Unwell Season 5/Episode 2 - Call and Answer

by Bilal Dardai

Reaching out
Benefits of being dead
I'm warning you.

Listen to the episode here.

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This episode features: Clarisa Cherie Rios as Lily, Mark Soloff as Silas, Amelia Bethel as Marisol, Anuja Vaidya as Norah, and Michael Turrentine as Wes.

Written by Bilal Dardai, sound design by Alexander Danner, directed by Jeffrey Nils Gardner, theme music composed by Stephen Poon, assistant director Lauren Grace Thompson, recording engineer Mel Ruder, associate producer Ani Enghdahl, Theme performed by Stephen Poon, Lauren Kelly, Gunnar Jebsen, Travis Elfers, Mel Ruder, and Betsey Palmer, produced by haydée r. souffrant, Unwell lead sound designer Eli Hamada McIlveen, Executive Producers Eleanor Hyde and Jeffrey Nils Gardner, by HartLife NFP.

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THE RAIN PERSISTS. FOOTSTEPS

WALKING THROUGH WET GRASS AND MUD

IN THE AREA SURROUNDING AN EMPTY

LOT. AT VARIOUS DISTANCES, BIRDS

CAN BE HEARD CALLING OUT AND

RESPONDING TO ONE ANOTHER. THE

FOOTSTEPS COME TO A HALT.

SILAS: Well, well. Theodore Wesley. I thought that might

be you. Good morning to you, young man.

WES: Good morning, Silas.

SILAS: Tut. “Reverend Lodge” would be more respectful.

WES: It would. But we both know that you’re no more a

reverend than I’m a young man.

SILAS: Ah. The pup’s found his bark since last we met.

Have the fangs come in as well, I wonder? (BEAT)

I don’t believe I know this place. Where are we?

WES: There used to be a house here.

SILAS: A house...? Ah yes. I understand. The house that

once belonged to the child whose body you’re

wearing right now. You can’t help yourself, can

you. You return here time and again to run your

fingers through the ashes, to try and feel the

thorn’s prick of a life you never in fact lived.

WES: If you say so, Silas.

SILAS: I might have imagined I’d find you someplace like

this.

WES: You were looking for me?

SILAS: Indeed, young man. I felt that you and I should

speak.

WES: And what if I have nothing to say to you?

SILAS: Then you’ll listen.

WES: Maybe I don’t want to listen to anything you have

to say either.

SILAS: Then I suppose all that’s left is to kill one

another. If we won’t have each others’ ears,

we’ll have each others’ throats, hm? And why not?

Dawn is traditional. But I myself have never felt

the need for violence at such an hour. You hear

the birds in the distance?

WES: Yes.

SILAS: Are they yours?

WES: I don’t own the birds, Silas.

SILAS: Don’t be impertinent. You know what I’m asking

you.

WES: Yes. And no. Not those birds.

SILAS: Merely nature, then. That’s appropriate.

(BEAT. THEY LISTEN TO THE BIRDCALLS IN THE RAIN

FOR A MOMENT LONGER.) It’s called a dawn chorus.

A moment in the morning for these poor prey

animals to announce to each other that they’ve

survived another cold night among their

predators. Quite sad, if one knows to listen.

Imagine hearing a loved one’s voice day after

day across the wind, and then one morning not to

hear it at all. A tragedy with no translation.

One should be humble in the face of it.

WES: I’m not here to fight you, Silas.

SILAS: Then we’re agreed, and so much the better. Should

we retire to someplace with more shelter?

WES: The rain’s not bothering me.

SILAS: Nor I. I was speaking to decorum, not to comfort.

WES: Anything we have to say to each other the rain

can hear too.

SILAS: Very well, young man. But walk with me at least.

THE RAINDROPS PERSIST AS THEIR

FOOTSTEPS TRUDGE THROUGH THE WET

MUD. THE SOUND OF THE RAIN ON THE

GROUND TRANSITIONS TO THE SOUND OF

RAIN ON AN APARTMENT ROOF AND

AGAINST THE GLASS OF A BEDROOM

WINDOW. LILY SHIFTS IN BED.

LILY: Are you awake?

MARISOL: Yeah. For a little while now.

LILY: Did you sleep all right?

MARISOL: Eventually. Once the raindrops found a rhythm.

You, on the other hand, went down pretty hard.

LILY: Yesterday was...exhausting.

MARISOL: I appreciated the help. You didn’t have to.

LILY: Hey, I care about that record store downstairs

too. I don’t mind dragging a few sandbags around

to keep the water out.

