(Part One)
(Part Two)
INT. EYRIE - DAY
Miffed Matt, bruised and bound, is shoved roughly into the chamber high above Spoon Town. DOOTY MANAGERS #1 AND #2 follow after him. They bow to Grand Humungous Timmartin, a towering behemoth in arcane breathing apparatus and gimp suit with uncovered nipples, then turn and bow a little less enthusiastically to Timmartin’s second-in-command, a wretched and stunted creature, salmon-eyed and piranha-toothed, a limp little potato-faced wart known as NIGE FARAZZE.
MIFFED MATT
I see you’re looking as hale as ever, Farazze.
Farazze wimpers and crawls to Timmartin, starts suckling at the larger man’s teat.
TIMMARTIN
Nige Farazze is Prince of the Tender Boyz, Leader of the Yewkippers, Supreme Jussaruggular of the Blokes, and I will not have him disrespected by you, worm.
Nige Farazze purrs and laps his moist tongue around his master’s exposed nipple.
Timmartin removes a spiked glove and with a great veiny hand slaps Farazze so hard that the runty man goes skidding across the floor.
TIMMARTIN
He is, however, utterly repugnant.
MIFFED MATT
Why am I not surprised to find you sitting at the corner of this web, Timmartin?
TIMMARTIN
And why am I not surprised to find you at my mercy shackled before me, Miffed Matt?
MIFFED MATT
You know you won’t get away with this.
TIMMARTIN
But, Matt -- I already have. Just this week a mounted column of my fiercest Tender Boyz dissolved the last of the senate in Brussels -- dissolved them in vats of acid, specifically -- and set a torch to their holy books of Ee-Yew legislation. The last remnants of your old world have been swept away. You are a man out of time, Matt. With your German efficiency and your Latino hips and your mullet adored by men of the Netherlands, you stand for an integrated world that no longer exists. I have seen to that. From Pole to Pole now there is only the wasteland, a new order based upon each man standing by himself, for himself, and garroting any who get in his way. Strong and stable castles in the dark, each of us, unassailable, impenetrable, protected from the horrors outside our walls.
Timmartin leads the way out onto a balcony overlooking the town.
TIMMARTIN (CONT’D)
Look, Matt. Look at the beauty we have created.
MIFFED MATT’S POV - SCAVENGERS
A group of brutish scavengers are kicking a pig to death.
BACK TO SCENE
TIMMARTIN (CONT’D)
We were tired of those out-of-touch banana-straighteners in Brussels telling us what to do, so we wrenched back control. We were tired of our jobs going to foreigners, so now there are no jobs. We were tired of being sold funny European food that made our tummies yucky, so now there is only good old-fashioned British cuisine, like roasted rat and irradiated trout. Where once there were poncy feathered clothes from Paris, now there is only real English garb, hessian sack tunics and leather jerkins and rusted iron chain mail. Where once the ruling from distant shores regulated every aspect of our lives, now we are free to beat our neighbours over the heads with metal pipes and steal their possessions and leave them bleeding to death by the side of the road.
Timmartin pauses.
TIMMARTIN (CONT’D)
You are uncharacteristically quiet, my pathetic adversary. Is it taking time for the reality of your situation to sink in?
MIFFED MATT
No, I had no problem with that. The only thing that was taking time was cutting through these bindings.
Miffed Matt brings his hands, now decidedly free, round to his front.
MIFFED MATT
But that’s done now.
Miffed Matt jerks to the side and grabs the container holding the burning torch, flings molten tar at the approaching frames of Dooty Managers #1 and #2, who drop their weapons and scream, blinded by the boiling pitch. But these guys, like all duty managers, are used to suffering at work. A bit of molten tar in the eyes is pretty much a better-than-average shift. So they regain their composure and, though blinded, begin fumbling for their weapons.
Miffed Matt leaps into the air and swings from a chandelier.
TIMMARTIN
Get him, you fools! He’s swinging from the ... from the light fixture. You know. The ornate circular light fixture. Oh I can’t bring myself to say it. It’s far too French.
Dooty Managers #1 and #2 are bumbling around the room.
Miffed Matt swings, somersaults in the air, lands on a chaise longue.
TIMMARTIN
He’s on the ... oh you know, the long chair, the one with the varnished wooden legs and the opulent plush red cushion covers.
Miffed Matt dives from the chaise longue and scrambles to the corner of the room, up onto an antique bureau.
TIMMARTIN
Oh for fuck’s sake.
Dooty Managers #1 and #2 take a guess at the sound of Miffed Matt’s footsteps and charge in his direction. Miffed Matt backflips from the ... erm ... the writing desk as the guards approach, slicing at both their necks with fountain pens from the desk as he flips. The guards crumple to the floor, gurgling and dying noisily.
DOOTY MANAGER #1
(last words)
Still not the worst shift I’ve done...
DOOTY MANAGER #2
(last words)
About par for the course, actually...
Miffed Matt, turning, picking up Dooty Manager #2’s halberd in one smooth motion, starts towards Timmartin, who panics, tries to flee.
But they’ve all forgotten Nige Farazze. The little goblin, who had scuttled away from harm as soon as the situation got dangerous, as always, now comes flying towards Miffed Matt.
Matt slices the halberd directly at Nige Farazze’s chin -- but Nige Farazze doesn’t have a chin, just a flaccid face that dribbles away weakly into a gummy neck, and so the halberd misses by inches, slams into a wall.
These are the only seconds Timmartin needs to pull a long blade from his own substantial chin folds, to manoeuvre -- ahem, manipulate -- the edge of the blade into place against Miffed Matt’s neck.
TIMMARTIN
Enough.
Timmartin is sweating heavily, his breathing apparatus hanging loose, his moulding fetid body visible below his torn gimp suit.
TIMMARTIN
Farazze, well done.
He flings Farazze a scrap of sausage -- Wall’s, not one of those Polish or Spanish ones or anything like that -- which Farazze catches in his nasty little teeth and devours hungrily, before slurping a pint of ale and muttering something incomprehensible about immigrants.
TIMMARTIN
As for you, Miffed Matt. I was fond of those guards. Good help is surprisingly hard to find in today’s economic climate. To think, I was just going to gut you and feast upon your entrails. But now I see that is far too gentle a death for the likes of you. What to do, what to do?
FARAZZE
I knows, master. I knows what to do with the nasty man.
TIMMARTIN
Pray tell, my unctuous one.
FARAZZE
How about we get him to do a little bit of counting?
A rare smile plays across Grand Humungous Timmartin’s toad-like face.
TIMMARTIN
You think so, do you?
Farazze nods eagerly.
TIMMARTIN
Well, Miffed Matt, looks like you’re going to be playing a game of fives.
Farazze throws back his head and cackles.
FARAZZE
Fives! Fives! Fives!
Timmartin stands, beams.
ANGLE ON MIFFED MATT
Caught, defeated, confused.
TIMMARTIN
What fun.
CONTINUED...
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