Three Chords and a Web Domain: A One-Act Radio Drama
A one-act radio drama Three Chords and a Web Domain sends Clay Lowe and his Inner Council into a pirate radio studio with one live transmitter, one empty sentence box and nineteen minutes to decide what deserves to be said. Running time: 20–25 minutesSetting: beneath the Textual Underground—or inside Clay’s headForm: one act Radio drama...
one-act radio drama
Three Chords and a Web Domain sends Clay Lowe and his Inner Council into a pirate radio studio with one live transmitter, one empty sentence box and nineteen minutes to decide what deserves to be said.
Radio drama summary
Clay discovers that the pirate station beneath the Textual Underground isn’t recording a rehearsal. It’s already live. Worse, when the countdown reaches zero, the station will broadcast whatever sentence is sitting in its transmission field. There may be an audience, but the machinery refuses to confirm one.
The Inner Council gathers around the microphone. The Monk wants silence and more time. The Frontman wants an entrance. The Trainer arrives with learning objectives. The Queen of Swords asks for facts. The High Priestess listens for what the others keep editing out. The Praise Monkey refreshes an empty statistics panel because it wants proof that the work matters. Then the Trickster drops from the ceiling, the Guerrilla Blogger climbs through the window, and Eris arrives carrying the question that breaks the meeting open.
What begins as an argument about the right sentence becomes a confrontation with authorship. Clay has built a Council capable of voicing every hesitation, appetite and protective instinct. The Council can advise him, challenge him and keep him honest. It can’t relieve him of the final choice—or the possibility that he’ll transmit into silence.
About the play
This play began during a conversation about the Guerrilla Blogger, the member of my Inner Council who refuses the chair, enters through the window and asks whether the work is still alive. I was feeling the influence of Harold Jaffe’s compressed, documentary-minded writing and thinking about the old-web proposition that punk publishing needs little more than three chords and a domain name. Then I typed: today we invite Eris into the studio.
The radio drama arrived as the right container. Radio lets a voice exist before anybody can prove who is listening. A blog works in much the same way: you make the page, send the signal and wait without knowing where it will land. The studio gave the Council somewhere to meet that wasn’t a diagram or a psychological explanation. Once they had microphones, a countdown and a dangerous sentence box, they could reveal themselves by what they tried to protect.
The Inner Council isn’t a personality test or a claim that the psyche divides neatly into named parts. It’s a working dramatic grammar. Each figure holds a recognisable pressure: depth, attention, usefulness, evidence, reach, disorder, approval, responsibility. The play allows those pressures to argue in public. Eris doesn’t resolve the argument. She distrusts the sentence everyone can approve and asks for the one nobody wants transmitted.
Characters
CLAY
Writer, blogger and reluctant chair of the meeting. He gives every voice room, then has to face the fact that the final decision is his.
THE MONK
Protects depth, silence and the sentence that has spent enough time underground to become true.
THE FRONTMAN
Protects performance, reach and the electric possibility that someone might be listening.
THE TRAINER
Protects usefulness, structure and the hope that every mystery can survive contact with a flip chart.
THE HIGH PRIESTESS
Hears what everyone else edits out and keeps returning Clay to the question beneath the meeting.
THE QUEEN OF SWORDS
Protects fact, precision and responsibility. She keeps the receipts and punctures empty language.
THE TRICKSTER
Contaminates blank spaces with possibility, mocks certainty and probably has the golden apple in his pocket.
THE SOVEREIGN
Convenes the Council and holds direction, although even this authority may be another way for Clay to stand outside his own choice.
THE GUERRILLA BLOGGER
The punk transmitter of live signals. He wants one person, one signal and no permission—and naturally enters through the window.
THE PRAISE MONKEY
Lives beside the statistics panel. Beneath the refreshing and approval-seeking is a raw desire for proof that the work reached somebody.
ERIS
Goddess of discord and enemy of conclusions that have become suspiciously tidy. She brings the question nobody else wants asked.
THE STATION
An automated voice with uncertain loyalties, a countdown and the power to broadcast whatever sentence remains in the box.
Questions running beneath the comedy
Read the complete script
The script is divided into thirteen short transmissions for reading on the page. Use the buttons to move through it. When the reader has keyboard focus, the left and right arrow keys turn the pages.
Soulcruzer Radio
Page 1 of 13
Dead air
MUSIC: A LOW ANALOGUE DRONE. SOMEWHERE INSIDE IT, THREE BADLY PLAYED GUITAR CHORDS TRY TO BECOME A SONG.
