Muriel

MURIEL

Act 1

A Roll of Thunder

The Afternoon of June 16th, 2034

The city of Brandon, Manitoba looked tiny out the small, square window. From so high up in the cockpit of Cloud-RC843, the details of the town melted into a small patchwork of deep grey houses, grey high-rises, grey streets, and grey parks. Superimposed on the dusk-grey shadow world, Barney Kaleman could see the thin reflection of his own face in the glass between him and the cool, thin, high-altitude air.

He sat back, rubbing his neck, and noticed the oval-shaped smudge where his forehead had been resting on the pane. With the end of his shirtsleeve balled up over his hand he tried to wipe it away, and succeeded only in spreading the smudge into a thinner layer spread over a larger area.

He sighed.

The radio next to him crackled and the voice of his boss, Bruce Sweeney, stabbed out of the noisy mess.

Barney, you there? Look, I can’t explain right now, but you need to shut it down.

Upwards ratcheting eyebrows, What, all of it?

Yes.

The whole thing?

The whole god-damned thing.

But–

Barney, listen, please don’t fight me on this. Just shut it down, OK?

Barney looked over to the control panel, a hulking semi-circle stuffed full of outdated analog meters, big metal switches, and vacuum-tubes. He checked the meters for moisture, pressure, humidity, flow, viscosity, water purity, and pH level. He saw the entire intricate system of interconnected pipes and junctions, cisterns and reservoirs mapped out in a bewildering array of blinking blue and red lights.

The rest of the panel was a gargantuan bank of switches and knobs, controlling the various outflow valves, water purifiers, collecting tanks, and capacitors. The whole thing ticked and whirred, loudly. Lights blinked and winked, gauges creeped, and the green leading line of the big, circular radar screen spun its eternal pirouette.

Barney knew his system better than almost anyone and was proud to have helped keep it going for so long. Sometime in the future they would replace this old clunker with something sexier, but until then he would be here where he belonged.

Against his intuition he said, OK, Bruce. But you’re gonna owe me one. Don’t you forget. and Bruce, on the other end, thanked him.

The radio receiver clicked back onto the dark blue-green panel.

Barney looked at the master kill-switch. In the middle of a section devoid of all other buttons, it seemed small and delicate. For years it had been a distant red tickle in the corner of his eye, but in this new perspective it had a gained a visual gravity that seemed to suck everything towards it. He could feel slow waves of pulsing heat that he knew weren’t there. He felt himself drawn.

His finger hovered in a band of uneasy equilibrium just above the button’s concave surface. Then something in the air changed and his hand jerked away, as if shoved.

To calm himself he ran the procedure in his head, ran his hands lightly over the 27 switches and valves that he would have to open and close and press and turn and otherwise manipulate. He searched the whole panel, reminding himself of the locations of the various gauges and dials that told him the state of the whole system. He placed his finger back on the lonely little red button...

Flashback: A Weekday – 2006

Margot felt a foreign vibration on her hip. She reached down and pressed a button on the small, square pager on her hip. She was being summoned.

She approached The Office, and nervously straightened the pink bow tied under the collar of her turquoise blouse. She breathed in, breathed out, and knocked twice.

The door was simple, unimposing. Lacquered cedar with a window of frosted glass and a round knob. Behind it was a tastefully decorated office with a desk and a bookshelfed wall. On the milky pane stood six words printed in tasteful black text.

Malcolm Saville Goodwinn

Premier of Ontario

A thin voice uttered something she couldn’t make out and which she hoped was come in and not go away.

The doorknob was not quite cold and not exactly warm, as if someone had recently lingered on the threshold, chatting jovially at the end of a more serious conversation. Someone large. Someone boistrous. Someone energetic. A man’s hand. Somehow Margot knew that. She turned the knob and entered.

Large windows opened out onto a meadow of February-brown grass and a handful of large, barren trees. Certificates printed on heavy parchment hung in expensive frames. At the far end of the room a small, precise man sat behind a large, orderly desk. Typing.

Margot’s heels tupped thickly on the pool-table green carpet, a complex counterpoint and compliment to the sharp clack of the Premier’s keyboard and the subdued brown mahogany of the furniture. The Premier glanced up only briefly from His typing, Ah, Margot.

His voice reminded her of the reedy whistle you get when you stretch a blade of wide grass between your thumbs and blow, I do have your name right?

