An Episode of Remnants.

Content Warnings

• Discussions of death, including the death of a young person
• Depiction and descriptions of a child with a terminal illness
• Descriptions of a corpse
• Implications of threat

Transcript

APPRENTICE
I. Oh. We’re inside again.

SIR
Yes. But not the same inside as before.

APPRENTICE
No. It’s that tent where we were when I found those footprints. George Peterson.

SIR
Yes.

APPRENTICE
There’s a bed.

SIR
Oh?

APPRENTICE
Yeah, I. I just, I— I’m tired. Maybe that’s why we’re here.

SIR
You think I am right and the place shifts around you?

APPRENTICE
I don’t know. But I thought you were sure?

SIR
No. I am not sure of anything. I am not a thing that knows.

APPRENTICE
Right.

SIR
Would you like to sleep?

APPRENTICE
I’m not sure that I can.

SIR
I’ve seen you do it. You would not wake.

APPRENTICE
I’m not really sure that was sleeping, exactly. I think I just reached a point where I like. I couldn’t, anymore.

SIR
Couldn’t what?

APPRENTICE
I just couldn’t.

SIR
Ah.
So. Are you going to?

APPRENTICE
What?

SIR
Sleep.

APPRENTICE
Oh. I don’t know. Maybe I should try. I am so, so tired.

SIR
Then try.

APPRENTICE
Don’t leave.

SIR
I wouldn’t.

APPRENTICE
I. Okay. Thanks.

SIR
You are welcome.

[MOVEMENT, FABRIC RUSTLES]

[THE APPRENTICE SIGHS]

APPRENTICE
I don’t think it’s going to happen.

SIR
Would it normally come to you that quickly?

APPRENTICE
Uh. I don’t actually remember. I think I. Yeah. I only have a few memories of actually falling asleep, here, the rest of the time, you made me.

SIR
Oh. Would you like me to make you sleep now?

APPRENTICE
(quickly)
No.

SIR
You’re afraid of me.

APPRENTICE
Not because of. It’s. You don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t know what it was like before, when you made me. You don’t know.

SIR
The times when it happened without me forcing your hand, what was it like?

APPRENTICE
Uh. I lay down. You were there with me.

SIR
I am here now.

APPRENTICE
I know you are but it was different.

SIR
How?

APPRENTICE
You were more… it was easier to look at you. You could. When you touched me it felt like. Something. Not. Whatever it feels like now.

SIR
Can you describe it?

APPRENTICE
I can try, I suppose. It’s. Like the air falling out of a freezer. Colder than the air around it but insubstantial. It bites your skin.

SIR
So, now. I hurt you.

APPRENTICE
It’s not your fault. Not that part, anyway.
I’m sorry I don’t look at you more.

SIR
Why?

APPRENTICE
I don’t know. It seemed like it bothered you.

SIR
What is it, for something to bother you?

APPRENTICE
You seemed upset, that’s all I mean.

SIR
Ah. Perhaps this is a fitting word in some sense. I certainly feel frustrated.

APPRENTICE
Tell me about it.

SIR
I just did.

APPRENTICE
No, I… never mind.

SIR
You are kind.

[THE APPRENTICE SCOFFS]

APPRENTICE
Right.

SIR
No. You are. You are kind.

APPRENTICE
I’m not.

SIR
Why is it so difficult for you to hear it when people are anything but cruelty to you?

APPRENTICE
It isn’t.

SIR
But it is. Here and in the remnants we have seen of you. You cringe away from compliments, shrink back from kind words. Why does it hurt you to be seen as something besides abominable?

APPRENTICE
I— you can’t just ask a man that, Sir.

SIR
Why not?

APPRENTICE
Because it’s! I don’t know, you just can’t.

SIR
Maybe that’s true for you. But it is not true for me. I can ask. I just did.

APPRENTICE
Well you shouldn’t, then.

SIR
Ah, now that is a different sentiment entirely.

