An Episode of Remnants.

Content Warnings

• Discussion of death
• Depictions of emotional distress
• Depictions of a character in psychological pain
• Ominous sense of threat
• Descriptions of blood and injury from glass

Transcript

[SIR AND THE APPRENTICE’S VOICES ARE ECHOIC, LIKE THEY ARE IN A VERY LARGE SPACE] 

SIR
Did it help? 

APPRENTICE
I’m not sure. What did you do?

SIR
I don’t know. But things are different again. 

APPRENTICE
Yeah. They are. 

[WATER MOVES] 

APPRENTICE
I feel like I… have we been here? I recognise it, but I don’t. 

[FOOTSTEPS IN SHALLOW WATER] 

SIR
What does it look like? 

APPRENTICE
You can’t see? 

SIR
Not the way you do. 

APPRENTICE
I suppose that makes sense. What with the. Not eyes. You know. 

SIR
I see. 

APPRENTICE
No you don’t. 

SIR
Was that a joke? 

APPRENTICE
Yeah. 

SIR
Very funny. 

APPRENTICE
Thanks. 

SIR
You do not seem hurt. Not like you were. 

APPRENTICE
No. The feeling’s gone, now. I have to ask. Why did you stop me from reading the rest of Lucie? 

SIR
It hurts when they die. And you said it was worse when it was sudden. 

APPRENTICE
Oh. Right. I think I said that badly. What I meant was like, you know. How George was shot. How Elsie was hit by that car. Sudden like that. 

SIR
Ah. Violent. 

APPRENTICE
I suppose, yeah. If it hurts them, it hurts me more. But they all hurt. I feel it. I feel it when they go. 

SIR
What is it like? 

APPRENTICE
Like… like falling, almost. But not. Clinging onto something, but it’s like trying to hold water in your hands by clenching your fist. You can’t.

SIR
Oh. 

APPRENTICE
You said they hurt you too, when you touched them. 

SIR
Yes. 

APPRENTICE
What is that like? 

SIR
Pain, I imagine. 

APPRENTICE
Hmm. 

[MORE WET FOOTSTEPS] 

APPRENTICE
The walls are warm. Not hot just. Warm. Like almost the exact same temperature of my hands. It’s stone, but it’s warm. Warm like it’s alive. 

SIR
Nothing here is alive.

APPRENTICE
Well I didn’t say it was alive, did I? Just that it’s what it’s like. 

SIR
So you did. 

[THE APPRENTICE GASPS] 

APPRENTICE
There’s a ridge here. An edge. 

SIR
What are you doing? 

APPRENTICE
Trying to look through it. 

SIR
Why? 

APPRENTICE
There’s no door. 

SIR
Ah. You want to leave. Of course. 

APPRENTICE
It’s a big stone room full of water. You’re telling me you want to stay? 

SIR
That is not what it is.

APPRENTICE
What is it then? 

SIR
Dust. 

APPRENTICE
Pretty solid and wet for dust. 

SIR
Yes. 

APPRENTICE
I can’t see anything on the other side. 

SIR
Who is to say that there is one? 

APPRENTICE
Well there’s got to be. We were somewhere else before and now we’re here. 

SIR
Oh? 

APPRENTICE
You can’t possibly argue with that. We’re definitely here. 

SIR
I’m not sure that we are, wherever we are doing it. 

APPRENTICE
You got any elaborations on that? 

SIR
No. 

APPRENTICE
You really do just say these things, don’t you? 

SIR
What else ought I do? 

APPRENTICE
Right. Fair point, I suppose. 

SIR
What are you doing now? 

APPRENTICE
Uh, looking for something I can use to jam into that gap. 

SIR
Why? 

APPRENTICE
In case I can move it. 

SIR
I see. 

APPRENTICE
Yeah. You could help, you know?

SIR
I could. There is nothing here you could use. 

APPRENTICE
At least that’s conclusive. 

SIR
Did you dream? 

APPRENTICE
When? 

SIR
When I did what I did to help you. 

APPRENTICE
I don’t think so. We were there and now we’re here. Just like we were in the tent and then we weren’t. 

SIR
I thought you didn’t remember. 

APPRENTICE
I don’t. But it’s getting clearer. 

SIR
I wonder why. 

APPRENTICE
Me too. But it’s probably best not to worry about that, right? 

Could you do it again, do you think? Whatever it was you did before? 

SIR
I am not sure. 

APPRENTICE
Could you try? 

SIR
Alright. 

[WHOOSH] 

APPRENTICE
I can’t tell if that worked. Nothing looks any different. 

SIR
No. 

APPRENTICE
Hmm. Maybe you need some motivation. What if I like, kicked the wall and broke my toe or something? 

SIR
I would prefer you didn’t. 