SFX: AN OLD RADIO DIAL TUNING THROUGH STATIC. VOICES FLASH PAST.
VOICE ONE, DISTANT
Your call is important to us—
VOICE TWO, DISTANT
—unprecedented demand—
VOICE THREE, DISTANT
—to improve your experience—
VOICE FOUR, DISTANT
—terms and conditions apply—
SFX: A SHARP CLICK. SILENCE.
CLAY
Is this thing on?
SFX: MICROPHONE FEEDBACK.
CLAY
I'll take that as a yes.
STATION
Transmission begins in nineteen minutes.
CLAY
Nineteen?
STATION
Eighteen minutes, fifty-four seconds.
CLAY
I thought we were recording.
STATION
You are broadcasting live.
CLAY
To whom?
STATION
Audience information unavailable.
CLAY
Of course it is.
SFX: A HEAVY WOODEN DOOR OPENS.
MONK
I object.
CLAY
You've only just arrived.
MONK
I began objecting in the corridor.
CLAY
We're live.
MONK
Exactly.
SFX: ROBES BRUSHING AGAINST PAPERS. A CHAIR SCRAPES.
MONK
Where is the script?
CLAY
There isn't one.
MONK
Research notes?
CLAY
Somewhere.
MONK
Sources?
CLAY
Also somewhere.
MONK
An argument?
CLAY
We're hoping one emerges.
MONK
Then this is not broadcasting. It is public composting.
SFX: A SECOND DOOR FLIES OPEN. APPLAUSE AND A BURST OF ENTRANCE MUSIC.
FRONTMAN
Good evening, beautiful people!
CLAY
We don't know if anyone's listening.
FRONTMAN
Never let audience data interfere with an entrance.
FRONTMAN, TO MIC
You're listening to Soulcruzer Radio, transmitting live from the deepest available frequency—
MONK
Don't tell them where we are.
FRONTMAN
—with your host, the barefoot philosopher himself—
CLAY
I'm wearing socks.
FRONTMAN
Nobody can see that.
CLAY
It's radio.
FRONTMAN
Precisely. On radio, we are limited only by the listener's imagination and the legal department.
STATION
No legal department detected.
FRONTMAN
Even better.
The workshop plan
SFX: RAPID FOOTSTEPS. A FLIP CHART UNFOLDS WITH A CLATTER.
TRAINER
Right! I've prepared a broadcast structure.
MONK
Burn it.
TRAINER
We open with a learning objective—
FRONTMAN
We open with music.
TRAINER
—then a short paired reflection—
CLAY
The audience can't pair up. We don't even know if there is an audience.
TRAINER
They can pair with themselves.
MONK
That is called thinking.
TRAINER
Not if it isn't on the worksheet.
SFX: MARKER PEN SQUEAKING ACROSS PAPER.
TRAINER
By the end of this transmission, listeners will be able to identify three internal archetypes, describe their protective functions, and construct a personal action plan—
SFX: PAPER TEARS SLOWLY.
TRAINER
High Priestess.
HIGH PRIESTESS
Yes?
TRAINER
Did you just tear up my learning objectives?
HIGH PRIESTESS
No.
TRAINER
I heard paper tearing.
HIGH PRIESTESS
Then perhaps the paper was ready.
SFX: A SMALL BELL. THE ROOM SEEMS TO GROW LARGER.
CLAY
How long have you been here?
HIGH PRIESTESS
Since before you switched on the microphone.
CLAY
Why didn't you say anything?
HIGH PRIESTESS
I did.
CLAY
I didn't hear you.
HIGH PRIESTESS
Yes.
SFX: A SWORD DRAWN AN INCH FROM ITS SCABBARD.
QUEEN OF SWORDS
Before this becomes completely unbearable, we need facts.
FRONTMAN
Facts ruin the atmosphere.
QUEEN OF SWORDS
The atmosphere is currently hot dust, old coffee and unexamined projection.
CLAY
Facts, then.
QUEEN OF SWORDS
We have seventeen minutes of airtime, no agreed subject, no confirmed audience and a transmitter of unknown provenance. The last person to service this equipment appears to have signed the logbook "Lemuel Johnstone."
MONK
Impossible.
QUEEN OF SWORDS
I didn't say it was true. I said it was written in the logbook.
CLAY
Anything else?
QUEEN OF SWORDS
Someone has placed a golden apple on the mixing desk.