APPRENTICE
God you are so bad at inferring when it suits you to be. What’s it to you if I can’t— why does it matter?

SIR
If I am right and this place responds to you, your wants and needs, I imagine it matters a great deal.

APPRENTICE
I thought you said it wasn’t a punishment.

SIR
I did.

APPRENTICE
So why would you torture me with questions like that?

SIR
It feels like torture to you?

APPRENTICE
I. I. Yeah. Shut up. I’m trying to sleep anyway.

SIR
I thought you couldn’t.

APPRENTICE
Well yeah, and I definitely won’t be able to if you don’t stop yapping.

SIR
Ah.

[A MOMENT OF QUIET]

SIR
Are you sleeping now?

APPRENTICE
God, would you please just leave me alone?!

SIR
I thought you wanted me to stay.

APPRENTICE
I meant like, emotionally or. Fuck. Maybe I can’t sleep but maybe what I need is some quiet contemplation. So let’s just be quiet and contemplate a bit. Alright?

SIR
Alright.

[WHOOSH]

APPRENTICE
Goddamn it!

SIR
We are on the dunes again?

APPRENTICE
Thought you couldn’t see.

SIR
I can perceive. I have learned this shape of things from your description as you see it.

APPRENTICE
Yes. We’re on the fucking dunes of dust in the middle of— fuck.

SIR
The middle of fuck?

APPRENTICE
No, it— the statue. It’s back. He’s back. Elio. He’s back.

SIR
Ah. The presence.

APPRENTICE
Yeah.

SIR
He haunts you.

APPRENTICE
I. Yeah.

SIR
He gives you back pieces of yourself.

APPRENTICE
There’s something in his hand.

[FOOTSTEPS]

APPRENTICE
Elio? Can you hear me?

[NOTHING]

APPRENTICE
I’m so sorry, Elio, I didn’t mean— I’m sorry. Your sister is here, somewhere. Did you know that? Evelina. She’s here.

[NOTHING]

APPRENTICE
Why won’t you talk to me?

[NOTHING]

[THE APPRENTICE SIGHS]

APPRENTICE
There’s something in your hand, again. Let me see. I— it’s a bit of. Card? What? It’s got stuff on one side it… oh. I think it’s the spine of a book.

SIR
It’s you.

APPRENTICE
What?

SIR
I don’t know.

APPRENTICE
I. Why is nothing happening? I’m holding it, feeling it, and nothing is happening.

SIR
You cannot read the spine of a book. For that you need the pages.

APPRENTICE
That doesn’t apply here when I’m reading fucking butter knives and shoe prints! Why can’t I see what this is?

SIR
Don’t you already know?

APPRENTICE
No? What are you talking about?

SIR
All those notes you kept.

APPRENTICE
What? You think this is what’s left of the book I wrote them in?

SIR
Perhaps.

APPRENTICE
I remember, a long time ago now. There was a room. It was filled with moths and dust and pages. Hundreds, thousands of torn out pages. And I looked at it and I knew. I knew it was me. That pile of stuff. It was me.

SIR
Ah.

APPRENTICE
Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s—

[WHOOSH]

APPRENTICE
The hole. The hole I dug.

SIR
Were you the one who dug it?

APPRENTICE
Yeah, I had the shovel.

SIR
But where did the shovel come from?

APPRENTICE
Are you trying to drive me insane?!

SIR
I’m not trying to do anything.

APPRENTICE
So just tell me what you mean instead of dancing around it like this!

SIR
I am not dancing.

APPRENTICE
Tell me!

SIR
You are still holding it.

APPRENTICE
What?

SIR
The spine.

APPRENTICE
Oh. Yeah.

SIR
Things move and shift and change. They coalesce and disperse. We are part of it. This place reaches beyond what either of us could ever comprehend. I chose you for something. What?

APPRENTICE
I don’t fucking know, do I?! If I knew that, I’d have done it by now.

SIR
Maybe you can’t. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s why you read the remnants and have to judge them. Choose to shelve or discard. Maybe it’s because you can’t do what you’re supposed to do.