MARISOL: You didn’t have to stay, though. I would have

been fine.

LILY: What, you think I was staying for you? C’mere.

THEY SNUGGLE CLOSER TOGETHER.

MARISOL: Mm. This is nice. This is one of my favorite

things. Lying in bed with someone you love

listening to the rain? Top ten. Maybe top three.

LILY: We’ve never done this before.

MARISOL: I know.

LILY: So you’re talking about someone else.

MARISOL: Nooo, I’m talking about the activity.

LILY: An activity you did with someone else.

MARISOL: Are you really gonna do this?

LILY: I’m just saying.

MARISOL: How about this, Judy Green Eyes? This was good

before you. It’s perfect now. Understand?

LILY: How many times before me?

MARISOL: Understand?

LILY: Yes. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that.

MARISOL: You don’t know how to trust a moment like this,

is why. You get suspicious when you’re happy.

Tell me I’m wrong.

LILY: You’re...not.

MARISOL: Of course I’m not. So hear what I’m saying to

you. You and me, this moment, right now. Lying

in bed, in each other’s arms, listening to the

rain. This is perfect. Let it be perfect, Lily.

LILY: Okay.

THEY BREATHE TOGETHER FOR A

MOMENT.

LILY: Except for the part where the rain is being

caused by an angry ghost.

MARISOL: And there it goes.

LILY: A cup of coffee would also be nice.

MARISOL: (THROWING THE BLANKETS OFF AND GETTING OUT OF

BED) You got it! “Order up! One hot cuppa joe for

the lady on the left side of the bed.”

LILY: (LAUGHING) I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

MARISOL: Anything else I can get ya, hon? Scrambled eggs?

English muffin? Veggie skillet?

LILY: Come back, Marisol.

MARISOL: Nah. I could use a cup too. Come on.

LILY GETS OUT OF BED. THERE IS A

SUDDEN SOUND FROM ELSEWHERE IN THE

BUILDING: A LOUD BURST OF MUSIC

FOR A FEW SECONDS, THEN CUT OFF.

LILY: You heard that, right?

MARISOL: Yeah.

A DIFFERENT BURST OF MUSIC, THEN

CUT OFF.

LILY: Is that music?

MARISOL: I think someone’s using my stereo.

LILY: Right now?

ANOTHER SHORT BURST OF MUSIC.

MARISOL: Lily, could you please reach into the top drawer

of my nightstand and hand me the mallet?

LILY: A mallet? You keep a mallet in here? (OPENS THE

DRAWER) This is a meat tenderizer.

MARISOL: I keep all the good tools in the workshop.

LILY: But a potato masher?

MARISOL: Would you rather I keep a gun in there?

LILY: Potato masher it is.

ANOTHER SHORT BURST OF MUSIC. LILY

AND MARISOL STEP GINGERLY DOWN THE

STAIRS.

LILY: Why would someone break into your store at six in

the morning to use your stereo?

MARISOL: I don’t know. Why does anything in Mt. Absalom

happen anymore?

ANOTHER SHORT BURST OF MUSIC,

FOLLOWED BY A VOICE:

NORAH: Why is this so blasted impossible?

MARISOL AND LILY WALK INTO THE

STORE.

MARISOL: Norah?

NORAH: Ah! Hello Marisol, Lily. Good morning. I’m sorry

for waking you; it was unintended.

MARISOL: We were awake. What are you doing with my stereo?

NORAH: Stereo? That’s what this is called? As in a

stereoscope? How curious.

LILY: What’s a stereoscope?

NORAH: A visual device. Two separate lenses positioned

over related photographs to simulate the

perception of depth. Have you truly never seen

one? It’s quite marvelous. I gained much insight

from the technique while designing my telescope.

MARISOL: I don’t understand the conversation we’re having

right now. Norah, what are you even doing here?

NORAH: I needed to speak with you.

MARISOL: With me or with Lily?

NORAH: With you. And might I say, I rather wish the two

of you had told me that you planned to stay here

last night.

LILY: First of all, it wasn’t planned, and second

of all, I don’t believe we have to check in with

you about where we end up sleeping.

NORAH: I apologize, I misspoke. But when it occurred to

me that I needed to speak with Marisol, I was

annoyed not to find you at Fenwood. And I had

been very patient up until that moment.

LILY: What do you mean, “patient”?

NORAH: I mean that the thought I had occurred to me in

the middle of the night. I believed I had shown a

great deal of restraint in not entering Lily’s

room and waking you up. “Be kind to them, Norah,”

I said to myself. “They need their rest. Or

perhaps they are within an intimate moment. It

would be impolite to interrupt.”

