An Episode of Remnants.

Content Warnings

• Discussions of death and grief
• Surreality
• Mentions of murder
• References to drug use/abuse

Transcript

[SOUNDS OF MOVING DUST; A SHOVEL; SOMEONE PUTTING IN A HUGE AMOUNT OF EFFORT] 

APPRENTICE
You don’t have to just sit there looking at me, you know. You could help. 

SIR
I’m not certain that’s true.

APPRENTICE
Don’t get all philosophical at me. 

SIR
I do not intend to. How many holes have you now dug? 

APPRENTICE
I don’t know. I’m not exactly counting. 

[HE RETURNS TO DIGGING] 

APPRENTICE
(Words punctuated by digging)
It would go. A lot faster. If you pitched in again. 

SIR
It’s four hundred and twenty-two. 

APPRENTICE
What is?

SIR
The number of holes you’ve dug. More than two hundred of those you dug alone. 

APPRENTICE
So what? 

SIR
I’m not certain of the purpose of the exercise. 

APPRENTICE
I’ve told you. Hundreds of times. We’re looking for something. 

SIR
What? 

APPRENTICE
I don’t know. Something! Could be a— a pencil or a children’s book or, I don’t know a bit of someone’s shoe. But something!

SIR
Because these are remnants. 

APPRENTICE
Yes. 

SIR

In those four hundred and twenty-two holes, how many remnants have we uncovered? 

APPRENTICE
None. Yet. But do you have a suggestion for what we ought to do instead? 

SIR
No. 

APPRENTICE
So help me!

SIR
I’m trying to. 

APPRENTICE
You’ve not even picked up your shovel. 

SIR
No. 

APPRENTICE
So what are you still doing here?!

SIR
Where else should I go?

APPRENTICE
I don’t KNOW. You know, you’re pretty impossible. How is it that you remember absolutely nothing about anything before this whole place disintegrated or whatever, but you still think you know better than me?

SIR
I never said anything that could even remotely be interpreted as that. 

APPRENTICE
So you do remember. 

SIR
No. And I know nothing more than you do. In fact, due to my lack of memories, I assume I know a good deal less. 

APPRENTICE
You’re driving me insane. 

SIR
And the holes? 

APPRENTICE
You just want me to give up looking? To completely resign myself to the fact that there’s just nothing here but the two of us and mountains of— of disintegrated…

SIR
I don’t know what you should do. 

APPRENTICE
Well maybe you should start coming up with ideas before you decide to criticise mine. 

[WHOOSH]

APPRENTICE
Sir? 

SIR
(Distant)
|The hole is a lot deeper, now. 

APPRENTICE
I— yeah. Did you do this? 

SIR
How?

APPRENTICE
I don’t know, you’re the godthing, not me, I— 

SIR
What do you see? 

APPRENTICE
Another hole. Or a tunnel, I guess.

SIR
Are you going to go through it? 

APPRENTICE
|Yeah. Yeah I… 

[FOOTSTEPS ON DUST] 

[THE APPRENTICE’S VOICE IS MUFFLED] 

APPRENTICE
The dust down here, it’s sort of… hard? No. It’s still soft but it’s kind of compact. It’s a sort of… I don’t know. 

Sir, do you still hear me? 

SIR
(Very close)
Yes. 

APPRENTICE
Jesus! How’d you— you know what, never mind. 

SIR
Alright. 

APPRENTICE
It’s so dark in here. I guess I never noticed how light it was before. That it was light. That it could be dark. I— 

SIR
What? 

APPRENTICE
There’s something here, in the wall. 

SIR
What is it? 

APPRENTICE
I don’t know, I— 

[DUST MOVES AND FALLS] 

APPRENTICE
It’s a… statue? I don’t… I. I know this statue. 

SIR
Yes? 

APPRENTICE
Yeah it… I… I know it. I. Why is nothing happening when I touch him? There’s— there’s no story, no whoosh, nothing. Just nothing. Jus cold marble. 

Hang on. There’s something in his hand. 

SIR
Was there not always? 

APPRENTICE
I don’t think so. I need to— help me, I— 

[PAPER TEARS] 

APPRENTICE
Oh no. It’s— it’s ruined, I’ve ruined it. It’s my fault. 

SIR
I’m sorry. 

APPRENTICE
It didn’t work, anyway. This whole thing is useless. 

SIR
How is it supposed to work?

