sycophantic response from the lackies.

The SCRIBBLERS all shift into fighting stance, but none move.

FINESSE: Your call, Jom.

NARRATOR: Not that I mind helping you out with a few titbits here and there, of course. After all, you are essentially a tradesman in talent. Good at making things, you see. Personally, I’m more cerebral. I govern countries, Jomas, make whole worlds out of words. What, at the end of the day, can you make?

JOM: ROPE.

Ropes fly out of the air and bind up the Narrator.

JOM: GAG.

A gag attaches itself to the Narrator’s mouth.

JOM: Point one, a Prime Minister’s brother would never, under any circumstances, interrupt a session at the House of Commons to ask for a personal loan. Point two, how can a ward possibly be older than her warders? Point three, women were allowed to enter the House, just not to participate. And point four, “old boy” is a 20th century colloquialism, you ignoramus.

The NARRATOR fights to get free of his bonds, but he can’t.

JOM: Do you have any idea what you’ve done? You’ve altered people’s minds. You’ve given them whole alternative lives. How many marriages have you broken up, do you think? How many jobs lost? This is a work shop, isn’t it? All this is basically because you’re doing your homework. GAGS, RELEASE.

The gag comes off of the NARRATOR, who looks quite ashamed of himself.

JOM: You are 21 years old. I am staggered that you can be this self-centred, and to top it all off, also this ignorant of Victorian literature. How arrogant to do so much damage you can’t even undo.

NARRATOR: I can undo it.

JOM: Of course you can’t. You’ll get it wrong. You’ll remember how things were badly, put things back in the wrong places.

NARRATOR: You think I have to do it from memory? I’m a lot more powerful than you think, Jomas. AND THEN EVERYTHING RETURNED TO THE WAY IT WAS BEFORE THE NARRATOR BEGAN THE CHANGE.

JOM: GAG.

The SCRIBBLERS are walking away through the now normal streets back to their base.

LYRIC: We’ve got to find a better way than that. He’s not going to listen to me again.

FINESSE: We’ll think of something, when we have to.

They walk past the GIRL from the vampire scene. She’s in modern clothes now, and talking to a very nice looking chap, who couldn’t look more delighted at what she’s saying.

GIRL: I’m sorry I said no before. I was just scared, I suppose. Of course I want to go out with you, if you still want to...

The SCRIBBLERS walk off, the couple are kissing in the background.