LILY: But eventually you gave up, you looked inside...

NORAH: I may have used one of Dot’s lesser epithets.

LILY: And you decided to come over here to find us.

NORAH: It was the next logical choice.

MARISOL: So. You let yourself into the store and decided

to fiddle with my stereo but you didn’t want to

wake us up because that would have been rude. I

dunno, Norah. Partial credit.

NORAH: I can’t surely be expected to adhere to every

living social custom. It defeats the only

benefit of existing in this manner.

MARISOL: (SIGH) Okay. You said you needed to talk with me?

NORAH: Yes. I’m planning to run an experiment. Rather,

I’m planning to re-run an experiment. And I

wanted to discuss it with you.

MARISOL: But why me?

NORAH: ...because I can’t discuss it with Rudy.

A HEAVY PAUSE.

MARISOL: I’m sorry, Norah.

NORAH: I know you aren’t an astronomer the same way he

was, Marisol. But he always spoke so highly of

your enthusiasm. He used to say that in its way

it counted for a great deal more than simple

expertise.

MARISOL: I’m...thank you for telling me that. All right.

However I’m able to help you. Although I really

am going to need that cup of coffee.

LILY: I’ve got it.

NORAH: May I watch? That was another of your devices

that perplexed me.

THE THREE HEAD TO THE BACK ROOM.

THE RAIN PERSISTS ON THE BUILDING

AND THEN TRANSITIONS TO DROPLETS

SPATTERING OFF THE BRANCHES OF

TREES. SILAS AND WES STROLL

THROUGH THE WOODS, TWIGS

OCCASIONALLY SNAPPING BENEATH

THEIR FOOTSTEPS. THE BIRDS CAN

STILL BE HEARD IN THE DISTANCE.

WES: Wait. How did we get here?

SILAS: The woods?

WES: They weren’t anywhere near us. What did you do?

SILAS: It’s not difficult, young man. I wished to be

here. I went. I presume it’s much the same when

you travel.

WES: But I wasn’t thinking about the woods.

SILAS: I invited you, in a way. And you accepted, in a

way.

WES: Can I leave?

SILAS: If you so choose. I’d prefer if you didn’t but

understand why you might.

WES VANISHES.

SILAS: Hm. Disappointing.

WES REAPPEARS.

SILAS: Ah. I thought that you’d left for good.

WES: I needed to believe you.

SILAS: That pains me. In all the time I’ve been here I

have never once deceived any of you. You know

that’s true.

WES: I...do. I was surprised, is all.

SILAS: I might have prepared you better for the

transition, I admit.

WES: Not just that. I’m also surprised you brought

us here to the edges of the town at all.

SILAS: Because I spent so many years unable to move

beyond them.

WES: Yes.

SILAS: Why should I hold animus towards the woods for

that? Trees know nothing of boundaries or

barriers; that role is assigned to them by

fearful men. Today I am free to travel where I

please, and it pleases me today to wander the

woods. (BEAT) They’ve angered him, you know.

WES: The One Who Blooms.

SILAS: Their various transgressions have exhausted his

patience, and now, in place of his patience there

is only me.

WES: What does he want from us?

SILAS: Us? You and I?

WES: No. Us, the...people of Mt. Absalom.

SILAS: Now that’s a curious distinction.

WES: I’m one of them, Silas.

SILAS: You’re much more one of me than you’ve ever been

one of them.

WES: We’re not the same.

SILAS: Tell yourself whatever story you like, young man.

A tree may allow itself to forget its own forest.

WES: What does he want with us? Do you know?

SILAS: Of course I do.

WES: Then he speaks with you?

SILAS: In a manner.

WES: And what do you want, Silas?

SILAS: What?

WES: What do you want from us?

SILAS: Nothing. I’m here but to enact his intent.

WES: When I first appeared all I wanted to do was be

of help to Dot Harper. That’s not all of who I am

anymore. I made music. I made friends. I caught

up with all the episodes of Detective Farrow I

missed. So what would you want, if it was

entirely up to you?

SILAS: (AFTER A MOMENT) Listen, then. There once was a

trout who lived in the river, who had a hook

stuck in his side. Each morning he would swim up

and down the edges of the bank, speaking to the

other fish about the day he’d first suffered his

injury. They would say to him--

WES: --wait.

SILAS: Hm?

WES: I wasn’t asking you to share something from your

library of fables. It was a straightforward

question, Silas. What do you want?

A SUDDEN BURST OF WIND. THE BIRDS

CHIRP AND SQUAWK IN CONCERN.

