An Episode of Remnants.

Content Warnings

• Discussion of death
• Description of corpses
• Mentions of fascism 
• Implications of child neglect, from the POV of the neglecter
• Discussions of seizures
• Portrayal of memory loss

Transcript

[THE SOUND OF WIND]

[THE APPRENTICE GASPS AWAKE] 

APPRENTICE

No stop— what is— where—?!

SIR

Apprentice?

APPRENTICE

I was somewhere else. 

SIR

So was I.

APPRENTICE

No I mean… I swear I… I swear I was doing something. 

SIR

There’s something I have to show you. 

APPRENTICE

There is?

SIR

Yes. I found one. 

APPRENTICE

One of what? 

SIR 

A remnant. Or so I believe. 

APPRENTICE

Where? 

SIR

Here. 

[SOMETHING FALLS] 

APPRENTICE

How did you… never mind. Did you touch it?

SIR

I don’t understand. 

APPRENTICE

Oh. Right. Uh. Okay, well. It helped me understand if I touched them. Perhaps that’s what you should do.

SIR

I see. 

APPRENTICE

You do? 

SIR

Ought I not? 

APPRENTICE

No— no it’s just. No. It’s fine. Okay. So. Touch it. 

[SIR MAKES AN ODD SOUND]

SIR

It hurts to touch it. 

APPRENTICE

Oh, it does?

SIR

Yes. 

APPRENTICE

But did it show you— did you see it? 

SIR

It hurt. 

APPRENTICE

Yes, but why?

SIR

What an odd sort of question. 

APPRENTICE

I— I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You still don’t know what it is? 

SIR

No. 

APPRENTICE

Right. Um. 

SIR

Why are you holding it like that? 

APPRENTICE

Like what? 

SIR

Through your coat. 

APPRENTICE

So I don’t touch it. 

SIR

Because it hurts? 

APPRENTICE

No, because— because I’ll read it, if I touch it. 

SIR

I don’t know what you mean. 

APPRENTICE

Ugh, this is impossible. 

SIR

I’m sorry. 

APPRENTICE

No it— well it is your fault, frankly, but there’s no point in getting angry with you about it. It’s not like you remember anyway. 

SIR

I do remember. I remember you spoke about the Remnants. They tell stories. You said that to me. I remember we were here and there was nothing.

APPRENTICE

It isn’t nothing. 

SIR

It feels like nothing. 

APPRENTICE

Well it isn’t. It’s the dust. And the dust is— it’s. Ugh. 

SIR

You said it thinks. 

APPRENTICE

It might’ve been a bad way to explain it. 

SIR

Explain it better then. 

APPRENTICE

I can’t. That’s your job. Or. No. Not your job. And you didn’t actually explain anything very well at all. 

SIR

Show me how it works. 

APPRENTICE

What? 

SIR

The remnant. Show me how it works. 

APPRENTICE

I tried. It just hurt you. 

SIR

No. Show me. Touch it. 

APPRENTICE

But— 

SIR

Touch it!

APPRENTICE

Alright! Alright. Let’s see. So it. It’s a string of beads, with a cross at the end of it. It’s a religious thing, I think. Yeah. A rosary? Yeah, and it was given to her— oh.

[WHOOSH]

Clara wakes in her bed, caught between her small, dark bedroom and a dream. The sound of her cousin, fast asleep beside her, for a moment is the beating of an angel’s wings. 

Outside her bedroom, there is movement. Aunt Helga has been staying with them for weeks now, since Mutti has not got herself out of bed. But it’s not just Aunt Helga’s hushed voice that Clara can hear. There’s a man there, too.

Clara gets out of bed, just like she had in her dream. The floors are chilly from the air drifting through the open windows. Fresh air is good, Aunt Helga says. It will help Mutti get well again. 

There is a soft light coming from Mutti’s cracked-open bedroom door. The glow shifts and gutters; candlelight. Clara creeps closer, her bare feet near silent on the floorboards. 

In the dream there was an angel stood at the foot of Mutti’s bed. Its massive wings had many layers, its unseeable face like a flickering candle flame, so bright its halo filled the whole room. But there is no angel when Clara peers through the doorway, just Aunt Helga, and the doctor. 