APPRENTICE
Yeah, exactly, that’s what I’m suggesting. 

SIR
I would prefer you not to hurt yourself. 

APPRENTICE
Could you stop me if I tried it? 

SIR
Evidence thus far would suggest I could not. 

APPRENTICE
Okay then. 

It’s surprising how much I don’t want to. 

SIR
To you, perhaps. 

APPRENTICE
Wait. I see something. There’s light coming through that gap. 

[WET FOOTSTEPS] 

APPRENTICE
I see it! I see the First and Last Place. All the stars, twinkling above.

SIR
Not stars. 

APPRENTICE
Then what? 

SIR
Dust. All of it, dust. 

APPRENTICE
Okay. You said before you see things differently. 

SIR
I do not see them. 

APPRENTICE
Perceive them differently, then. What’s it like, when you look at stuff? 

SIR
I’m not sure if I can describe it. Nothing is static. Everything pushes and pulls. Millions upon millions of microscopic movements. All the while the parts of each thing agreeing to coalesce. 

APPRENTICE
Everything? 

SIR
Yes. 

APPRENTICE
Even me? 

SIR
Last time I described how I saw you, it upset you. 

APPRENTICE
Yeah. Do you think you’d be able to tell if you looked through here if it was real? 

SIR
Define real. 

APPRENTICE
Real the way this room is. That I am. That you are. 

SIR
Those things are quite distinct. 

APPRENTICE
Just. Could you look and see if it’s an actual place I can see, or just… I don’t know. The impression of one. 

SIR
I suspect it will be the latter. 

APPRENTICE
Why? 

SIR
Did you not hear me when I told you what I see? 

APPRENTICE
No, I did. But I’m real. This room is real. 

SIR
Define real. 

APPRENTICE
I’m here, I’m in it. I feel real. I have to be somewhere. So the room has to be real too. 

SIR
I see. And me? 

APPRENTICE
You speak to me. I can see you. Sometimes when I get close, I can almost even touch you. So you must be real, too. 

SIR
Fascinating. 

APPRENTICE
Yeah, sure. Would you just look? 

SIR
Alright. 

APPRENTICE
Tell me what you see. Or perceive. Whatever. What does it look like to you when you look through that gap? 

SIR
I don’t— 

[WHOOSH] 

APPRENTICE
Ach, my head. My head. What happened?

The water’s deeper. What did you… see. Sir?

Sir, where are you?! Sir! 

God, why does this keep happening?! What is…

A door. 

There wasn’t a door before. 

[FOOTSTEPS SPLASH THROUGH DEEPER WATER THAN BEFORE] 

[HANDLE RATTLES] 

APPRENTICE
God damn it. 

[A COUPLE OF FOOTSTEPS] 

APPRENTICE
Oh look. A book. 

[HE LIFTS IT FROM THE WATER] 

APPRENTICE
There’s no pages in it. Ngh. I— why does my head hurt. Why does it— oh. 

[WHOOSH]

[A TICKING CLOCK]

A porcelain teacup. Celine, an art forger, killed with a blow to the head. Amelie. Simeon. Gerald. Lucio. Annie, Sally, Dafydd, more, too many, too many of them, too much, too fast, I can’t, I can’t, I— 

[WHOOSH]

Please stop, I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know! 

{DOOR RATTLES]

Let me out, please! 

[THE APPRENTICE SLAMS AGAINST THE DOOR]

This isn’t what I’m supposed to be. Just stop!

[HE SLUMPS TO THE GROUND WITH A SLUMP]

[SOBBING]

Just stop. 

I know. I’m nothing. I know. I hurt people, I lied, I— please. Please just. I can’t fix any of it. I can’t change what happened. 

[DRIPPING WATER] 

There’s water coming through the gap. 

[STILL CRYING, THE APPRENTICE MOVES TOWARDS IT.] 

What’s… there’s paper stuffed in it, i— 

I see it… on a shelf in a bookshop. 

[WHOOSH]

A book with her name on the cover. Amelie du Perier. And I think it can’t be her. Cannot be my Amelie. Small, brazen, wild-eyed. 

I pick it up, a slender volume, cloth-bound. 

I flip it open, see her words. 

You are the gaps between paragraphs; 

The spaces between words; 

Unresolvable 

Necessary

Void. 

I recognised 

You in shadows and hollow trees

Places crying out for what was there before 

But isn’t now.

You were in every absence

I had ever felt.

I did not know 

I was grieving 

You.

[WHOOSH}

Amelie I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I left you. I should never have come back. I don’t know which part was worse. I’m– I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. 

I’d go back, I’d change things. I’d do them differently now! Please. 

Please. 

I want to go back. 

I want to be different. 

I want to be someone else. 