SILAS: It’s...unwise, young man.

WES: What do you want, Silas?

SILAS: It is unwise to interrupt a teacher while he’s

imparting a lesson.

THE WIND BURSTS AGAIN. RAIN

TRANSITIONS BACK TO HITTING THE

WINDOWS OF THE GOLDEN GROOVE,

COMBINED WITH THE SOUND OF

STEAMING WATER AND A COFFEE DRIP.

NORAH: I see now. I attempted to watch Abbie do this

once but they gave me the most withering of

glares. It is like the process for tea, but

unnecessarily mechanized.

MARISOL: It’s one hundred percent necessary! You can’t do

this without the machinery first thing after you

wake up. You need a cup to function but you can

barely function until you’ve had a cup.

NORAH: What a frustrating way to live.

MARISOL: Caffeine addict’s dilemma. What can I tell you.

NORAH: And you do this every morning?

LILY: Norah, you said you had something you needed to

discuss. Something about re-running an

experiment?

NORAH: I was waiting until Marisol’s coffee was ready.

MARISOL: Go ahead and start. I’ll catch up as it kicks in.

NORAH: Very well. You may recall some months back that

Dr. Peltham suffered a concussion?

LILY: I remember that. Fell off the telescope stairs

and cracked his skull on the floor?

NORAH: Did he ever tell you how that happened?

LILY: He said he took a bad step.

NORAH: That was very kind, but untrue. I nearly killed

him.

MARISOL: You what?

NORAH: I directed Dr. Peltham to re-create the

conditions of the day I died without telling him

that’s what I was doing.

LILY: Which were what, exactly?

NORAH: Nothing extraordinary. I’d been using my

telescope to view the star cluster at Omega

Centauri, and then I died.

MARISOL: Then what happened to Rudy?

LILY: He was struck by some kind of force. It threw him

from the stairs and caused his concussion.

MARISOL: Are you saying the telescope attacked him?

NORAH: It was not the telescope. It was something else.

He described it as a bolt of lightning from the

Earth. Since his death, I have wondered if it

might be something else entirely. (BEAT) It is a

curious thing to mourn someone’s passing when you

yourself are dead. You do not sleep, so you use

the time instead to remember and contemplate the

person you knew. I suppose that residing in his

former room might also be a factor. And the

conversations I’d had with your mother about

him.

LILY: Mom’s been talking about Rudy?

NORAH: Briefly. She misses him. It seems we all do, in

our own manners. Three nights ago I found myself

fixated on how energetic he was, how he would

ricochet from table to table while we’d worked.

The night after that I was remembering the

moments of melancholy when he didn’t think I was

watching him. And then last night...last night I

said aloud to myself: “Dr. Peltham had a poetry

to him.” Do you know what I mean by that?

LILY: He did have a flair for the dramatic.

NORAH: Yes, quite so. And the romantic. And the poetic.

I had forgotten how important poetry can be to

astronomy. I’d forgotten how much I’d felt

similarly in my own lifetime, until he’d reminded

me. (BEAT) He told me once about this store of

yours, Marisol, how you had named it. He said

that a long time ago we sent a golden record of

our sounds to the stars. The Traveler, he said it

was called?

MARISOL: Voyager.

NORAH: Yes, that was it. I asked Rudy why anyone

would bother to do such a thing.

MARISOL: Because maybe somebody out there would hear us.

NORAH: I told him it was preposterous. How could we

expect life on the other side of the universe to

know what a record was, and how to play it?

MARISOL: There were instructions.

NORAH: I was a human being living on this planet a mere

century ago and I had enough trouble figuring out

your stereo and your coffee machine. Which is no

longer dripping, by the way.

MARISOL: That’s normal. Thank you.

MARISOL POURS HERSELF A CUP OF

COFFEE.

MARISOL: You’re not wrong, Norah. You think about the

chance that there’s anyone out there at all, and

the chance that we sent the Voyager in the right

direction to find them, and the chance that they

catch and open the probe instead of just blowing

it to smithereens, and then the chance that

they’ll figure out how to make it work the way we

intended? That’s a billion-to-one shot in the

dark.

LILY: Literally.

MARISOL: You’re cute when you dad-joke. But Norah...for me

it was never about whether or not Voyager would

be successful with that.

NORAH: You were inspired by the attempt alone.

MARISOL: On the money.

NORAH: So was Dr. Peltham. He wasn’t just studying the

sky, he was searching it, from any angle he could

find on the limited surface of our planet. I

didn’t recognize it within him until very late in

our friendship, and by then he was following a

path of his own. But so was I. (BEAT) Still, I

might have done more to bring him back to us.