MUSIC: ONE LOW, OMINOUS CHORD.
CLAY
Nobody touch it.
FRONTMAN
Is it a prize?
TRAINER
Could be an activity.
MONK
Could be a test.
HIGH PRIESTESS
Could be an apple.
Refresh the nothing
SFX: QUICK FOOTSTEPS. A SMALL CREATURE SCRAMBLES ONTO THE DESK.
PRAISE MONKEY
How many listeners?
CLAY
We don't know.
PRAISE MONKEY
Check again.
CLAY
There's nothing to check.
PRAISE MONKEY
Refresh it.
CLAY
Refresh what?
PRAISE MONKEY
The nothing.
SFX: BUTTON PRESSED REPEATEDLY.
PRAISE MONKEY
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Oh! Still nothing.
QUEEN OF SWORDS
Step away from the statistics panel.
PRAISE MONKEY
I only want to know if we matter.
CLAY
We mattered before we switched on the transmitter.
PRAISE MONKEY
Unverified claim.
QUEEN OF SWORDS
He's learning.
STATION
Fifteen minutes until mandatory transmission.
CLAY
Mandatory?
STATION
At zero, the station will broadcast the sentence entered into the transmission field.
CLAY
What sentence?
STATION
Current sentence follows.
SFX: MECHANICAL KEYS STRIKING PAPER.
STATION
"Buy more things and call the resulting exhaustion a personality."
SILENCE.
TRAINER
Strong opener.
QUEEN OF SWORDS
Who entered that?
SFX: A QUIET GIGGLE MOVES AROUND THE ROOM, NEVER FROM THE SAME PLACE TWICE.
TRICKSTER
Entered what?
CLAY
Come out.
TRICKSTER
I'm not hiding.
CLAY
I can't see you.
TRICKSTER
You have confused those two conditions before.
The sentence box
SFX: THE TRICKSTER DROPS FROM THE CEILING AND LANDS BADLY.
TRICKSTER
Ah.
FRONTMAN
Did you change the sentence?
TRICKSTER
I improved it.
QUEEN OF SWORDS
It was blank.
TRICKSTER
Exactly.
MONK
Put it back.
TRICKSTER
You can't put a blank sentence back. The blank has been contaminated by possibility.
TRAINER
I could run a short session on that.
ALL: No.
CLAY
We need one sentence worth transmitting.
FRONTMAN
Easy. "The time has come to step into the fullest expression of who you were born to be."
QUEEN OF SWORDS
Rejected for aggravated emptiness.
MONK
"Silence is the only honest transmission."
FRONTMAN
That's why nobody invites you onto podcasts.
TRAINER
"Reflection without action is merely sophisticated avoidance."
HIGH PRIESTESS
You put mystery in a hi-vis vest.
TRAINER
People need to know where it is.
TRICKSTER
I propose: "The government has replaced the moon with a customer-service chatbot."
QUEEN OF SWORDS
On what evidence?
TRICKSTER
Have you spoken to the moon recently?
QUEEN OF SWORDS
Rejected.
PRAISE MONKEY
"Please like and subscribe."
CLAY
Get off the desk.
PRAISE MONKEY
I speak for the wounded child.
QUEEN OF SWORDS
The wounded child may submit a written minority report.
The Guerrilla Blogger
SFX: A WINDOW RATTLES.
CLAY
Did anyone open that?
SFX: WINDOW SLIDES UP. WIND. DISTANT CITY TRAFFIC. A DOG BARKS. THREE GUITAR CHORDS CRASH IN.
GUERRILLA BLOGGER
Nobody move.
FRONTMAN
Who are you?
GUERRILLA BLOGGER
You know who I am.
MONK
Use the door.
GUERRILLA BLOGGER
Doors are owned infrastructure.
SFX: BOOTS LAND ON THE FLOOR. A BAG OF CABLES, NOTEBOOKS AND CHEAP MICROPHONES HITS THE GROUND.
GUERRILLA BLOGGER
Which one of you approved this meeting?
SOVEREIGN
I did.
SFX: ALL CHAIRS SHIFT SLIGHTLY. THE ROOM COMES INTO FOCUS.
CLAY
You're late.
SOVEREIGN
I have been listening.
CLAY
That seems to be going around.
SOVEREIGN
Continue.
GUERRILLA BLOGGER
Continue? You've got a live transmitter, an open frequency and fourteen minutes before the machine sends whatever sentence happens to be in the box. Meanwhile, half the Council is polishing a position statement and the other half is checking whether silence has an ISBN.