Is that what this is? A punishment for what I’ve done? 

Well I’ve learned, I know what I did wrong, don’t I?! I failed people. I— I stole Edward Pocket’s life. I. Tricked people. I left my daughter. 

My father left me. He left me. He took me from people who might’ve been kind and sent me away and he left me. Surely what I did wasn’t as bad as that? I thought she’d be safe. It was a nice house, a nice place. She was happy. She wanted for nothing. I thought she’d be SAFE. 

I went back, I tried, but I couldn’t— I couldn’t. I don’t know! I don’t know. 

There are still so many gaps, too many things I can’t remember, and I don’t understand why I can’t just see it all. It hurts more than it ever could to know the truth, surely? 

What do I have to do? 

I’ll do anything, ANYTHING. 

Please. 

I just want to make things right. 

Please.

[THE APPRENTICE GASPS] 

APPRENTICE

You. It’s you. The statue. 

Have you— will you help me? 

You’re holding something. 

[SPLASHING FOOTSTEPS] 

APPRENTICE
A key. A burnished brass key. Does this unlock the door? Have you come to let me go?!

Hello? 

Why am I asking you, you’re made of marble. Then again, the guy I normally talk to is. Made of. Uh. Something. 

Right, let me just, can I just, have the— let me— oh the metal is warm, like the walls, like it’s been sat in someone’s pocket and I— ah. 

[WHOOSH] 

A rush. Things come and go, stop and start, a shoal of minnows through this place that is and isn’t. So many sounds they merge into one, a constant breeze, the shimmer of falling sand against the surface of a bell. Always moving, always flowing. Back and forth.

A nature which shifts and changes. Aware of all things and none. The sum of all things, yet apart from them. All things inform all other things. Each one is judged alone.

What are we made of? Sweat that drips from the brow of burning stars. Born again and again in heat and pressure. The real is limitless, infinite, beyond knowing. 

Ideas bleed out of the gaps. Dreams of gods and heavens. Hundreds, thousands, millions. Each one a different picture, each one a reflection of the last. No two the same, no two wholly different. 

Everything, everything, a sea of dust and stars. Stars made of dust, dust made of stars, and all of it is everything, and infinite, and already done. 

This is the end and the beginning. Always, never. A constant flow of is and isn’t, can’t and can be. All connected, all trying, all being. 

All within a single cosmic blink. 

[WHOOSH] 

[THE APPRENTICE IS BREATHING HARD] 

APPRENTICE
What was that? What did I just see? 

Why won’t you SPEAK TO ME. 

It’s gone, the statue’s gone. 

Ah, I still have the key. 

[SPLASHING FOOTSTEPS] 

[THE KEY TURNS IN THE LOCK. THE DOOR DOES NOT CREAK. THERE IS ONLY SILENCE] 

APPRENTICE
Hello? 

[HIS VOICE ECHOES] 

[FLUTTERING. AT FIRST DISTANT, BUT BUILDING EVERY MOMENT, LOUDER AND LOUDER] 

APPRENTICE
Moths? 

[THE FLUTTERING TURNS HUGE, MENACING.]

APPRENTICE
(Very quietly)
Fuck.

SIR
Apprentice!

APPRENTICE
Sir! Please. 

[WHOOSH] 

APPRENTICE
Ah.

SIR
I have you. 

APPRENTICE
I know. I know. Ah. 

SIR
You’re hurt. 

APPRENTICE
It’s not that bad. 

SIR
You’re bleeding. 

APPRENTICE
It’s fine. 

SIR
When I helped before, the pain was gone. But this pain remains. 

APPRENTICE
I’m alright. 

[HE DOES NOT SOUND ALRIGHT] 

SIR
What is this? 

APPRENTICE
Why are you asking me? 

SIR
What is it that you see, when you look? 

APPRENTICE
Ach. Um. Mirrors. I see mirrors. Fuck. 

SIR
The mirrors. Are they shattered? 

APPRENTICE
There’s something in the— it’s glistening through the blood, can you— it’s glass. There’s glass. Tiny shards of glass. I— OW, oh my god. 

SIR
Are the mirrors shattered?

APPRENTICE
Yeah, yeah they are, I just, can’t you—

SIR
I see us. 

APPRENTICE
Yeah, they’re mirrors that’s what they do!

SIR
No. Not us now. Us before. Again and again. Again and again. 

APPRENTICE
They’re MIRRORS, I am bleeding. And I’m so tired. And I don’t understand. I am so tired of not understanding. I just want— I need to. I need to work out how I can. How do I make it all right? 

SIR
All of what? 

APPRENTICE
All the things that I’ve done. All these remnants, they all connect to me. You said that, you said each one collides with the wake I’ve left or something like that, all these people!