APPRENTICE
When I touch the remnants, I read them. It’s like— I touch them and I get pulled in, I feel the moments of someone’s life, rushing through me and it… it’s not working. Nothing is working. Everything is gone and it’s all my fault. 

SIR
Not mine? 

APPRENTICE
I don’t even— I don’t know! You’re the one who trapped me here, reading my pages over and over, not letting me go when you should have. It is your fault. But. Maybe it’s my fault too. It all— I… I told you to let me go and this. It all happened because of that. When I told you to let me go, everything just. Crumbled. 

SIR
But you didn’t intend for that to happen. 

APPRENTICE
Does that matter? Really? How can it? The result is the same, whether I wanted this or not. And we’re both stuck here now. 

SIR
In that case, I suggest blame is not the thing that we attempt to place. 

APPRENTICE
What do you mean? 

SIR
Whose fault it is or isn’t that we are in this predicament seems to be irrelevant. 

APPRENTICE
So what then? Digging holes didn’t help. 

SIR
No. But throwing down your shovel did. 

APPRENTICE
You think that’s how we got down here? 

SIR
Perhaps. 

APPRENTICE
We should try it again, to be sure. 

[WHOOSH] 

APPRENTICE
Right, here it is. 

[HE THROWS THE SHOVEL DOWN AGAIN. NOTHING HAPPENS.] 

APPRENTICE
Oh I don’t UNDERSTAND. And we’re stuck down here! What are we— what are we supposed to do now?! Climb? 

[SOUNDS OF EFFORT, FALLING DUST] 

APPRENTICE
It’s hopeless. We’re never getting out of here. 

SIR
Well. The tunnel went deeper into the dust, beyond the statue. 

APPRENTICE
You want to go back in there?!

SIR
What else is there to do? 

APPRENTICE
But. We didn’t make that tunnel. We don’t know where it goes. 

SIR
You didn’t know what you’d find when you dug your holes, and that didn’t stop you then. 

APPRENTICE
This is different. 

SIR
Why? 

APPRENTICE
The dust, it… 

SIR
What? 

APPRENTICE
It doesn’t matter. 

SIR
So we ought to go into the tunnel. 

You told me to come up with ideas. And this is the one that I have. 

APPRENTICE
Alright, fine.

[WHOOSH] 

APPRENTICE
Maybe we should turn back. 

SIR
To what? 

APPRENTICE
I— this is going on for so long, I don’t know where we— 

SIR
What? 

APPRENTICE
It’s the statue again. I can see his hand, through the dust. Let me… 

[DUST MOVES] 

APPRENTICE
Yeah, it— it’s him. 

SIR
Who? 

APPRENTICE
I don’t know. I don’t— just the statue. 

SIR
Ah. 

APPRENTICE
You try, this time. 

SIR
Try what? 

APPRENTICE
To get the paper out of his hand. 

SIR
Alright. 

[A WHOOSH OF FLAME] 

APPRENTICE
Oh great. Now it’s on fire. 

Jesus. It’s on FIRE. 

[CRACKLING SOUNDS GET LOUDER]

SIR
I’m sorry, that was not my intent. 

APPRENTICE
Who cares about that?! Run! 

SIR
Which way?!

APPRENTICE
I— I don’t— back?! Forward?! I— 

SIR
Which?!

APPRENTICE
I DON’T KNOW. 

[DISTANT RUMBLING] 

APPRENTICE
That came from behind us. I suppose we’re going forward. 

[WHOOSH] 

SIR
You’ve stopped walking. 

APPRENTICE
There’s nowhere else to go. It’s a dead end. 

SIR
Perhaps we should dig.

APPRENTICE
Are you joking? 

SIR
No. 

APPRENTICE
What are we supposed to dig… with. 

It’s my shovel. This is the hole we started in.

SIR
We went around in a circle. 

APPRENTICE
No, no we didn’t because there is only ONE TUNNEL. We can’t go around in a circle. The walls weren’t curved. We went in and we came out exactly where we started! Damn it! This whole place is a NIGHTMARE. 

SIR
The shovels. Where did you get them? 

APPRENTICE
What? 

SIR
There was nothing but dust and the two of us. And then there were shovels, and we were digging. 

APPRENTICE
I— I don’t— I don’t know where they came from. I don’t remember. I just started digging. Who cares where the shovels came from?! They’re no use anyway. 

SIR
They’re plenty useful for digging. 

