An Episode of Remnants.

Episode Content Warnings

Please bear in mind that this work has content some listeners may find distressing, including themes of war, violence, and grief. This episode contains:

Absent father

Descriptions of autistic meltdowns in a situation predating the existence of autism diagnoses

Ableism from a parental figure

Ableism in school environments

Death and grieving

References to racism without use of slurs, but with reference to slurs

Descriptions of life in an occupied war zone

Mentions of guns and killing with guns (no SFX, no descriptions of shot wounds or bodies)

Mentions of bombs in the distance (no SFX)

Descriptions of planning guerilla tactics against occupying armies, specifically the use of bombs to explode trains

Non-graphic descriptions of implied death by explosion

Transcript

IN THE BACKGROUND THERE IS WHIRRING, TICKING, CLICKING, CREAKING.

SIR
Apprentice?

APPRENTICE
Oh, good morning.

AS THEY SPEAK, THE APPRENTICE TAKES STEPS NOW AND THEN, AND YOU CAN HEAR THE SWIPE OF A DUSTER.

SIR
Is it?

APPRENTICE
Good? Don’t see why not.

SIR
Morning.

APPRENTICE
Oh, I– huh.

SIR
Indeed.

APPRENTICE
No matter. Good, uh. Whatever time of day it is.

SIR
It isn’t.

APPRENTICE
I don’t mean to impose my good mood on your or something, but–

SIR
Day.

APPRENTICE
What?

SIR
It is of no consequence. What are you doing?

APPRENTICE
Just cleaning up a bit. Dusting.

SIR
Hmm.

APPRENTICE
Is something wrong?

SIR
No. This is a side of you I have not experienced, though I recognise it.

APPRENTICE
Oh, well. We don’t know each other that well yet, course there’s parts of me you’ve not seen. I don’t know anything about you at all.

SIR
No.

APPRENTICE
Right then. Shall we get started?

SIR
If you like.

APPRENTICE
What is the job, exactly? You mentioned judgements.

SIR
Yes.

APPRENTICE
So it’s like. Deciding things? Like quality control?

SIR
You are coming out with all sorts of interesting things this time.

APPRENTICE
Uh, thank you? Am I right then?

SIR
Perhaps. It will be best for you to see. That is the easiest way for you to understand. Or it has been. Historically.

APPRENTICE
Alright then. Show me to my desk.

SIR
Of course. There is often a desk.

APPRENTICE
Uh. Great? Right.

FOOTSTEPS AND A REVERBERANT HUM

SIR
Here we are.

APPRENTICE
Oh, it’s nice. Though, what’s all this stuff?

SIR
It is some kind of contraption.

APPRENTICE
Yes, but what does it do?

SIR
I am sure it will make itself clear in time.

APPRENTICE
Oh. Grand.

AWKWARD PAUSE

APPRENTICE
So, um. You been here long?

SIR
That depends.

APPRENTICE
Oh, how so?

SIR
On your definitions of ‘you’, ‘here’ and ‘being’.

APPRENTICE
Oooh. Kay? Great.

A WHISTLE AND A THUD, A BELL TINKLES

APPRENTICE
Oh, a box. That’s what the contraption does. It catches things falling from the. Up… there.

SIR
Don’t get distracted.

APPRENTICE
Oh, right, sorry, it’s just–

SIR
Endless and entrancing. I suggest you focus on things down here, at least for now.

APPRENTICE
(reluctant)
Uh. Right. Okay. Um. Box.

SIR
Yes.

RUSTLING

APPRENTICE
What should I do with it?

SIR
What do you usually do with boxes, Apprentice?

APPRENTICE
Hmm.

SIR
What is it?

APPRENTICE
I just– you ever get the feeling you’ve seen something before?

SIR
Frequently.

APPRENTICE
Hmm.

SIR
How’s your head?

APPRENTICE
It’s– you asked that yesterday, should something be wrong with it?

SIR
Hopefully not.

APPRENTICE
I just– I don’t remember getting here, and things are. I don’t. I can’t place it.

SIR
No, you can’t.

APPRENTICE
Should I be afraid?

SIR
Of what?

APPRENTICE
I– I don’t know.

SIR
Open the box.

APPRENTICE
Okay.

PAPER RUSTLING

APPRENTICE
It’s a little wooden train. How sweet.

SIR
Yes. What else?