Last time the doctor came, he let Clara use his stethoscope to listen to the thud, thud, thud of her own heart. He’s using it now, cold metal listener pressed against Mutti’s chest, next to her tight-clutched hand. Clara can see the beads of her rosary wrapped around her fingers.

Aunt Helga isn’t wearing her proper headscarf, like she has since she came to help Mutti when she got sick. It’s pale blue and she wears it hanging out like her proper nun’s habit. 

Mutti is very still in her bed. Her skin is shiny with sweat, like it always is now. Clara can see the candles on her bedside table reflected in her open eyes.

The doctor nods his head. He brushes his hand over Mutti’s face, and when he takes it away her eyes are closed and Clara can’t see the candlelight in them anymore. 

Aunt Helga calls Clara’s name and the doctor turns his head. 

The candlelight catches in the large, round lenses of his glasses, and for a moment, he’s the angel from Clara’s dream. 

‘Have you come to take Mutti to heaven?’ Clara asks.

[WHOOSH]

The wine has gone to Clara’s head. She’s not used to drinking so much but it seems the norm in Italy, and especially here in Rome, where she has come to take her vows. 

The nuns who had raised Clara in Germany were not as glamorous as these, and whilst they drank, it was always beer. The priests who visited them were all old men who smoked cigars and spoke over everyone, men who suited the honorific ‘father’. 

In Rome, the priests are different. Many of them are so old that they could only be alive through god’s will. Some of them are foreign; several have come from Africa and speak languages Clara has never heard before. Still more come from all over Europe. Their conversations switch language to language, sometimes mid-sentence. Sometimes she even hears Latin peppered in. 

The man across from Clara is not a priest. He’s older than Clara, but she can’t tell by how much. His cheeks are dappled with scars under his dark beard. He speaks German, Italian, French; expects Clara to keep up with him. She’s too embarrassed to admit it when she can’t. 

‘I had considered the priesthood,’ he tells her. ‘But my father wouldn’t stand for that. He told me I ought to be a military man, like he was.’ 

’But you do believe in God,’ Says Clara. 

‘Which one?’ asks Francesco, laughing into his glass.

Clara tilts her head a little to the side. ‘The one true God, of course.’ 

Francesco considers Clara for a moment. ‘Do you?’ 

‘Believe in God? Of course. Why else should I want to become a nun?’ 

Francesco shrugs. ‘Same reason I became a military man. Someone else thinks it’s right for you.’

‘I think God thinks it’s right for me,’ says Clara. 

‘So you’ve heard from him recently, then?’

Clara laughs. ‘It’s not like that. The Lord does not speak to me directly in words. It’s more like a feeling. He sends signs.’ 

‘And those signs have told you to become a nun?’ 

‘I think so. He sent me here to Rome, after all. God’s most noble house.’ 

‘They say Mussolini has given Italy back to God, and God to Italy,’ says Francesco. ‘What do you think of that?’ 

Clara blinks. She shakes her head. ‘I’m devoted to God, not Mussolini.’ 

‘I’m not devoted to either,’ says Francesco, very quietly. He leans across the table. The medals on his military jacket glitter in the low light. 

Much fuss had been made when she first arrived that Vatican City was its own state, independent of Italy, and any reservations about what happened beyond its confines should be put out of Clara’s mind. 

For the most part, Clara has managed this. But it’s harder when she’s with Francesco. When doors open for him, including this little private room at the back of a restaurant; a restaurant who seems willing to feed Francesco for free. 

Francesco stands up from the table. For the first time, Clara thinks about the gun she knows Francesco has concealed in his jacket. As he smiles across the table, she remembers he is dangerous. She has remembered this every time she has gone to meet him, after dark when the other girls waiting to take their vows have gone to sleep. 

Francesco does not take out his gun. He brushes Clara’s hair from her cheek. When he kisses her, he tastes of wine and starlight. 

[WHOOSH]

Clara lifts Evelina from the bath. Her limbs are loose, her eyes unfocused. She is always this way when she’s had one of her fits. Like a doll whose strings have come loose. 

When she has wrapped her daughter in a towel, she stands up. The way out of the bathroom is blocked by her son, Elio. 

’She’s sick again,’ he says. 

’She’ll be alright,’ Clara promises him. 

‘Papa said he’d send a doctor,’ says Elio. 

‘He will, I’m sure. He’s just been very busy. The doctor will come soon.’ 