APPPRENTICE
Oh my god. I thought you wanted me to STOP digging. Isn’t that how all this started? 

SIR
I’m not sure what this is, or what its precise inception point may be.

APPRENTICE
So, what? You want me to start digging again? 

SIR
I don’t know. But we can’t climb out of this pit. 

APPRENTICE
How did you get down here? 

SIR
I followed you. 

APPRENTICE
Yeah, but you didn’t jump or anything you were just sort of there. 

SIR
And? 

APPRENTICE
Can’t you get out the same way? 

SIR
I don’t know how it happened, I followed you and there I was. 

APPRENTICE
Well maybe you can not follow me and get out. 

SIR
But then you’d be down here alone. 

APPRENTICE
Yep. Honestly, at that point, that might be better. 

SIR
Why? 

APPRENTICE
Because you’re useless and insufferable, that’s why!

SIR
You don’t know how you got down here either. 

APPRENTICE
I dug a hole!

SIR
Not one this deep. And where did you get the shovel? 

APPRENTICE
Why is that— you are fixated on the wrong things here. I’m trying to figure out a way for us to get out and you’re banging on about how we got down here in the first place and it’s not— it’s not helpful!

SIR
So far all you’ve done is take us back to the place we started. Maybe where we started is the point. 

APPRENTICE
Ugh. What is that supposed to mean? 

SIR
I don’t know. As I mentioned before, I don’t know what this is, and I don’t know its inception point. I have no memory of anything besides this dust, and you and I. So if it is the start that’s important, that’s not something I can help with. 

APPRENTICE
Is there anything you CAN help with, seriously? 

SIR
I don’t know. 

APPRENTICE
Well. What do you remember? The dust, and me, and the shovels? What else? 

SIR
I don’t know. 

APPRENTICE
You counted all the holes I’d dug. 

SIR
I’m not sure I did. 

APPRENTICE
You gave me a number! Four hundred and twenty two!

SIR
I did. But I don’t know if that’s how many holes there were. It’s just how many holes I remembered. 

APPRENTICE
So what, you’re worried you miscounted? 

SIR
I didn’t count. 

APPRENTICE
So what DID you do? 

SIR
I spoke, and there were holes. 

APPRENTICE
But I was already digging. 

[WHOOSH] 

SIR
Oh. 

APPRENTICE
It’s that same bloody statue again! How are we back here?! Is it— 

SIR
We’re not back. 

APPRENTICE
But we are. We— 

SIR
No. We didn’t leave. We were in the hole, talking about digging. And now we’re here. 

APPRENTICE
So we must’ve— we’re back. 

SIR
Do you remember coming back? 

APPRENTICE
Who cares? We are back. Weren’t you going on about how it’s stupid to get fixated on why when the results are still the same? 

SIR
No. We were discussing fault and blame, not causation. 

APPRENTICE
Six of one, half a dozen of the other. 

SIR
Half a dozen implies a further quantity of eggs which might make it a dozen. 

APPRENTICE
Jesus wept. 

SIR
I am simply saying that whilst the terms may be interchangeable in some senses, in others they are not. 

[WHOOSH] 

APPRENTICE
Something’s different. 

SIR
What? 

APPRENTICE
I don’t know. But it is. It’s different. 

SIR
We’re still at the statue. 

APPRENTICE
No, I know. But. It’s not the same. 

SIR
It is. 

APPRENTICE
I mean yeah it’s the same statue and it’s the same us, but it’s not… I don’t know. How to explain. I feel wrong. Don’t you feel wrong? 

SIR
I don’t know what that means. 

APPRENTICE
Not a thing that feels. Or whatever. Okay. 

[WHOOSH] 

APPRENTICE
Sir? 

SIR
Yes? 

APPRENTICE
Um. Where are you? 

SIR
Somewhere. 

APPRENTICE
Where’s the hole with the tunnel? Where are any of the holes? Where is… where. 

SIR
Excellent question. 

APPRENTICE
Why? Do you know the answer? 

SIR
No. But it is very intriguing. 

APPRENTICE
I’m going to tear off your… whatever you’ve… got.

SIR
What are you doing? 

APPRENTICE
Sitting down. 

SIR
Why? 

APPRENTICE
Nothing else for me to do, is there? 

SIR
So you don’t want to keep digging? 

APPRENTICE
I don’t have a shovel, do I? 

SIR
You do. It’s in your hand. 