APPRENTICE
Um. It’s well-loved. The paint is rubbed off at the sides. One of the wheels, it’s an old button, it doesn’t match the others, and– oh—

WHOOSH.

José weighs the wooden train against his palms. The bright red paint is new and shiny. It’s beautiful, shining. There are three green wagons which link together with bright brass hooks which is not how real trains join together but that is okay because this train is too small for an accurate miniature version of that.

‘What do you think, José? Do you like it?’ asks his mother.

José gives a delighted flutter of his head and grins.

His mother laughs, ‘that’s a thank you,’ she explains.

The wagon’s wheels are nailed to the sides, loose so they can spin when José brushes them with his fingertip. They’re not in the right places to be an accurate replica but José doesn’t mind. They move silently with just a slight amount of resistance. He runs one of the wagons back and forth across his palms. He flutters with joy again, holding the train close to his chest with one hand and flapping the other with joy.

José’s father’s face is not happy, José doesn’t think. His mother stands up from her seat by the window. They go to the kitchen together.

José’s little sister, Lucie, scoots closer to him on the rug. ‘It’s pretty,’ she says.

José rolls the wheels for her, shows her how it moves across the floor.

‘Daddy made it,’ says Lucie.

‘After lunch we can go to the tracks, see if any matching real ones come past,’ says José’s mother from the kitchen doorway.

José runs his fingers over the red-painted side of the engine again. The joy in his chest is bottomless and feels like it will reach on and outwards forever.

WHOOSH.

School is noises and smells. School is hot or cold with no ice pops or blankets. People saying speak up, José, but he didn’t speak at all. It’s too loud for talking, he can’t think in words here. It makes him want to claw off his skin. Why isn’t everyone angry? How can they sit around like that when it’s so loud and hot and cold and everyone is telling them what to do?

José can tell people are angry at him. He didn’t do it, he didn’t pick this place, he’s trying his best but it’s all very stupid and boring and he can’t get to the words, and so all the feelings burst out of his hands, banging against his forehead.

His mother comes and collects him. At home, she cleans the cuts on José’s hands.

‘I’m sorry,’ she tells him. He doesn’t know why.

José takes his train and sits on the rug in the living room. He sketches out another train, an older model than the one his is supposed to be a replica of. Both of them are very old trains now, José does not see many of them on the tracks because of the great push to make everything electric. The man at the station told José that a lot of the train lines were destroyed in the Great War.

It is taking a long time to recover from it.

He supposes that wars are the kinds of things it takes a long time to get better from though because José’s dad was in the Great War and his mother is always saying that it’s the reason that he shouts and calls José stupid.

It has been so since the war though and that José thinks maybe she is wrong but then again if the trains are still recovering maybe his father is too, what does he know.

After school sometimes José goes and waits on the platform for his father to come back because he went away for work a few months ago and they dropped him at the station but he didn’t say when he would be back. José goes there just in case.

It’s nice because he likes the station. The trains come through every two hours and in between the trains there are the clocks to look at and the station master Alain is sometimes there and he talks to José because he likes his father.

He is clever in some ways like trains and knowing José’s dad, but he’s stupid in some ways like thinking his mother is stupid and he does call José a mongrel and he calls his mother the nasty things the children on their street call her, and José and his sister.

Most of the time it is okay with Alain because he mostly talks about the trains and the clocks.

Without the trains it would have probably taken a long time for standardised clocks to be in place. José cannot think of another reason why you’d need them except for trains. Trains were the fastest things and it’s important you catch them at the right time and cars are not for lots of people and go when they like and buses normally don’t go that far so its okay for you to just have time in your town or village and it doesn’t matter what time it is in Paris.

They started inventing standard time in a place in England called Greenwich and it made everyone very angry because it wasn’t fair that British time was the main time and everyone else’s time was different, so Paris came up with its own sort of time except that this was a problem and everyone got very confused and there were lots of shipping accidents and in the end Greenwich became the mean time and everyone else had to decide how different their own time was based on how different it was to Greenwich time, even if you were French.

José’s mother looks at his drawing and says, ‘I don’t know how you remember all the details like that, it’s amazing. You’re an incredible artist, José.’

José looks at his drawing of the train and the station. ‘It’s okay,’ he says.

His mother smiles wide. She always smiles when he uses his words but she never shouts at him when he doesn’t. She makes him peanut and spinach for lunch and they eat on the floor by the radio, back to back.