MONK
It sometimes does.
GUERRILLA BLOGGER
The web was built for this. One person. One signal. No permission.
FRONTMAN
Finally, someone who understands me.
GUERRILLA BLOGGER
I don't understand you. You want a stage. I want an exit wound in the official story.
FRONTMAN
That sounds rehearsed.
GUERRILLA BLOGGER
Everything sounds rehearsed after it survives contact with language.
CLAY
What sentence would you transmit?
GUERRILLA BLOGGER
Whichever one is still breathing.
TRAINER
Can we define "breathing" in behavioural terms?
GUERRILLA BLOGGER
No.
TRAINER
Thought not.
To the most real
SFX: GOLDEN APPLE ROLLS ACROSS THE DESK.
HIGH PRIESTESS
It moved.
QUEEN OF SWORDS
The desk is uneven.
TRICKSTER
The universe is uneven.
QUEEN OF SWORDS
You are uneven.
TRICKSTER
At last, a fact.
CLAY
What does the apple say?
HIGH PRIESTESS
"To the most real."
FRONTMAN
That's me.
MONK
That response alone disqualifies you.
TRAINER
We could vote.
TRICKSTER
Historically, voting on golden apples has produced mixed results.
SOVEREIGN
Nobody is voting.
PRAISE MONKEY
Could we put it to an audience poll?
QUEEN OF SWORDS
No audience has been established.
PRAISE MONKEY
That's never stopped an online poll.
STATION
Ten minutes until mandatory transmission.
CLAY
Perhaps the question isn't what sentence we should send.
MONK
Good.
CLAY
Perhaps it's who gets to choose.
SOVEREIGN
Better.
FRONTMAN
The person who can make it travel.
MONK
The person who knows whether it is true.
TRAINER
The person who knows what it is for.
HIGH PRIESTESS
The person who knows what has been left unsaid.
QUEEN OF SWORDS
The person prepared to take responsibility for the consequences.
TRICKSTER
The person least qualified.
PRAISE MONKEY
The person with the most followers.
GUERRILLA BLOGGER
The sentence chooses the transmitter.
CLAY
That sounds suspiciously mystical.
GUERRILLA BLOGGER
I'm wearing a punk jacket. It confuses people.
In the dark
SFX: THE LIGHTS DIE. THE TRANSMITTER HUMS ON.
STATION
Auxiliary power engaged.
MONK
Who turned off the lights?
TRICKSTER
Darkness is merely unpublished light.
QUEEN OF SWORDS
If you say one more thing like that, I will make you measurable.
SFX: SOMEONE MOVES IN THE DARK. THE APPLE ROLLS. A CHAIR FALLS.
TRAINER
We need a health and safety briefing.
FRONTMAN
Clay?
CLAY
I'm here.
HIGH PRIESTESS
No, you aren't.
CLAY
I just said I was.
HIGH PRIESTESS
You have been hosting the argument. You have not entered it.
SILENCE.
CLAY
Ah.
SFX: THE TRANSMITTER'S HUM DEEPENS.
HIGH PRIESTESS
What are you protecting yourself from?
CLAY
We're running out of time.
HIGH PRIESTESS
That is not an answer.
CLAY
It's a radio drama. Time is literally passing.
SOVEREIGN
Answer her.
CLAY
Fine.
PAUSE.
CLAY
I'm protecting myself from choosing the wrong sentence.
MONK
Sensible.
FRONTMAN
Cowardly.
QUEEN OF SWORDS
Both may be true.
CLAY
If I send nothing, the moment passes. If I send something half-formed, it may be foolish, self-indulgent or wrong. If I wait until I'm certain, I may never say anything. If I transmit every live impulse, I become noise.
GUERRILLA BLOGGER
Now we're getting somewhere.
CLAY
I'm also protecting myself from silence after transmission.
PRAISE MONKEY, SOFTLY
I knew it.
CLAY
You spend hours making something, then put it into the world. Sometimes a stranger answers. Sometimes nobody does. The piece sits there on the blog like a radio sending into the night, and you don't know whether the signal crossed the garden wall.
FRONTMAN
It needs an audience.
MONK
It needed to be written.
TRAINER
It may become useful later.
HIGH PRIESTESS
The silence may be part of its journey.
QUEEN OF SWORDS
Or nobody read it.
CLAY
Thank you.
QUEEN OF SWORDS
You invited me.
Speaking anyway
STATION
Six minutes until mandatory transmission.