‘She’s going to die,’ says Elio. 

If she’d not had his sister in her arms, Clara would have slapped him. 

‘Don’t say such things,’ she hisses instead. 

Elio glowers at her with precocious fury. He must take after his father. Clara can’t be sure, though. She has hardly seen him since he moved them out here to this cottage in the middle of nowhere. These Italian hills are crawling with people Clara does not trust. If it was not for the gift of her children, Clara would regret meeting Francesco at all. 

Sometimes, Elio makes her regret it anyway. 

Clara takes Evelina upstairs, dresses her in a fresh nightgown. The one she’d been wearing before Clara heard her thud to the floor is soaking in the sink to try and get the urine out. This fit was less frightening than the last. Less twitching; shorter. But it was still frightening. 

Clara smooths her daughter’s sleeping face. Perhaps it is a punishment for straying from her path that Clara’s sweetest child should be punished in this way. Perhaps Elio is a test Clara is meant to overcome. 

Maybe it’s because Clara could not convince Francesco to marry her before the children were born. Maybe that’s why one is haunted by sickness and the other is so filled with rage. 

Elio climbs up onto the end of his sister’s bed, holding the small wireless radio in his hands. 

‘What are you doing with that?’ Clara asks. 

‘She likes it,’ says Elio. 

‘She can’t hear it.’ 

‘I know,’ says Elio. ‘But she sleeps better when it’s on. Like she can feel the words. Like when she puts her hand on your chest when you’re talking.’ 

Clara sighs. ‘Keep the volume low. And don’t go skipping through channels.’ 

‘Why?’ 

‘You don’t know what you’ll find.’ 

[WHOOSH]

Francesco’s letter says remarkably little given how long it is. Clara knows it is because Francesco wants to keep her and the children safe, but she’s never sure what he’s keeping them safe from. She tries her best to keep her head down and get on with things. She prays every morning and every night, makes Evelina pray along with her, and Elio, too, when he’s around.

‘He’s been promoted,’ says Elio, walking into the kitchen unannounced. 

‘Who?’ 

‘Father.’ 

‘How could you know that?’ 

‘I saw it in the papers, in town.’ 

Clara sighs. ‘I told you not to keep going into that cafe.’ 

‘I just stopped by the outside on my way to get bread and milk.’ 

‘I don’t care how you’re justifying it, Elio. I don’t want you out there.’ 

Elio stares at her. His face is blank but there’s fury in his eyes. He looks like his father. ‘How can you sit here, living like this? I thought you believed in God. I thought you cared about people.’ 

Clara recoils as though slapped. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘They’re killing people, mother. Every day they’re killing people. It’s why we live here at all, isn’t it? So they won’t take Evelina away? Is it okay when they take people’s daughters so long as they aren’t yours?’ 

Clara turns away from him, furious. 

Evelina is sitting in the garden, on the little wooden bench by the old water spout. She has a book open in her lap. 

‘How dare you say that to me,’ Clara whispers. 

‘They’d have come for us anyway if it wasn’t for father, you know!’ 

‘You know nothing about your father!’ Clara shouts. 

Elio grins. ‘Do you?’ 

Clara shakes her head, looks away again, at Evelina sitting on her bench. ‘He does what he can to keep us safe.’ 

‘He’s a part of the problem!’ Elio shouts. ‘Honestly, so are you.’

She reaches for the rosary in her pocket. ‘I am no more responsible for the actions of the government in the country I was raised in, than you are for the government here!’ 

‘No,’ says Elio. ‘But if it weren’t for the church—‘ 

’DO NOT,’ Clara booms. 

Elio is silent. He stares at her, his dark eyes like daggers. ‘I’m going to leave,’ he says. 

‘Good,’ Clara spits. 

Elio laughs, thin and bitter. ‘Don’t try too hard to stop me.’ 

‘I’ll pray for you,’ says Clara. 

‘Of course. It’s not like you’d ever do anything else.’ 

[WHOOSH]

The church is quiet now the last of the faithful have returned to whatever safe havens they have found in the city. Each swipe of Clara’s broom across the flagstone floor echoes. Every time she sweeps up here, she feels she is brushing away pieces of the war, tiny fragments of the horror that work their way inside on the soles of people shoes, in the folds of their clothes. 