When they finish eating she tells José he doesn’t have to go back to school and José is very happy.

WHOOSH.

José’s mother lives in hospital now because she’s sick. They have to take the bus to see her because the hospital is far away so they only go three times a week and otherwise it is just José and Lucie because their father is still not back from work even though it has been four years and José waits at the station still most days.

In the hospital José stares at the bottle they hang upside down over his mother’s bed, and even though Lucie knows he wants to ask questions but he’s not got any words, and even though Lucie knows he wants her to ask the doctors about the medicine she won’t do it because it makes her cry which she doesn’t want to do even though everyone is always telling her it is okay.

Instead of asking questions José goes out whilst Lucie is at work cleaning other people’s houses and he tries to read about the kind of sickness that his mother has but the lady at the library gets upset when he asks about it and she says they don’t have anything about it. José tries to write some words down to make her understand but they’re hard to get there and when he shows them to the library lady she starts crying as well.

She tells José they have a new book about trains and she gives that to him instead and even though it’s not what he wanted to read he reads it anyway but even though he’s learning he can’t get away from the bad feelings about his mother and he wants to know why she is sick and what the medicine they’re giving her is and so instead he just slams it shut and puts it away and goes home to dance so he doesn’t have to think or feel about it anymore.

When he is dancing Lucie comes home from school and she says ‘José are you okay’ and he shakes his head because he’s still too angry-sick for words.

‘Is it about mum?’ says Lucie.

José stops dancing so much and sits down instead so he can rock a bit but listen because it is hard to listen when you’re dancing his mother is right.

‘It’s okay, I’m scared too,’ says Lucie. She has her hair in little knots on her head, all scraped into the knots in perfect little squares their mother drew on her scalp with the end of her comb. Lucie does not like to keep her hair like this but José likes the squares, he thinks they are nice and he likes how the hair in the knots looks soft like velvet.

Lucie sits down quietly on the rug next to José whilst he rocks. After a little while he can get to the words.

‘Nobody will tell me why she is sick,’ says José.

Lucie sighs. She looks like she might cry again. ‘There isn’t a why, José.’

‘When will the medicine make her better.’

Lucie’s bottom lip wobbles. Tears run down her soft brown cheeks. José hands her the handkerchief he always keeps in his pocket and she dabs at her eyes. ‘I’m so sorry José,’ she says.

José shakes his head. Lucie is sad but it’s not fair for her to be sad right now because she still won’t explain, nobody will explain. The feelings are so big and huge they explode out of José and he barely sees or feels anything and when he can breathe normal again Lucie is crying upstairs and one of the wheels on his train is broken.

He goes to Lucie’s door and knocks on it. She answers. Her eyes are all puffy and bright pink around her dark brown irises. José holds out the train to her. She shakes her head. ‘What?’

José does not have any words. He cries a bit.

Lucie takes the train and puts a right-sized button where the wheel used to go.

WHOOSH.

Everything is bad. Nobody understands. People keep saying they’re sorry that José’s mother is dead, but they didn’t kill her so he’s not sure why they keep apologising. There is a great deal of what his mother would have called faffing about. People are in and out of the house all day. José’s father is there even though he’s not seen him for a very long time and this makes Lucie very angry and why José tries to find out why, Lucie can’t seem to find her words, even though she’s usually very good at that.

Nobody has washed any of José’s clothes and Lucie has cut her hair almost as short as José’s and she hates it but she says she does not trust anyone else to do it as good as mum did and so she has cut it off because mum is dead and she won’t stop being dead ever again.

They go to the church and José’s mother is there, in her coffin, and she’s still dead but for some reason everyone wants to go and look at her and cry. She looks the same as when she was alive except she’s dead. She can’t talk or hug or help she just lies there being dead so he’s not sure why everyone wants to keep looking at her and it’s taking forever and everyone keeps moving about in the church and it echoes and makes even small sounds big and it makes José want to break things but he doesn’t because it’s church and you’re supposed to be good in church and sit quietly so why won’t everyone shut up and do that so they can do the church part and everyone can go home.

Finally it’s finished and at home mum is not there still because she’s dead and they put her in the ground but it’s stupid that she keeps being dead, and it won’t stop and it hurts José’s head and his chest that she won’t stop being dead and she’ll just keep being dead forever now. It’s horrible and it’s stupid and it’s not fair and he hates it.

