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1. INT the Cell Night
Scorcher moves restlessly on his straw bed.
His forhead, wet from perspirtion, glimmers in the moonlight.
The formeless dark trunk of the old guard is anchored out of his sight beyond the cell-door.
His harsh whisper penetrates the stillness.
the Guard
You know it … Scorcher boy …
Scorcher (deliriously)
The ground will give away under me,
a dangerous crossing…
a dangerous troddings there…
dangerous a looking back...
the Guard (whispers)
You know you’ll have to, but you don’t speak it.
Scorche (pausing, doggedly)
Yea, I know … no I won’t do it!
the Guard (whispers)
Is this the truth? Firebug, don’t be a jellyfish.
Scorcher (trembles)
Ah, I would really, how though. Stop it! It’s beyond me…
the Guard (whispers)
Give in, rabble-rouser.
Scorcher
… they’ll have to wait … for somebody more … apt …
the Guard (whispers)
Humble you are, but not humble enough.
Humility has a tougher skin.
Scorcher
The valley is already far below … how high then is that mountain? One would need a steadfast hand not fall into a pothole…
the Guard (whispers)
He who removes mountains, removes also the valleys … n’ those peaks n’ pits diminish more n’ more the nearer you’ll get to them…
Scorcher
I’ve been in the land of sleepers and mockers …
I was never the mouth for their ears…
the Guard (whispers)
How would you know, the dew falls on the grass when the night is all silent, you shall command great things…
Scorcher
I’ve long forgotten how to walk in here … I’ve no lion's voice…
the Guard (whispers)
Silent words shall bring on the storm, quiet like a dove’s trodding.
You’ll be the shadow of what’s to come…
Scorcher (anguished)
It’s not the height really … it’s that slope slip … those potholes.
My heart turns giddy looking down...
the Guard (chucles & whispers)
Oh, firebrand, your fruits are ripe, but you are not yet ripe for thy fruits…
2. EXT/INT the Cell & the Rock in front of it Dawn
The searching eyes of Scorcher behind the tiny iron-bared cell window.
A ray of the sun finds a curled up rattlesnake in a pocket of the rock.
An eagle soars above the high cliff.
Scorche (desirously)
O heaven above, you pure, deep ether!, abyss of light!
You make me tremble.
Blinded by a ray of the sun, he leans his head on the wall on to which he is chained.
The ray passes over his face with closed eyes, and the rattle of the snake reaches his ears.
Scorcher (with a mocking, delirious laughter)
You great star! What would be your pleasure if you hadn’t us to shine for!
Ten years you’ve climbed to my cage: you’d be tired of your journey, hadn’t it been for me and my eagle, and my viper.
We waited for you every morning to take from you your overflow, and blessed you for it.
Yea! Now I’m drowsy with your warmth and splendour, like a bee that has gathered too much honey.
I need stretched out hands to take it…
The guard slips a tin of coffee underneath the interior iron-bared wall, and a piece of black bread.
the Guard (ironically)
Then, ten years ago, firepoker, you were carried all ashes into the mountains, and now you want to carry your fire into the valleys?
Don’t you fear that posse n’ lynchmob of poisonous snakes?
Scorcher
Snakes kill no dragons, n’ the dangers you think I’ll dread only excites me.
I’ll go to summits where the lightning strikes and scorches. I’ll go where the sun itself trembles for fear.
the Guard
Oh dragon fly, you have no more doing in the land of sleepers and mockers.
Rather be a bird in your cage, make hymns and sing them in praise of the Lord, like we all do…
Scorcher
Making hymns, yea, laugh and weep and mumble.
Is it be possible old fool, you don’t know yet, that the old man God is dead!
Open this cage, and I’ll follow that great star when it goes down in the evning, when it pours gold into the sea, so that even the poorest fisherman rows with golden oars…
the Guard
Is it possible, you haven’t yet understood, that there’s no key to open this cage, your tower of silence, before to let the vultures in…
(emotionally) I sincerely hope I won’t live to tend to that banquet.
Scorcher
Feel free to go then, but first get me a hammer, or better, a sledge hammer, and I’ll go to tell that Man is someone to pass over.
What have you done, old fellà, to pass you over?
What’s an ape to you? A laugh, a thing of shame? And just the same you’ll be to that higher Man, a laugh, a thing of shame.
Give me that sledgehammer for my craving to cut in stone.
Ah, old fellow, there within the hardest, ugliest of rocks slumbers the figure of that great spirit, of the higher man to come.
Chips n’ sparks shall fly, in shaping that phantom! My hammer shall rage against his prison-wall.
the Guard (after a pause)
Hm … that sculpture I’d very much like to see…
The Guard slips a sledgehammer underneath the iron-bared wall.
Scorcher
Then, you shall also see it in its making!
Dissolve
3. INT/EXT the Cell Dusk
Scorcher sits motionless, abiding next to the imposing sledgehammer.
At the very moment the shadow from the bars of the tiny cell window fades away from the wall, he furiously knocks it down.
With the chain liberated, he separates it from the wristlet with a single blow,
then heads down, barefoot and in torn rags, into the valley, followed at a distance by the panting guard.
Scorcher (calling out to the guard)
Stay where you are, fella’, I’ll take no prisoners, I’ll go alone!
Noticing Scorcher’s futile efforts to slip off the remaining iron wristlet from the wrist, the guard calls out nastily:
the Guard
Hey, Firebug, that bracelet will take some chewing on…
Scorcher (calling back to the guard)
Yea, keep away from me!
Guard yourselves against the Scorcher! Be ashamed of him!
Besides, not only do I now have to love my enemies, but also to hate my friends…
The guard stops abruptly, and watches Scorcher swagger away.
the Guard (to himself)
Goes he not along…like a dancer…
© Anders Gullberg