SFX: LIGHTS FLICKER BACK ON.
CLAY
What's in the transmission field now?
STATION
Current sentence follows.
SFX: MECHANICAL KEYS.
STATION
"I don't know if anyone is listening."
FRONTMAN
Too weak.
MONK
Honest.
TRAINER
Lacks an outcome.
GUERRILLA BLOGGER
Keep it.
QUEEN OF SWORDS
It is factually supportable.
TRICKSTER
Needs a second line.
SOVEREIGN
The machine permits one sentence.
TRICKSTER
Punctuation is a colonial boundary.
QUEEN OF SWORDS
Don't.
TRICKSTER
Semicolon.
CLAY
"I don't know if anyone is listening; I'm speaking anyway."
SFX: A SMALL ELECTRICAL SURGE.
STATION
Sentence accepted.
FRONTMAN
It could have more lift.
MONK
It could have less.
TRAINER
Could we add a reflective question?
ALL: No.
PRAISE MONKEY
What if nobody likes it?
CLAY
Come here.
SFX: THE PRAISE MONKEY CLIMBS ONTO CLAY'S SHOULDER.
PRAISE MONKEY
I'm not shallow.
CLAY
I know.
PRAISE MONKEY
I want proof we reached someone.
CLAY
I know.
PRAISE MONKEY
I want someone to say we're not wasting our life.
CLAY
I know.
PRAISE MONKEY
Are we?
CLAY
I don't know.
PRAISE MONKEY
Terrible leadership.
SOVEREIGN
Honest leadership.
Eris in the studio
SFX: THE WINDOW BLOWS WIDER. PAPERS LIFT AND MOVE AROUND THE ROOM.
ERIS, DISTANT
Are you sure that's your sentence?
MUSIC: A SINGLE PLUCKED STRING.
CLAY
Eris.
ERIS
You invited me into the studio.
CLAY
I didn't invite you into the drama.
ERIS
There is no meaningful difference.
SFX: FOOTSTEPS THAT SEEM TO COME FROM EVERY DIRECTION.
ERIS
"I don't know if anyone is listening; I'm speaking anyway."
CLAY
Yes.
ERIS
Very brave.
TRICKSTER
She doesn't mean that.
ERIS
Very tasteful. Vulnerable, but not embarrassingly so. Defiant, but unlikely to alarm existing subscribers. Suitable for printing on a mug.
CLAY
What's wrong with it?
ERIS
Nothing.
CLAY
That sounds worse.
ERIS
I merely wonder whether you are speaking because you have something to say or because silence makes you doubt you exist.
SILENCE.
PRAISE MONKEY
I don't like her.
ERIS
You are the only honest creature in the room.
PRAISE MONKEY
I'm reconsidering.
SOVEREIGN
What do you propose?
ERIS
I propose nothing. Proposals are how councils turn danger into stationery.
SFX: ERIS PICKS UP THE APPLE.
ERIS
I brought a question, not an answer.
CLAY
Which question?
ERIS
What is the sentence nobody here wants transmitted?
SFX: THE TRANSMITTER HUM STOPS.
The sentence nobody wants transmitted
STATION
Three minutes.
MONK
We should adjourn.
FRONTMAN
We should double the power.
TRAINER
We should take one minute individually, then share in pairs.
QUEEN OF SWORDS
We should identify the actual risk.
HIGH PRIESTESS
We should listen.
GUERRILLA BLOGGER
We should stop saying "should."
TRICKSTER
We should broadcast the shopping list.
SOVEREIGN
Clay?
SFX: A HEARTBEAT, VERY QUIET.
CLAY
The sentence nobody wants transmitted.
PAUSE.
CLAY
"I have built an entire council so I never have to admit that the final decision is mine."
SILENCE.
PRAISE MONKEY
Oh.
MONK
That is unfair.
FRONTMAN
It's good radio.
TRAINER
There's a workshop in it.
QUEEN OF SWORDS
It is incomplete, but true enough to examine.
HIGH PRIESTESS
Keep going.
CLAY
The Monk can ask for more time. The Frontman can demand an audience. The Trainer can call for usefulness. The Queen can demand evidence. The Trickster can mock the whole enterprise. The Praise Monkey can blame the statistics. Even the Sovereign can pretend governance is something separate from me.
SOVEREIGN
I do not pretend.
CLAY
You're doing it now.
SOVEREIGN
Fair.
CLAY
I can let all of you speak. I can honour what you protect. But eventually somebody has to place a hand on the control and accept that the transmission may fail.