His father finally comes back from work and he’s angry and he shouts and there is snot coming out of his nose and Lucie is screaming at him and they’ve turned on the wrong light and there is none of José’s bread only the wrong bread and everyone won’t shut up and José breaks a chair because he is so angry and there are no words and nobody cares that he’s there because he doesn’t have any words and they act like he has no feelings but he does and he’s angry with everyone and everything and his mother especially because she keeps being dead.

José’s skin is too tight and he wants to tear it off but that would be bad so instead he goes upstairs and sits in his room on the floor and puts his head between his knees to try to block out the sounds of Lucie and his father because they are still shouting because he cannot hear his mother singing and doing the dishes or going about the house or talking to her friends because those things are gone forever because she’s dead and she won’t stop.

WHOOSH.

Lucie has a little hat pinned to her head when she goes to work. She gets home late at night but she has to cook because dad can’t do it. He likes shouting. He shouts about work and about Lucie’s work and he shouts at José because his job is a bad job and he does not get much money even though it’s plenty to buy new shoes if he needs them.

‘You’re smart, you’re so smart, why don’t you get a better job?’ he says. ‘If you’d just speak up more.’

‘It’s not that he doesn’t speak up,’ says Lucie. She’s angry too. She is not like dad but they both like shouting and not explaining themselves. ‘The doctor says it’s a condition.’

‘But he’s not slow,’ says José’s dad. ‘He’s bright!’

José is also right there as they are talking about him but he’s used to being talked about instead of to because he can’t find the words so people think he does not hear them. His ears work fine and so does his mouth but he just can’t have words all the time, only sometimes, only in the quiet and the calm if it is very nice and he is not in a hurry. He has not had words at all since mum started being dead.

‘It’s not about intelligence,’ says Lucie.

‘What is it about, then?’ says José’s dad. He looks at José. ‘When are you going to grow up?’

José thinks this is a stupid question because he’s already six foot tall and people talk about it all the time. Some of the neighbourhood kids are scared of him because he is big and he likes to spin about and sometimes when dogs bark he screams because it’s horrible and he can feel it on the inside of his skull but he doesn’t mean to shout, not like his dad, not like Lucie, he doesn’t like it, it’s an accident.

At his job at the post office he sorts all the letters into the right bags for where they are going and he makes sure they are in the right bags again because some of the other people in the post office don’t do it right. Sometimes he gets to wrap parcels for people and they always say he does a very good job and he does do a very good job because he makes sure all the folds are crisp and properly tucked against the packages and ties string tight on them so they don’t get damaged as they travel because they have to go a very long way and it’s not good if your parcel comes and it’s ruined.

One day he hopes to work on one of the trains the put the post on. But the other people at the post office say he can’t do that because he doesn’t speak enough and you need to shout and trains are loud.

Trains are loud but it’s okay because they are a nice kind of loud like music. They make noises when they are supposed to and there is a rhythm and you can dance to it but José supposes that would not be a good thing to do in a sorting wagon as it would be too crowded and too busy.

José is sad that he can’t work on the trains but it’s okay because the post office is right by the railway and he can watch through the window and he makes a note of every train that comes through and the kind of wagons it has hitched to it and it’s all very exciting because of the big Modernisation Project, which is going on so there are more electric and diesel trains now and that is fun.

Even though José likes the steam trains too he doesn’t like that they are messy. Electric trains are his favourites because they engines are a good steady rumble and don’t splutter and spit so much as diesel and they are quieter than the steam trains so you can hear the rhythm of the whole thing better and it is the best sound in the world.

WHOOSH.

Everything is gong bad and there is no bread at all and the post office is closed and things are going wrong everywhere and it’s because there is a new war and it was on the radio but now it’s here in their town and in their house. José’s father is gone, they took him away after the first night and it’s because he was a soldier so they shot him and now he’s dead.

Lucie is angry all the time and she does her best and she cleans people’s houses but she always has a cough and she does not seem to sleep and the house is very cold. There is no job for José and everyone is trying to keep the soldiers away from him and they say he’s sick and needs to rest at home so they make him stay in bed for hours and hours and it makes him angry but he’s also glad the soldiers will not come for him. He is scared enough for Lucie and he is the only person Lucie has because the soldiers shot their father and their mother is still being dead.

‘It’s harder now because dad being white was keeping us safer,’ she tells José. ‘You understand that, right?’

José nods.