They bring these pieces to the church when they come to pray. It is a blessing that they can be left behind, here. It is quiet, unglamorous work to sweep them away, but it feels important to Clara. It feels right. 

In the hills the war had been columns of smoke on the horizon; distant gunfire; shouts caught in the wind. The absence of letters from either he or his father made the time stretch on into a kind of horrible dream. Seasons passed in moments but days lasted a lifetime, and Evelina was getting sicker and sicker. 

She’s been better, since they’ve come to the city. Since Clara has been coming to church again. Since she’s been sweeping away the pieces of the war from the floor. 

Clara’s not sure if Elio is better, though. He’s been so quiet, since he came back. Mostly he just sleeps. Sometimes she watches them both, her babies grown into almost-adult size, still sleeping nuzzled next to each other like they did when they were inside of her. 

There were days during the war where Clara doubted the plan God had for her. Even doubted if there was a plan at all. Elio was gone. Francesco had never even really been there. Evelina suffered. But now it seems to make more sense. Even Francesco’s refusal to marry Clara feels meaningful now; it has allowed Clara to escape the vitriol of being the wife of a man who had played a hand in the destruction of the country. 

Instead, she is the mother of a boy with scars and half a missing lung, who people call a war hero; freedom fighter; a saviour. 

To Clara, though, Elio is the same as he’s ever been. A boy and a puzzle. 

The streets are filled with a curious mix of grief and hopefulness. People have flocked inwards, just as Clara and her children have, in hopes there will be food and shelter in the city. Allied forces still pepper the streets.  -There is a sense of not knowing what comes next that Clara can almost taste in the air, as if the whole country is a phoenix who might rise from the ashes. 

Clara finds ways to help however she can. She serves soup and bread to those queuing for it, whoever they are. She goes to the church, helps to sweep the dust from the floors, carries out candles and crucifixes from where they’ve been hidden in backrooms and under floorboards. She leads people in prayer. And she sweeps. 

The wooden door clatters open. 

Elio is standing in it. His hair is damp with sweat. His eyes are wide with horror. He looks like his father but with an expression Clara had never seen on Francesco. 

‘Your father is alive?’ she says at once, her voice high with worry. 

‘No. It’s Evelina. She’s dead.’ 

Clara blinks at her son. ‘That can’t be right,’ she says. ‘She was fine this morning when she left for work.’ 

There are tears on Elio’s cheeks. In the candlelight, they glow like streaks of gold. 

‘One of the nurses came to fetch me. She was looking for you, but you weren’t there. By the time I got to the hospital, Evelina had already stopped breathing. She had a fit, they said. Collapsed and hit her head.’ 

Clara shakes her head. ‘No. She’s fine. I— I saw her this morning and she was fine!’ 

The words ring off the walls of the church, and then there is quiet that reaches on and on around them. 

Clara closes her eyes. She picks up her broom from where she dropped it. She starts to sweep again. 

Elio is calling to her but she’s not listening. The rhythm of the broom against the stone hides the rasps in her chest between her tears, turns Elio’s desperate pleas for her to stop into distant song. 

[WHOOSH]

‘What are you doing?’ Clara asks, setting the groceries down on the counter in the small room she shares with Elio. He’s pinning things to the wall.

‘They’re telegrams,’ he says.

‘From who?’ 

‘From father.’ 

Clara closes her eyes for patience. ‘You’re still onto this?’ 

He turns back to the wall, covered in news-clippings, photographs, scribbled notes. In the centre, a map of Europe across which he’s scribbled yet more notes. ‘Everything suggests he should still be alive. I just don’t know where he is.’ 

’Hopefully it’s far away,’ says Clara. 

Elio glowers at Clara. ‘You defended him for years. Now the war’s over and it costs you nothing to condemn him, you kick him to the kerb?’ 

Elio shakes his head.  Clara puts her hand in her pocket, winds her mother’s rosary around her fingers. ‘Your father was a fascist criminal.’ 

‘You said yourself he was faithful to nothing and nobody.’ 

Clara shakes her head. ‘He was faithful to the regime!’ 

‘What if he wasn’t? What if he was helping the resistance and—‘ 

‘YOU helped the resistance, Elio, not him! Why is it so important for you that—’ 

‘That my father isn’t an evil bastard? How can you not…’ Elio inhaled sharply. ‘Wouldn’t you want to know? If he was a good man?’ 