Distillation
STATION
Ninety seconds.
ERIS
Better.
CLAY
Is that the sentence?
GUERRILLA BLOGGER
Too long.
TRICKSTER
Put it on a very large mug.
QUEEN OF SWORDS
Distil it.
HIGH PRIESTESS
Don't improve it. Find the living part.
MONK
The final decision.
FRONTMAN
Is mine.
TRAINER
Somebody has to act.
PRAISE MONKEY
It may fail.
CLAY
There.
SFX: CLAY TYPES.
STATION
Sixty seconds. Current sentence follows.
SFX: MECHANICAL KEYS, SLOWLY.
STATION
"The signal may fail; the decision is still mine."
PAUSE.
SOVEREIGN
I consent.
QUEEN OF SWORDS
I have no factual objection.
HIGH PRIESTESS
The hidden text has entered the sentence.
TRAINER
I can work with it.
FRONTMAN
I can sell it.
MONK
Don't.
TRICKSTER
I have already changed one letter.
CLAY
What letter?
TRICKSTER
You'll find out on air.
The broadcast
STATION
Thirty seconds.
SFX: EQUIPMENT POWERS UP. RELAYS CLICK. THE THREE GUITAR CHORDS RETURN, LOUDER AND DIRTIER.
GUERRILLA BLOGGER
Open the window.
CLAY
It's already open.
GUERRILLA BLOGGER
Wider.
SFX: WINDOW SHOVED UP. NIGHT AIR RUSHES INTO THE STUDIO.
FRONTMAN
Everyone to microphones.
MONK
Why?
FRONTMAN
Because nobody should face dead air alone.
TRAINER
That is surprisingly good.
FRONTMAN
I contain multitudes and excellent cheekbones.
PRAISE MONKEY
Listener count!
QUEEN OF SWORDS
Leave it.
PRAISE MONKEY
But—
QUEEN OF SWORDS
Sit with us.
SFX: THE PRAISE MONKEY SETTLES.
STATION
Ten. Nine. Eight.
ERIS
Where's the apple?
TRICKSTER
What apple?
STATION
Seven. Six. Five.
CLAY
Ready?
MONK
No.
FRONTMAN
Yes.
TRAINER
Mostly.
HIGH PRIESTESS
Listen.
QUEEN OF SWORDS
Proceed.
GUERRILLA BLOGGER
Transmit.
SOVEREIGN
Clay decides.
STATION
Three. Two. One.
SFX: A GREAT SURGE OF STATIC, THEN PERFECT SILENCE.
CLAY, INTO MIC
The signal may fail; the decision is still mine.
SFX: THE SENTENCE ECHOES, NOT GRANDLY, BUT AS IF PASSING THROUGH MANY SMALL RADIOS IN DIFFERENT ROOMS.
A KITCHEN RADIO.
A CAR SPEAKER.
A PHONE BENEATH A PILLOW.
AN OLD RECEIVER IN AN EMPTY SHED.
THEN STATIC.
PAUSE.
One listener
PRAISE MONKEY, WHISPERING
Did anyone hear it?
SFX: FAR AWAY, A SINGLE RADIO CLICKS ON.
UNKNOWN LISTENER, VERY FAINT
I did.
SFX: CONNECTION LOST.
PRAISE MONKEY
One!
FRONTMAN
We're a movement.
TRAINER
I'll prepare the follow-up.
MONK
We should never do this again.
TRICKSTER
Same time tomorrow?
HIGH PRIESTESS
The apple is gone.
QUEEN OF SWORDS
Check his pockets.
SFX: THE TRICKSTER RUNS. CHAIRS FALL. THE TRAINER SHOUTS ABOUT CABLES. THE FRONTMAN LAUGHS. THE MONK PROTESTS. THE PRAISE MONKEY RAPIDLY REFRESHES SOMETHING.
CLAY
Wait. We're still live.
ALL STOP.
STATION
Correct.
PAUSE.
GUERRILLA BLOGGER, CLOSE TO MIC
Good.
MUSIC: THREE GUITAR CHORDS. THIS TIME THEY BECOME A SONG.
FADE OUT.
Tip: click the reader, then use ← and → to turn pages.
JavaScript is switched off, so the complete script is shown as a continuous reading copy.
Here’s a PDF version if you’d prefer to download and read.
Did you enjoy this article?
Recommend it — Standard Reader surfaces well-loved writing to more readers across the network.