‘The people I work for like me so they’re trying to help us keep safe but it’s dangerous and so you have to be good and you have to be quiet and you have to stop going to the train station,’ says Lucie.

José nods. José has heard on Lucie’s secret radio that there is proper fighting but it is a long away away.

‘I am serious, José. The Nazis control the train lines. If they catch you lurking around they’ll think you’re up to something and you’ll be shot like dad. Please promise you won’t go to the train station,’ she says.’

José nods.

WHOOSH.

It has been a long war even though it has not really been that much actual time.

The days feel longer because they are hungry and scared.

José and Lucie sleep together in the bed that used to be their mother’s because they do not want to be apart in case something happens in the night.

The people whose houses Lucie cleans like her and so they keep her safe. The Nazis do not cause to much trouble because the town is a wealthy town and the people mostly try to pretend the Nazis are not there.

Except for the people who don’t but they are a secret. And the town is good at secrets, José is learning.

On Lucie’s secret radio José has heard the fighting is getting closer to them. They are far enough away that they cannot hear the bombs but at night if José goes to the top of the house and looks out of the little window in the attic he can see an orange glow far off in the forests. In the day he hears planes and the Nazis in town try to shoot them down even though they have the wrong sorts of guns.

To keep José safe everyone said that he was sick and so he has to act like he is sick and so he only goes out when he sneaks out.

It’s José’s favourite kind of weather, where the sky is a soft grey but doesn’t look like rain, and it’s warm but there’s a cool breeze on the wind. He promised Lucie he wouldn’t go to the train station.

He walks out of town about a mile in the woods and gets to the tracks there.

The trains don’t come at regular times any more. José walks up the track a little further. There is a bridge a little way down. A road goes over the top of the bridge. The inside of the tunnel is stained black from soot. There is a man on the other side of the tunnel.

He starts shouting at José and he pulls out a gun. It’s very shiny and catches the light. The man is younger than José and the more José looks at him, the more he thinks that maybe he’s not a man really but just a very tall teenager and José feels bad because he understand what that is like but also this boy is holding a gun at José’s head he’s not sure if it’s more worrying if he is a boy or if he is a man.

Someone comes out of the trees. It is Alain who used to work as the station master at the train station.

‘Wait, Claude, I know him. You’re José, you’re Arnaud’s son. What are you doing here?’ says Alain.

José points at the tracks. José takes his wooden train out of his pocket.

Alain shakes his head. ‘That’s it isn’t it. You like trains,’ said Alain. He tells Claude to put the gun away and Claude does but he doesn’t. ‘For heaven’s sake, Claude! Put the gun away he’s obviously not working with the Nazi’s, look at him!’

Claude lowers the gun. He tucks it into the waistband of his jeans.

‘You need to get out of here, kid,’ says Alain.

‘Marquis,’ says José. He’s heard Lucie speaking about them at the back door in whispers. They are trying to do something, to change something. José had not thought of looking for them but he wonders if now he has found them by accident.

Alain frowns. ‘You want to help?’ he asks José.

José isn’t sure but he is tired of hiding and tired of being scared and tired of there being no bread. Helping might be better than lying in his bed pretending to be sick like he has been doing for so long. So he nods.

WHOOSH.

Alain and Lucie are arguing and it is about José. At least they’re in the next room. They are talking very loudly for two people who are meant to be involved in a secret organisation.

Lucie thinks José should go home and Alain thinks he should stay. José agrees with Alain even though he’s loud and he was rude to him about José and Lucie’s mother because she was black and he thinks that Lucie and José are not properly French because of this.

But even though he was very wrong about those things he is right about this thing and José should stay because he knows about the trains and the Maquis want to blow them up and if they send José away they are all too stupid to work out where the bombs should go.

Alain knows a little bit about the railways but not as much as José and he has been watching the way the Nazis use the rail lines but not as well as José. And he has not got enough understanding to know where the bombs should go and when they should explode if they want to destroy the train and the tracks.

Alain did have one good idea but it was really Claude’s idea and that was to explode the bridge with the road a mile out of town. It is a good plan because the road will be destroyed as well as the railway being blocked but it is a bad plan because the bridge is made of bricks and they don’t have enough explosives to bring it down completely and so it will be easily repaired and it is unlikely to block the rails for more than a few days. Once they explode the bridge the Nazis will know that someone exploded it deliberately as bridges rarely explode on their own.