APPRENTICE
So what? You’re saying I’m stuck here because I’m incompetent?

SIR
Not incompetent. Incapable.

APPRENTICE
Incapable of what?!

SIR
I don’t know.

APPRENTICE
Ugh. I don’t care, I don’t care. We had a theory. I’m supposed to find remnants, read them, judge them, and move on, right? So where are they all? And why can’t I read this fucking sp—

[WHOOSH]

[DRIPPING]

APPRENTICE
Water.

SIR
The reading room.

APPRENTICE
I’ve been here. We’ve been here. The walls, they’re soft. Almost like flesh, but not quite. Inside. Can you see?

SIR
Remnants.

APPRENTICE
Yes. And mnnh. This part is still quite difficult to look at. I think because it was right before.

SIR
Before you tried to discard yourself.

APPRENTICE
Yeah. The things in here. They’re stuff you didn’t want me to see. Like Pearl Grenville’s fountain pen. I read it. It covered me in red ink. But I’d tried to look before and you stopped me and— Before. There were other times I’d seen it. I’d seen it and it was too much. It was too much to know. To see myself like that. To see that I. It was just my job, I was just doing my fucking job, I had no idea who he really was, no idea what he was doing. I barely knew his fucking name, I was just doing my job and he killed so many people because of me.

SIR
Because of you?

APPRENTICE
He was looking for me. Asking people about me.

SIR
You were not the one who shattered those people’s skulls. You did not stab Alice Chatterley or push Harry Dhairya Standish-Coombes off that balcony.

APPRENTICE
I may as well have done.

SIR
You did not steal his life Apprentice. You were just doing your job.

APPRENTICE
For a company that didn’t know who I was! And I lied and let— I let them believe I was someone I wasn’t.

SIR
Edward Pocket died in the Blitz. Or one of them did. They mistook you for him. They treated you with kindness.

APPRENTICE
I still lied.

SIR
Because you wanted to be loved.

[THUD]

APPRENTICE
What’s…? It’s a bundle of papers.

SIR
Aren’t you going to pick them up?

APPRENTICE
What if nothing happens?

SIR
Then nothing happens.

APPRENTICE
What if something does.

SIR
Then it does.

APPRENTICE
This is the place you kept things from me hidden.

SIR
And you always found it. But you didn’t always see.

APPRENTICE
I…

[HE PICKS UP THE PAPERS]

APPRENTICE
There’s holes in them. Like they’ve been eaten by something.

SIR
Moths. You see them, fluttering. That is what you saw when you opened that door, when you were alone.

APPRENTICE
They all flew at me. You saved me.

SIR
Is that what I did?

APPRENTICE
I… there are holes in these papers. They’re… I think they’re legal documents of some kind and—

[WHOOSH]

Edward’s chair is heavy but Joseph can manage to push it if he throws all his weight against the back.
‘You’re sure you saw a warbler?’ Joseph asks. He’s annoyed his brother demanded they go out into the garden on this gloomy day. He’d been tucked up by the fire reading his book. At this rate, he’d never finish the Count of Monte Christo.
‘I’m sure,’ says Edward.
They have reached the trees in their aunt’s garden, where they have been staying for weeks. Edward lifts the binoculars from the blanket folded over his lap and holds them to his face.
‘Do you see it?’
‘No but it was just there, in the conifers.’
‘Is it gone?’
‘Shh.’
Joseph fidgets with the hem of his shirt. Edward hands him the binoculars.
’Look up and left,’ says Edward.
Joseph presses the binoculars to his eyes, as his older brother instructs.
‘Do you see it? Just peering out of the shadows? It’s only tiny, but it’s there.’
Joseph looks. He sees nothing.
Edward coughs. In the trees, something flutters.
‘Sorry,’ says Edward, his voice hoarse. There his blood on his handkerchief.
‘I should take you back to the house,’ says Joseph.
‘Did you see the warbler?’
‘Yes,’ Joseph lies.
‘Wasn’t it beautiful?’
‘It was.’