‘And if he wasn’t?’ Clara hissed. ‘If you do all this? You track him down, find him, speak to him… If he was part of the resistance, why didn’t he come to help us? If he cared, if he—‘ 

‘Some things are more important than family,’ says Elio. ‘I thought you of all people would understand that.’ 

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ 

‘I’ve hardly seen you since Evelina.‘ 

‘Don’t say her name.’ 

‘Why not?! You act like she was never even here at all. You spend every day at the church instead of dealing with—’ 

‘Those people need me!’

‘I needed you,’ Elio snaps. He closes his eyes, turns his back on Clara again. ‘My sister is dead. And you act like she never even existed. Like I don’t exist.’ 

The rosary around Clara’s fingers snaps. She gasps, pulls it out. ‘No, no, no,’ she whispers, turning the broken string of beads in her hands. Elio does not look at her. 

[WHOOSH]

Clara is clearing the table when Bernadetta comes running in, holding a letter out. 

‘What’s this?’ Clara asks. Sometimes the girls get letters from family members thought long dead who have a home they can go to. Clara and the other sisters work hard to make the orphanage as homely and safe as possible, but there are so many of the girls now, and there’s only so much they can do for each of them. 

That was what Clara had missed most after her mother died. Even though Aunt Helga worked at the orphanage, she didn’t have the time to spend with Clara on her own. She was just another one of the girls. 

‘It’s for you!’ says Bernardetta. 

Clara takes the letter. The handwriting doesn’t look familiar. She frowns. 

‘Who’s it from?’ Bernadetta asks. 

‘I don’t know,’ says Clara. 

She opens the envelope. Inside a short letter and a handful of cash. Her eyes slide over the words, until the last. ‘Elio.’ He’s not signed the letter off with love, nor with any wishes at all. 

‘What is it?’ Asks Bernardetta.

‘A donation,’ says Clara. She hands Bernardetta the cash. ‘Take that to Sister Isabella, won’t you? Have her put it in the box.’ 

Bernadetta frowns when she takes the money. ‘Why did someone send a donation just to you?’ 

Clara shrugs. ‘It’s from someone I used to know.’

Bernadetta does not look entirely satisfied, but she runs from the room anyway, her little boots pounding an even rhythm down the hall. 

Clara waits until she can’t hear her anymore before she looks at the letter again. 

Elio is in France. He’s looking for someone. He has had no luck finding his father. Good, Clara thinks. She folds the letter into her pocket. She’ll put it on the fire later. 

[WHOOSH]

Evelina combs Clara’s hair, humming a song as she does.

‘Who’s that?’ she asks. 

‘Hmm?’ says Clara. 

‘Evelina.’

‘You’re a good girl, Evelina,’ she says, smiling. 

Evelina smiles. 

‘Not like your brother.’ 

Evelina frowns. ‘My brother?’ 

‘That good for nothing won’t amount to anything. A curse for what I did, walking away from the church.’ 

‘But you didn’t walk away, Sister Clara,’ says Evelina, frowning deeper, shaking her head. 

Evelina nods. ‘I… forgive me, Sister Clara, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.’ 

‘Oh?’ 

Evelina smiles, nodding again. ‘My daughter.’ 

Clara’s heart feels as though it’s going to burst. ‘You have a daughter?’ 

‘I do. I named her for you. You were always so kind, and I…’ Evelina’s eyes are swimming with tears. 

‘Oh sweet girl, there’s no need to cry! It’s wonderful news. I’d never shame you for something like that.’ 

Evelina’s smile goes crooked. ‘Shame me?’ 

‘You’re so young.’ 

Evelina laughs. ‘Thank you! I’m thirty two and married; it’s hardly a scandal.’

Clara frowns. She shakes her head. ‘No, no you. You’re a child, you… you and Elio. You’re only fifteen and we… he was too young to leave. I should have stopped him. And when he came back he was so… he. He was so…’ 

‘Who’s Elio?’ asks Evelina. But she’s not Evelina. Of course not. She can’t be because… because she can’t be. 

This young girl, whoever she is, she should not be there. Evelina isn’t well. Francesco spent so much money and took such a risk sending them out here; she can’t squander it for this girl with a kind smile. 

Clara tries to stand, but her legs won’t take her weight. 