José thinks that they should block the train with a tree and then attach a bomb to the underside of the engine whilst they wait for the tree to be moved. They cannot send José away because to do this right they will need to down the tree at the right point that they can attach the bomb without being seen, to the right part of the engine that the engine itself will be destroyed and add to the explosion’s size and hopefully destroy the tracks.

José’s plan is actually even better than this because there is a junction just two miles from their town. It’s the only junction in fifty miles and it means all of the trains heading to the active war zone must cross that junction. If they explode the train there it will mean that no trains be able to get to or from the place where the fighting is happening and this is definitely a good thing and there is nobody else there who knows about all of this but José.

So he is very glad when Alain and Lucie come out of the other room and Lucie kisses him on the cheek and says if he wants to help he can help but she will have no part of it and then she goes home and in fact José is even gladder because it means, hopefully, Lucie will be safe.

WHOOSH

It takes weeks to plan the explosion. José draws the rail lines out. He draws diagrams of trains. He walks the rest of the Maquisard down to the point where the two tracks slide into the junction two miles out. Any trains coming along this route are headed to the active war zone.

The Maquisard has been watching the trains coming and going and they are pretty sure that they are carrying supplies but there is a good chance there will also be ammunition of some kind on the trains and if José is right about the cataclysmic of the potential explosion and they place Claude’s homemade bomb correctly, then there will potentially be a massive chain reaction that could cause even more damage than José theorised.

It is the day of the plan by three minutes and José goes downstairs and sees Lucie sitting at the kitchen table. She looks José up and down and says ‘can I give you a hug?’ and he almost says no but it has been years since their father died and he has not seen Lucie have a hug from anyone since then and even though he doesn’t like touching and he’s not very good at it he gives her a hug.

She cries and sniffles and lets him go after a few seconds and she thanks him seventeen times and she says she’s very proud of him and José shrugs and he touches her cheek and she cries on his fingers and José wonders if she knows that he’s decided it is more important to explode the train than it is for him to come home.

‘I love you so much,’ Lucie says. And José smiles and she smiles back in a way that lets him know she knows the smile means he loves her too.

José meets Claude where they arranged to meet and they head down the tracks to the junction point and there in the trees is Alain and his friends and they are cutting the tree trunk enough that means they can push it down at the exact right moment they need to. Claude and José go to the other side of the tracks.

Claude is talking a lot about glory and hatred and justice. Really he is just nervous and José can tell because he keeps swallowing a lot and looking all around and so José taps him on the shoulder and puts a finger to his lips and Claude looks scared and is quiet then and that is the moment when the tree falls.

They can hear the train on the tracks, and then they can see it and hear the screaming breaks and hear the shouting and then some soldiers come out of the train and go to look at the tree and there is more shouting and Claude and José needs to go to the train’s engine to fix the bomb in place but Claude is not moving he’s just lying there.

They do not have long and if they don’t move more of the soldiers will get off the train. So José takes the bomb from Claude’s bag and Claude keeps lying there like he is frozen except for the fact he’s breathing very fast and José thinks it’s okay because there are hundreds of soldiers and Claude is just a boy and he has done so much already and he is not alone and José knows where the bomb needs to go

He runs to the train and fixes it to the side but he realises he does not know how to keep it there except with his hands.

If he dropped it too the ground too much of the impact would be lost and they’d hardly stop this single train let alone any others. It is a surprisingly fast decision in José’s mind. He supposes that he would be dead the moment the bomb went off and won’t not feel it anyway. José is doing this because he matters and so does everyone else. And so José stands there and he holds the bomb and he looks and the train and he thinks about Lucie and he thinks about his mum who is still being dead and he thinks about his dad who they shot.

There is a bright light.

WHOOSH

THE APPRENTICE SIGHS.

SIR
Shelve or discard?

APPRENTICE
Who gave me the right to make that call?

SIR
Is it a right?

APPRENTICE
I’ve never experienced anything so… Who the fuck am I to judge this man?!

SIR
What an intriguing question. What judgement will you pass?

PAUSE

APPRENTICE
Shelve.

SIR
Why?

APPRENTICE
Does it matter?

SIR
Usually.

APPRENTICE
Well I’m sorry. That’s how it is. Shelve.

SIR
I see.

FOOTSTEPS

SIR
Are you leaving?

APPRENTICE
Obviously.

SIR
This is a most peculiar side of you.

APPRENTICE
Leave me alone.

SIR
As you wish.

END

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