[WHOOSH]

Edward wilts in his chair by the door. ‘Can you see them?’
‘Oh yes,’ says Joseph, binoculars trailing along the fence line. There are no birds sat along it.
‘I can hear them singing at night. It’s very lovely. Have you heard them too?’
‘All the time,’ Joseph lies. ‘Keeps me awake.’ He hands his brother the binoculars back.
‘I hope I’m well enough for us to go back to London for your birthday,’ says Edward.
‘Me too.’
‘It’ll be your last one before father sends you away for school. We should make a fuss of it. I’ll ask mother.’
‘She’ll be visiting again at the weekend,’ says Joseph. ‘You can ask her then.’
‘Visiting?’ asks Edward.
‘Yeah. She’ll be back. She went to the city to help father with his new firm, remember? She left a month ago.’
Edward frowns. ‘That can’t be right. She brought me my breakfast just now.’
It is late in the evening. Joseph touches the back of Edward’s head. ‘Oh yes. Silly me.’
’Silly old Joe,’ Edward sighs.
Edward is almost fourteen but at twelve Joseph is already taller than him, and it’s not that much of an effort for him to take his brother’s weight to help him back into his bed. Edward groans as Joseph sets him against his pillows. He’s broken out in a sheen of cold sweat. His skin glistens grey. He coughs, and the blood on his lips looks violent red against them.
Joseph grabs the bottle of laudanum from his brother’s cabinet and climbs onto the bed to feed him several spoonfuls until his rattling chest stops heaving and his eyes flutter closed.
‘I am so sorry,’ Edward sighs.
‘What for?’
‘Dying, I suppose.’
‘You haven’t.’
Edward smiles, eyes pinned shut. ‘Not yet. But it’s coming, I think.’
Joseph looks down at the flowery sheets. ‘Don’t say that.’
‘Oh it’ll be a blessing. Aren’t you tired of me coughing all hours? It must keep you awake.’
‘I don’t mind.’ Joseph shifts awkwardly on the bed. He moves to leave, but his brother reaches out and grabs his arm. Edward’s grasp’s weak, fingers barely curled into Joseph’s sleeve. He could pull away easily, but he doesn’t.
‘They will be harder on you when I’m gone,’ Edward whispers.
‘What?’
‘Mother and father. Father especially. It’ll all fall on you now to uphold the family name. To be all the things they wanted from us both. They tried for years to have more of us but it didn’t work. You are too young to remember. It would have been better, if I could have survived. But I can’t. I can’t do this anymore.’
‘You’ll be alright. Aunt Betsy says—’
‘Aunt Betsy knows I’m going to die. Everyone does. Even you, Joseph. You all just say I’ll get better because you think it means I won’t have to fret. But I won’t. I’m drowning, Joe. You can hear it, can’t you?’
‘You’re not drowning, Eds. You’re tucked up safe in bed.’
‘I’m drowning inside myself. All the laudanum in the world could not stop me from feeling the things growing inside me, Joe. I feel them pressing against my insides. Bigger every day.’
Nothing about Edward is big. The lumps that protrude from beneath the skin of his sunken in stomach are hard and irregular, the size of fists.
‘Please know I would stay if I could,’ Edward rasps.
Joseph settles against his brothers side, head resting on his ribs. ‘I wish you would.’
‘Do you hear the birds singing, Joseph?’ Edward asks.
All he hears is the rattling in Edward’s chest, the bubbles popping and bursting inside him with every breath.
‘Yes,’ says Joseph. ‘I hear them.’