APPRENTICE
I— what? 

SIR
Do you want to dig? 

APPRENTICE
Is there any point? 

SIR
I don’t know. But what else is there to do? 

APPRENTICE
Isn’t that what I…? Never mind. 

[WHOOSH] 

APPRENTICE
That is IT I can’t keep doing this! What is happening what on earth is— Sir? 

Sir? 

Sir, are you there? 

Hello? 

Sir? 

[DUST SHIFTS] 

APPRENTICE
YOU. 

[HURRYING, DUST MOVING] 

APPRENTICE
Get back here! Wait! What’s going on?! Are you doing this?! Do you know what’s happening, is it you that’s… 

[ONE FOOTSTEP ON WOOD]

APPRENTICE
The pit. But it’s been sealed. 

I can see, through the cracks, on the other side it’s— there’s… oh my god, it’s the first and last place. It’s on the other side of this board. I can see it, I can— I can see the remnants. How do I— 

[STRUGGLING] 

APPRENTICE
How do I go back there, what— how do I get back?!

Wait. There’s… there’s dust. Coming through the cracks in the wood. It’s a… a filter? Stopping things coming through that shouldn’t? Is that what this is? If this is the other side of the pit… all the dust. Are these discarded remnants? Is that what it… is that what’s going on? Is that what’s happening here? Have we— have we been discarded? 

Hello?

Anyone? 

Sir? 

[QUIET, BUT FOR THE WIND]

APPRENTICE
This is only just a bit lower than the level of the dust, what if I—

[THE APPRENTICE DIGS THE DUST WITH HIS HANDS] 

APPRENTICE
What? It’s all— under the wood it’s just. More dust. But I can see through! I can see, I— I can see through the cracks, I… 

[SKITTERING] 

APPRENTICE
The statue. Again.

But you were in the hole. Now you’re here and you… I know you. Why do I know you? Who are you? 

How did you get through the cracks? You’re too big to fit. But then, so are Sir and I… 

Your hand. You’re not clutching it in a fist anymore, maybe I can— 

[WHOOSH] 

‘Ted, what is this?’ Elio calls from the bedroom. I know what he’s found before I see the open box on the floor. I don’t look at its contents. 

‘Important things,’ I say.

‘Three odd earrings? A strip of canvas? Teddy. Come on.’ 

I don’t want to look at him, towel around his waist, water from the shower shining like glass beads on his honey-bronze skin. I don’t want to meet his eye. I can’t bear it. 

‘When I saw the needle, I thought you’d been using again,’ says Elio. 

‘I haven’t,’ I say, too quickly. 

‘Ted. This is weird.’ 

‘I know.’ 

‘I just want to understand.’ 

I sit on the edge of the bed. Put my head in my hands. ‘I should have left them behind.’ 

‘What?’ Elio asks.

‘When we left, I should have left them too! I don’t know why I brought it here, I don’t know.’ 

Elio draws a long, slow breath. ‘I don’t want to tell you want this looks like.’ 

‘Just do it.’ 

‘It looks like trophies, Teddy.’ 

I press my eyes shut. ‘I didn’t kill them.’ 

‘Who?’ 

‘I just like to remember.’ 

‘Remember what?’ 

‘You do so many things. You are so many people. It all starts to— it comes apart in my hands. Falls through the gaps in my fingers. It starts to feel like it wasn’t real, like it didn’t happen. Like I don’t exist. Nobody knows any of it.’ 

‘Any of what?!’ 

Finally I look at him. His wide eyes are earnest, mouth set stern and serious. I can’t hold his gaze long. The shame is so thick it’s like drowning in mud. 

‘You don’t know what I’ve done,’ I say.

‘I found you. I knew you weren’t who you said you were,’ says Elio.

‘And you don’t know who I am.’ 

‘You’re right,’ says Elio. ‘I don’t. And I followed you here anyway. What is this stuff, Teddy.’ 

I laugh, hang my head lower. ‘Pieces of me.’ 

‘Who are you?’ he asks.

‘I don’t know anymore. I’m not sure I ever did.’ 

[WHOOSH] 

[THE APPRENTICE GASPS]

THE APPRENTICE
No— no. That can’t be all of it. Please, I— 

Where the hell is that statue? 

Where the hell am I? 

Hello? 

[WIND BLOWS, SAND MOVES] 

Wait, what— what is going on I— 

[WHOOSH]
[END]