‘Careful!’ says Evelina. 

‘Sister Clara,’ says Bernadetta. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m so sorry,’ says Clara. ‘I think I’m a little confused.’ 

‘That’s okay,’ says Bernardetta. ‘Don’t worry. If it’s too much, I can come back another day. Do you need to rest?’ 

Clara shakes her head. ‘Oh don’t go. I’ve missed you so much.’ 

Evelina’s eyes are the ones filled with tears now. She pulls Clara into a brief embrace, then leaves the room. 

When Evelina comes back, there’s a little girl. She looks nervous under her blonde curls. She blinks at Clara shyly. 

Evelina smiles, holding the girls hand tightly. ‘This is my daughter, Clara,’ she says.

‘A granddaughter?’ asks Clara. 

Evelina’s smile is strange. ‘Yes. Yes, I suppose she is.’ 

Clara spreads out her arms. The little girl glances at her mother, then allows herself to be held. Clara smooths her hair, then releases her. She fumbles in her pocket, pulls out her mother’s rosary. ‘Here,’ she says to the girl. 

The girl takes the rosary. ‘It’s broken,’ she says. 

‘It’s very precious, all the same,’ says Clara. ‘It belonged to my mother, and I should have given it to yours, but…’ ‘What’s it for?’ Asks the little girl, twisting the rosary around her fingers, peering at the tiny cross. 

‘For praying,’ says Clara. 

‘Say thank you,’ Evelina whispers to the little girl. 

‘Thank you, Sister Clara,’ she says, nervously. 

‘Sister, ha. I never was a Sister in the end.’ 

‘I think we ought to go,’ says Evelina. ‘We’ll come back again when you’ve had a little rest, okay?’ 

She hugs Clara again. 

‘If you say so,’ says Clara. 

The little girl waves shyly from the doorway. Then they’re gone. 

Clara settles back in her chair. Outside the window, it’s a gloriously sunny afternoon. Birds are settling in the bushes. It’s hard to believe there’s a war raging on so close by. That there is fighting in the hills. That her son is out there. 

She wonders where Evelina has got to. 

No point in calling her. She won’t hear. 

Never mind. She’ll be back soon. If she’s not, Clara will send Elio out to look for her. He’s not good for much but he can always find his sister. 

Sleep weighs heavy on Clara’s eyelids. 

She dreams about her mother, and an angel, and two babies nestled into one basinet, each one small enough they could fit into their father’s palms if he’d ever come to see them. Clara wonders who they are. 

[WHOOSH]

[THE APPRENTICE BREATHES HEAVILY]

SIR

She died. 

APPRENTICE

Yeah, yeah they all die. They’re all dead, that’s why they’re here. 

SIR

They? 

APPRENTICE

The remnants. I just— that was normal. That was like they were before. 

SIR

As opposed to what? 

APPRENTICE

When I… I found the statue again. But his hand was open. I… it… it doesn’t matter. 

SIR

Alright. 

APPRENTICE

Where did you find this? 

SIR

It came to me. 

APPRENTICE

What is— what is that supposed to mean? Came to you how? 

SIR

It was not there and then it was. 

APPRENTICE

But what were you doing when it got there? Were you walking, digging, what? 

SIR

I was doing nothing. I just was. 

APPRENTICE

I— you know what never mind. Where were you?

SIR

Here. 

APPRENTICE

Where is… oh my god. We’re in a tent. 

SIR

Yes.

APPRENTICE

There wasn’t a tent. There’s a tent now. 

SIR

Should there not be? 

APPRENTICE

I don’t. God this is so difficult. 

SIR

What happens once you’ve read them? 

APPRENTICE

The remnants? I… well. You’re supposed to judge them. Or that’s what you told me. Or maybe not. Maybe you just leave them and they judge themselves. Maybe you explode the whole place by accident. Who knows. Who CARES. 

SIR

You do. 

APPRENTICE

You know what? Fine. There’s a tent? Fine. Remnants are just dropping from the sky now? Fine. 

SIR

From the what? 

APPRENTICE

The sky, the— up there, the sky, the—

SIR

Up there? That is the sky? 

APPRENTICE

That’s. I. Shelves and… I don’t… 

SIR

That’s not the sky, then? 

APPRENTICE

No. That’s the First and Last Place. 

[END]