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Author – Raghavan Ramesh
Genre: Thriller/Fantasy/Dual Soliloquy
Character Sketch:
Mother Kate: Her sense of morality is skewed. This skewness can be rooted back to the time
she was in her mother’s womb. All of the things her mother said to her in the womb has now
shaped her perception of the world. She is kind and caring but she sticks to her uninfluenced
opinions. She is also quite obsessed with Blake.
Blake: He inherits the skewness in his sense of morality from his mother Kate. After losing
control of himself and things around him, he goes in search of it. He always carries a formal
aura with him. Be it the way he speaks and the words he uses. Darkness for him is quite
comforting as he hears a mellifluous voice from behind it which unbeknownst to him are
voices from a distant past – his time in the womb and his mother talking to him.
Father Jimmy: Quite selfish and domineering. Kate and Jimmy ran away from their homes
to live together. He was just attracted to Kate’s beauty and not the heart. The end results in
such cases are always drastic, chaotic and dramatic. He hates Blake and having Blake stroll
by in his world is a sin and must be punished.
Emily: An alcoholic. The girl that Blake nabs. The whole story will unfold through her POV.
Logline:
A psychopathic individual nabs an inebriated young girl and asks for a favour which would
take an eternity for her to come in terms with.
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YEAR 1980
(Inside a room that is a size of a coffin are Kate and Jimmy. Kate is talking to the baby,
Blake, in her womb while Jimmy is pretending to be deaf to all of this. They have been living
here for years… from the world outside. Or do they call it hiding?)
Mother Kate: The world is gonna lie… Blake. Will squirrel you from the dark and tell you
tales of demons and ghouls. Never in our existence will there be a comforting gloom to have
an ear for. Never… But you do. Although your memories fade, it will keep echoing within
the bounds of my womb until the next arrival. The spritzing rain and the bubbling water; The
bantering oblivion and the chattering heartbeat. Sounds heard by me and you. You do so in a
comforting environment but I can just see the rain from behind the window. (Tearing up)
These aren’t tears of agony… they are tears of joy. You are just weeks away from bidding my
comforting gloom, a goodbye. One day, you and I will be holding hands under the drizzle.
And that day isn’t far.
Father Jimmy: What did our baby learn today?
Mother Kate: We are living in a house that is the size of a coffin and you were sitting right
across. Are you deaf by choice or muted by your ever-running thoughts and worries?
Father Jimmy: Not this again! We have had a million versions of this discussion in a million
ways, I have said things that I shouldn't have! Yes, I was aggressive, but then again, you
haven’t stepped outside this room for thirty weeks! Here… grab a newspaper and I’m sure
you’ll see them searching for us, waiting for the both of us to return. Us,and just us. How do
you think we could possibly explain Blake to our parents? (looking around the room and wall
imprints) Umbra? What does that even mean? What if these thoughts you’re having affect our
baby? Imagine if our foetus could hear… No. I do not think we are ready for this. The only
way to put off all this uncertainty is to not have the baby. Tell our parents a convincing
reason and attribute that to our missing. It will be a second chance at life.
I have never touched a weapon, never indulged in bloodshed and yet, why does it feel like I
have committed the ultimate sin? What did I do that was so grievous that fate saw fit to make
me pay with this baby, to pay with all the love we once had?
Mother Kate: You are shooting questions that were shot a year ago. Trust me. You are not
gonna regret it. He will be the symbol of love. He will be our second chance! When he
kicks… (Cries sympathetically and looks at Jimmy)
Father Jimmy: No, don’t,don’t… don’t look at me like that. Your choice? Don’t. Don’t.
Don’t… Don’t you dare talk to me like that. If his kicks are more important, here… enjoy
mine!
(Jimmy kicks her and she falls from the chair…)
YEAR 2022
(A dark room… very dark that it demands a newer definition for enmity. Half dazed and
sitting on the wheelchair is Emily. The only sense of time here is the flickering lamp behind
her, sifting through the glass panes and casting the shadow of a baby in a womb on the wall
opposite her. Tied to her neck is a camera, through which you, the readers get the sense of
time as experienced by Emily)
(The silence that was prevailing in the room comes to an end once the sound of someone
screaming fills the void, accompanied by the sound of a chair that falls down with a thud. The
flickering lights reveal a hand that lands with a thud on the table in front of Emily, with the
support of which a shadowy figure rises. The flickers reveal a tall male with a crooked smile.
It is Blake.)
Blake: And someone said the fall hurts all of one’s senses. But for the one with none… I lost
all of it when I opened my eyes to a brighter world. And I wasn’t warned about becoming the
victim of this blame game called life. At 3 days old, I attended my mom’s funeral. She died
in childbirth. Then came the fingers, raging towards me at an age where I couldn’t understand
directions. Each of them had a thing to say. “Had the cursed child not been born; She would
have been alive”. “The child should have died instead”. What should I grieve about? My
mother, who I couldn’t see, who I couldn’t touch… Is it that I will never get to hear her? Or
is it that she doomed me to the life of an outcast, forever carrying a curse in an abandoned
room?
Blake: I am lost. Deep in the woods that constantly burn. Ever heard of the town that burns? I
imagine myself living in such a place. Where people keep running further and further and
further away from the fire. If they had just stopped and turned around, they would have seen
a kid who wonders what fire is. Who doesn’t know that fire… burns, that fire hurts.
(chuckles) Beauty amidst danger, it’s captivating. Forget all of life’s pain and the whole
world is beautiful. Even when its flame, flame everywhere and not a sense to lose.