[WHOOSH]

Joseph’s mother’s hand is cold in his as she leads him up the church aisle. His brother’s coffin is absurdly small, hardly bigger than the crates Joseph’s father uses to store all his paper work. The wood is prettier though, pale oak, polished to gleaming honey-gold. The furnishings are silver. They catch the candle light, like dancing stars.
Inside, Edward looks miniature. His blue lips have been painted pink. Someone has dusted peach over the shadows around his eyes. He does not look like he is sleeping like his mother said he would. He looks like he’s dead, because he is.
Joseph’s mother weeps behind her black veil. His father stands stoic and silent. Joseph copies him.
After the funeral, they return home. Joseph stares at his brother’s empty wicker chair. He wishes he could hear his hooting cough upstairs. Instead, there is silence, except his mother’s muffled howls.
His father drinks in the kitchen. When Joseph walks in, his father pours him a brandy.
‘Hard day,’ says Joseph’s father.
‘Hard day,’ Joseph agrees.

[WHOOSH]

Joseph is reading behind his desk, George Eliot secreted between legal documents so he can snap her shut and shove her out of sight if Father walks out from the back.
The bell above the door tinkles. A young woman with bright red hair stands dripping rainwater onto the hardwood floor.
‘Excuse me,’ she says.
‘You are excused,’ says Joseph.
The woman cocks her head. ‘You’re not usually here.’
‘No. I just started this week.’
‘And you’re already reading on the job?’
Joseph shoves George Eliot away. ‘Sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to be rude.’
The woman smiles. ‘Not at all. Why, you’re so young, you must be fresh out of school.’
‘I graduated from Cambridge over the summer.’
‘Cambridge? Goodness. A real academic. I take it you studied law?’
‘Yes.’ Joseph had wanted to read classics but his father would not hear of it. There was no money to be had in studying books, he said. Joseph would study law and follow his father into the profession. No doubt about it.
‘I’m Mrs Cratchet,’ says the woman.
Joseph blinks. ‘You’re here about your late husband’s estate?’
‘Ah so there’s more in your head than just novels then.’
Joseph blushes.
‘I was wondering if your father had made any progress,’ says Mrs Cratchet. ‘I assume Mr Pocket is your father. You do look so alike. Except. Well.’
Mrs Cratchet gaze flutters across Joseph’s cheeks. Absurdly, he feels himself blush even harder. Mrs Cratchet blushes too. She dips her head.
‘Is your father in the office today?’
‘Yes, but I’m afraid he’s rather busy.’ Joseph went upstairs to ask his father a technical question earlier and found him asleep in a puddle of his drool on the desk, hand loosely around a whiskey glass.
‘Ah,’ says Mrs Cratchet. ‘Perhaps you can help me then.’
‘I can do my best, but as I say, ma’am, I only started last week.’
‘Still, you graduated from Cambridge so you much be clever. Your opinion must be worth some salt.’
‘A couple of grains,’ says Joseph with a grin.
‘Well here’s the situation. My late husband’s brother is a lawyer. He believes himself entitled to some portion of my late husband’s estate despite not being named in the will. I’d happily come to some agreement with him, but your father won’t hear of it. And I’ll be honest with you, nor will your father.’
Joseph frowns. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve been trying to encourage him to meet with my brother in law but he won’t do it.’
‘Surely if the money is yours it’s your prerogative to make that call.’
‘Well you see, there in is the problem: the money is not mine. Not most of it anyway. My late husband left me a small trust from which I’m paid a weekly stipend, which your father manages, but the bulk of the estate will go to our son, Edward.’
‘Edward?’ Says Joseph.
Mr’s Cratchet tilts her head. Yes?’
‘Your son is named Edward?’

[THE WORD EDWARD ECHOES, DISTORTING. AND THEN]

A WHISPER
Eddie.

[THE APPRENTICE GASPS]

APPRENTICE
(His voice echoes)
Sir?

[A WHOOSH, LIKE WIND, BUT IT ISN’T. IT’S FLAMES AND A THOUSAND FLUTTERING WINGS]

APPRENTICE
Sir?!

[THE WHOOSH IS LOUDER, CONSUMING EVERYTHING]

APPRENTICE
No, no, no wait I—

[WHOOSH]

[END]