SIR
What about them? 

APPRENTICE
I think I understand. These are all the people whose lives might have been different if I was different. If I had done things right. 

SIR
Some of them were born long before you. 

APPRENTICE
But it’s my fault. It has to be my fault. It’s the only thing that makes sense. 

SIR
I’m not sure it does. 

APPRENTICE
Then what am I supposed to do?! I can’t just— I can’t just keep being like this. I can’t. You were holding on to me. I saw that, when I dreamed, I saw you have been holding on to me. That you’ve made me forget over and over. Made me read these remnants hundreds, thousands of times. 

SIR
I do not remember, now. 

APPRENTICE
No, I know, and that’s my fault too! When I asked you to let me go, it all just went, and then it was just us and all that dust and—

SIR
It was always dust. All of it. Always. 

APPRENTICE
But it wasn’t. It was a place, with shelves and remnants. 

SIR
I know. But it was all dust, holding itself together. 

APPRENTICE
I made it all fall apart, don’t you get it? It’s my fault, Sir. I did it. It’s me. I’m the one who ruins things. I’m the one that makes things into dust. 

SIR
I am not sure anyone can make the dust do anything. 

APPRENTICE
Just. Please. Please. Tell me what I need to do to fix this. To make it right. 

SIR
Do you not see that it is us, all around us? Over and over again? 

APPRENTICE
I know, they’re mirrors! That’s what they do! They show you yourself, over and over again! That’s how they work. I need you to remember why you didn’t just discard me like you should have. I need you to tell me what I need to do to make it so you can let me go. 

SIR
But I don’t remember. 

APPRENTICE
I know, I know. I know. 

SIR
I heard you calling me. I heard you, and I was there. 

APPRENTICE
When I opened the door and all of those moths flew out? 

SIR
Is that what you saw? 

APPRENTICE
Yes? 

SIR
I heard you call me, and I came. You asked for help and so helped, though I do not know how, do not understand what it was that I did. 

It is puzzling, to me. Puzzling that I should hear you. Puzzling that without thought or hesitation I would come to be beside you. Puzzling that—

APPRENTICE
Yeah, yeah I get it! It’s all super puzzling and I— ah. 

SIR
You have not taken the glass out of your arm. 

APPRENTICE
I don’t want to touch it. 

SIR
Why? 

APPRENTICE
I… I think last time there was a big chunk of glass in me, I touched it and it showed me something. 

SIR
Oh yes. It showed you a piece of my memory. 

APPRENTICE
I— I don’t want to see any more. 

SIR
Why? 

APPRENTICE
It’s. Weird. I don’t want to. The key, I saw— It showed me things. I felt, but I didn’t, and it was. Everything and nothing all at once. 

SIR
The statue. Is that the one who gave you the key?

APPRENTICE
Yes. 

SIR
It came to me, when I tried to make me sleep. Showed me a piece of you.

APPRENTICE
Yeah. You were reading it, like it was remnant. 

SIR
I felt it like it was me. Memories bled into one another. 

APPRENTICE
It’s not like that for me. It’s like, a sequence of events. I know there’s more to who I’m reading, but I don’t see the whole of it. Just those moments. 

SIR
I wonder why it is those moments. I wonder what it means that those are the parts you choose to read. 

APPRENTICE
I don’t. I don’t choose. 

SIR
Don’t you? 

APPRENTICE
No. I just read them and it happens. I see what I see. 

SIR
Like how in this room you see mirrors. And when you opened the door, you saw moths. And now, what is in your arm is a shard of glass to you, and it leaves you bleeding. 

APPRENTICE
Yeah? 

SIR
There are none of those things. No mirrors. No door. No moths. No shard. There is dust. That is all. 

APPRENTICE
So what about me? Me and you? 

SIR
The same. 

APPRENTICE
But we can’t be. 

SIR
And yet we are. 

APPRENTICE
They don’t— the remnants, they turn to dust and they— they do that. 

SIR
What do you mean?

APPRENTICE
I think I— I held one in my hands and it was…It was like it was already falling apart. It was blurry? Almost. Fuzzy. And the memories were strange, too. Less. Smaller. And when I stopped, the whole thing was gone. Just gone. 

SIR
Whose remnant was this? 

APPRENTICE
I don’t know. I don’t remember. I just remember it falling apart. It was something, and then it became dust. We’re not— we can’t be dust. And you and me, we are not the same kind of thing, not at all. 

SIR
How can you be sure? 

APPRENTICE
You helped me. You grabbed me and then we were here, with all these mirrors, instead of that room full of water. 

SIR
And you asked me to discard you, and everything turned to dust. 

APPRENTICE
No it— it wasn’t like that, it— 

SIR
Wasn’t it? 

[END]