Caught off guard Margot stuttered, Yes, sir.

The Premier glanced up briefly again and flashed a not unmechanical smile, Welcome aboard.

She brightened, Thank you, sir.

The smile switched off and The Premier dropped His head back down to his keyboard, I need the provincial subcommittee financial records from the years 1900 to 1950.

Margot said, Yes, sir, and waited.

Awkwardly.

A clickity-clackity void swelled into the air between them and hung like a puff of black dust. Margot coughed uneasily, Copies, or originals, sir?

The keyboard clacked. He didn’t look up. He didn’t smile. He didn’t give any sign that he had heard her. She felt a point of anxious heat ignite between her lungs, as if a glowing iron marble had been teleported into the centre of her chest. Suddenly it bloomed, sending a wave of molten emotion through her veins to the ends of her fingers and the tips of her toes. And the room became bright, too bright.

She wanted to run, to flee the unbearable, embarrassing heat, but her limbs only began to tremble. Her breath became short and she looked around frantically. Beads of sweat formed on her scalp and began to trickle, follicle by follicle, down the back of her head to the fine hairs of the back of her neck. She had to do something to end the torment. She opened her mouth to speak and the word came out as a high-pitched squeak, Sir?

A long one-Mississippi stretched across the continent of silence between them, so long that Margot thought she was going to scream. Finally, the Premier said, The originals are fine. You can go.

Margot tried to move as quickly towards the door as she could without appearing to run. A wave of water doused her smouldering nervous system and at first it cooled, but as the door closed behind her it the water became steam, filling her head with a humid cloud. She leaned back against the wall and gulped at the air around her. Gradually, the temperature inside her body began to fall.

From somewhere up the hall she heard an energetic stomping, but she paid it no mind. Then, suddenly, a big, burly man came around the corner, spotted Margot leaning limply against the wall and called, Hey! You’re the new one, aren’t you? And without her even understanding how it happened, he was next to her, and then she was being swept along down the hall next to his broad shoulders and his wavy blond hair. His hand gripped her elbow gently and big, brilliant white teeth flashed, What’s your name?

Margot.

Well, Margot, why so glum? The words tumbled exuberantly from his mouth and Margot saw on his face an expression that reminded her of an impish stone cherub peeing into a fountain.

The friendly giant continued, Oh, I see, yes. The big Premier. The first time is always the hardest; it gets better with practice – that’s what she said.

He sniggered at his own joke as Margot stared in bewilderment at this bizarre man, who continued, He doesn’t seem like a people person, and he definitely isn’t, definitely. But he has his charms. They just take a bit of finding. I blame it on the lack of sunspots.

With an open hand he brushed away the apparently obvious objection that Margot was sure to want to interject to his odd statement, I know, I know. Big fat politician talking about astronomy. But I swear, if I could do math like I do people and politics, I’d have become a theoretical physicist faster than you can say Schrödinger.

At this Margot tried to articulate a question, but it proved largely unsuccessful, Who a- ?

His interruption fell like a good-natured guillotine, The sun, you see, what do you think it is?

And before Margot could even open her mouth to answer, "Ah but you’re going to say a star, and that’s obvious of course, and I’m going to have to start all over again. So I suppose, the better question is what is the sun made of?"

He paused dramatically.

"Right, Hydrogen! A proton and an electron. Can you imagine? All of that. A million times the size of Earth and a bajillion-million-trillion times little old you and little me, and quintillion of them blowing themselves to smithereens every second!"

I-

But it’s not consistent, you see? And the magnetism, all of this kablooey wreaks absolute havoc on the magnetic field. And don’t tell me you think that doesn’t have some kind of effect down here...

I think I’m a bit confus-

We’re not that far away, you know.

We aren’t?

From the sun? No! Of course not! A hundred and fifty million kilometers? Phooey. That’s nothing! Our entire solar system is just red and yellow balls on a snooker table in the vast cosmic pool-hall.

Cosmic pool-hall?

Yes! Listen, do you know anything about sociology? I mean, who does really? A bunch of ink sniffers locked in small rooms reading Foucault and Lacan, writing incomprehensible books about why society didn’t let them lose their virginity until they were 32. He laughed, "But seriously, do you?"

No.

But you have heard of the Zeitgeist, yes?

I’m afraid not.

"No? Shame. You should look it up. I have a book somewhere. See