Primitive Tissue
University Settlement, New York, 2017.
with: Amanda Bender, Jackie Denney, Thomas Kavanagh, Amelia Olsen, Alexander Paris, Christopher Rashee-Stevens, and Jessie Tidball.
In 19th century Industrial England, or maybe the present day, the tiny village of Middlewreck is experiencing a rare celestial spectacle. A teenage nurse prays to Jupiter, a cam girl finds a better cable connection, and a lonely academic finds the key to all mythologies. The town DJ tries to keep everyone informed about the coming catastrophe. Someone dies.
Cadwallader:
You’ve reached W-Mid-Magic; this is DJ Cadwallader:. Do you need information about the coming catastrophe?
Mary:
Well, yes and no.
Cadwallader:
As you are aware, our service is completely anonymous. Without revealing your name, go.
Mary:
To what degree do we have control over anything?
Cadwallader:
Job and sign?
Mary:
Nurse and Virgo.
Cadwallader:
You have control over nothing but you must act “as if.” What else?
Mary:
I care for a dying man who wants me to help him change his will.
(tip jar clang for Lady Tenders)
Volume down on radio conversation. Dodo has risen from the floor and rested her head on Rose’s shoulder.
Dodo:
If we continue this way, people will grow more complacent, trivial and cynical. 183 to 187 years from now, we'll be embroiled in a series of wars with no beginning or end. As individuals, we'll become more and more precious, superficial and status-oriented, obsessed with physical perfection in ourselves and our surroundings.
I’m doing whatever I can to not know that.
Rose studies her sympathetically.
Dodo:
It sickens me that, at the same time I'm thinking this, I'm admiring the light on a distant mountain that I imagine out the window just now.
Rose:
Did you just write that, Dodo:?
Dodo:
No—no, I read it somewhere.
Ooh! Just look at your pretty little wrist.