(Blake says all of these in a calm tone, not getting aggressive at all. It is as if he has become
fire himself, endearing all its sparkles. This calmness is dominated by the sound of rolling
bottles approaching Blake. He gently stops it with his foot and picks up an empty beer bottle.
He glances through Emily’s wallet)
Blake: If humans have six senses and you had four cans of beer while driving, how many
senses do you have… Emily? I take this as a None. And What did it cost? A huge pool of
blood in front of your car. And you were adamant as to not drop that last can of beer when I
took you from it.
Blake: Even I am adamant. But not about the beer. The voice from behind this darkness. I
wake up from sleepless nights with a fear that I won’t hear it anymore. It narrates such
beautiful anecdotes and… what does it feel like? (nods his head) Heaven… As if heaven has
fallen onto this dreaded earth.
(A doll with a knife pierced into its belly falls on the table with a thud. The shadow of the
baby on the wall is no longer there. All of our shadows take form, just like how the knife’s
resembled an umbilical cord.)
(Blake is startled)
Blake: (A smile plunges in as he examines the doll) Darkness hides an identity and the
light… It just shows another. That mellifluous voice never fails to impress me with beautiful
anecdotes like these. Too soft, too soothing to be human. The way it pronounces ‘Umbra’
.(gives an impressed look) It even promised to extend its tender hands and hold mine under
the drizzle – A thing I have been yearning for. It was right about the world lying… Feeding
hatred and calling it love and care.
Blake: Nobody deserves to be hated. But my father… who chose to remain the finger rather
than a helping hand…ruthless, arrogant… Whatever he is, dead or not, I will wake him up to
remind him that he is dead. When the fingers forced me into a room, they sent me in with
nothing but blame and locked the doors. There I met him (shows the doll). Lying there all by
himself.
(Blake gets up and starts pacing)
Blake: Inside your car were Tom, Danny and Elsa. They had nothing more to say, they were
all empty. I presume it was Shaun in your hand when I took you. Loneliness… That thin line
between the animate and the inanimate is dwindling.
(Blake sits down on his chair)
Blake: You know the curse upon these beer bottles and innocent toys you and I have named?
They have to hear. Hear all of one’s melancholy and oblige by the sheer aggressiveness of it.
The irony is they are thrown when in need. In desperation. You need not have listened to me.
But it is what it is. I took him, cut the strings and tied him taut to my fingers. He swayed the
way I wanted him to. Moved the way I wanted him to.. And look at him now! He can smile
when I want him to. He can hear me and react to all of what I have to say. (Mimicking the
doll and making it talk to him) You are not cursed anymore.
Blake: Had my mother lived, I would have got all of that lost love and attention. Had my
mother lived, I needn’t have tasted the food made with hatred. Had my mother lived, I would
have introduced her to a friendly cat Kia, which was bounded by its own definition of
language while I was still in search of one to make the world hear.
Blake: Had my mother lived, I wouldn’t have held my father Jimmy at gunpoint. Honestly, I
never thought that guns were this light. More than the fear in his eyes, he was more under
control. Under mine. The gun kept getting lighter and lighter as if it were a marionette. Now
Emily, if I pulled the trigger, would he have died? Of course! But I didn’t pull the trigger.
Why would I? I am the kid that touched “fire”. The world used, reused and threw me as if I
were a doll. It’s my turn to give back now!!
Blake: You are probably wondering what these stories are all about - the dolls, the
fingers.That is the story of my first puppet – My own father. The fingers that pointed to me
were now tied to my own fingers. Under my control now! What’s world’s worst fear? Losing
control. Over oneself and everything around them. Isn’t that how the world works?
Exploiting this fear of ours?
Blake: That’s when I realised - If the world’s a great puppet show, I want to be the best
puppeteer. You know the problem with my puppets? They are mortally bound. I am running
out of them. Jimmy literally ran away hours ago. Little did he know that he was running to
his own grave. I found him there, on the ground in a pool of blood. Inside the car, I found
you. Everybody’s first is special. Jimmy was special. And now that you are going to replace
him you will be more special. Of course, it’s never that easy to fit in, I know all too well. So,
I'll offer you something which the world denied me; a chance... a chance for you to alter your
destiny.
(Blake Places the gun on the table/gestures towards it)
Blake(A tone that looks down): That’s not how you’re supposed to hold it.
(Blake laughs like a madman and gets shot at by Emily)
(Just when Emily begins to feel relieved, sound of another bottle rolling towards the
wheelchair startles her. On the wall opposite Emily is another shadow. An anonymous person
and a cat)
Anonymous: No Kia… Not the bottles again. Wait!
(Kia runs away. Anonymous comes in front of Emily. It is Blake. Lying on the ground dead
is also Blake)
Blake: A beautiful puppet show, isn’t it Emily? I recount the voice talking about people
living not with the fear of death, but the fear of what’s on the other side? Umbra it is. The one
we open our eyes to after oblivion. Where you confront your shadow – the true self. It takes
our death to know who we are, huh?
(Blake catches Emily looking down on the dead Blake. He grabs the wheelchair and moves
her away from the corpse into a dark room)
Blake: Don’t look down on my puppet. Who are you? You were living others’ definition of
who you are. So, did I steal a puppet from a much larger puppet show out there? Yes. And the
puppeteers will come in search of me. But they can never find me. Cause I don’t live in a
defined space. I lurk beneath their shadows… in a place far away from one’s
consciousness…which I call – Umbra!
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