There were methods I might have employed. Have

either of you ever heard the tale of the

Saptarshi?

MARISOL: No. What’s a Saptarshi?

NORAH: It was a legend my mother once told me, after she

came to accept that I had become enamored of the

stars. She pointed into the sky at Ursa

Major...you know Ursa Major?

LILY: Sure. It’s the one that’s either a bear or a soup

ladle.

NORAH: In the older Hindu texts, the seven stars of Ursa

Major represented seven sages. The Saptarshi. And

these sages each had a beautiful wife by their

side. They were so beautiful that the fire god,

Agni, wished to seduce each of them.

LILY: Typical ancient god. Can’t keep it in his pants.

NORAH: But then there is the complication: Another

goddess who wished to be the consort of Agni had

the clever idea to disguise herself as each one

of the sage’s wives. She seduced Agni by allowing

him to believe he had seduced each of them.

LILY: Woof. This is spicy, Norah. Your mom used to tell

you this? As a bedtime story?

NORAH: The English were Victorians. My mother was not.

MARISOL: She and Dot would have gotten along like

gangbusters.

LILY: Wait, wait, I know how these stories end up.

What happened to the wives?

NORAH: As you’ve surmised. The sages heard that their

wives had slept with Agni. They refused to hear

their denials. They divorced them. And the wives

drifted away to become the Pleiades. (BEAT) I

never told Rudy that story. I wish I had. He

enjoyed the stories within the stars as much as

he enjoyed the science of them. He remembered

that before we ever had the science to know the

stars, all we had to explain them were stories,

how so many of those stories were about the

desire to connect. The torment of disconnections.

That’s the part of him I most wish I could speak

with right now. (BEAT) There’s something I’ve

failed to grasp about the force that killed me. I

need to go back to the observatory to re-run the

experiment. I would like you to come with me,

Marisol.

MARISOL: You want me to go to the observatory with you and

get hit with a bolt of lightning.

NORAH: No, of course not.

MARISOL: Good. My insurance wouldn’t cover that.

NORAH: I’ll stand at the telescope. I’ll perform the

experiment. Whatever happens next, I expect you

will see it as Rudy might have.

LILY: So you’ll get hit with the bolt of lightning

instead. You can understand why we’re not exactly

okay with that.

NORAH: I very much doubt it could kill me again.

MARISOL: No, but it might...do something else.

NORAH: Then we will have new data to work with. And I

trust you will know how to express that data to

others with Dr. Peltham’s same sense of wonder

and poetry. Please, Marisol.

MARISOL: All right. When?

NORAH: Soon, I would say.

MARISOL: I don’t know when these clouds are going to move.

NORAH: That’s right, you’ve never used my telescope. The

clouds will not be a problem.

RAIN TRANSITIONS BACK TO THE

WOODS. SILAS AND WES CONTINUE

WALKING.

SILAS: (GROWING AGITATED) What I want.

WES: Yes. Talk to me.

SILAS: Why should I want anything? I have already been

given the gift of purpose. I am his righteousness

and determination. I am his punishment for the

sins of this town.

WES: And which sins are those, Silas?

SILAS: (SLIGHTLY UNCERTAIN) Those most unforgivable.

WES: Then name them.

SILAS: Unnecessary.

WES: You don’t even know what they are, do you. You’ve

forgotten. Or you were never told. The One Who

Blooms feels the whole of his rage and all you

know how to do is punish. Why even appear as a

man at all?

SILAS: I am the emissary of--

WES: --you’re a memory! You’re a memory of someone who

died a long time ago that refuses to fade away.

It doesn’t have to be like this. The town could

welcome you, Silas. In spite of everything, I

believe Mt. Absalom would embrace you, if you let

it. Like it’s embraced me.

SILAS: Embraced you? Embraced you? Don’t be a fool.

These people may treat you with their false

courtesy but they will never accept you. You are

an oddity, and always will be. They will grow

restless with your presence and that restlessness

will turn to fear, until one day they will banish

you to the edges of the wood as well. And we

shall see, then, how much of your demeanor

remains.

WES: You’re trying to turn me against them.

SILAS: I am warning you that they will turn against you

long before you think to do the same. You would

be wiser not to ask for their embrace at all.

A BURST OF WIND. THE BIRDS TAKE

FLIGHT AT ONCE. THE RAIN HAS

STOPPED HITTING BRANCHES OF TREES;

THERE ARE NO TREES ANYMORE. WES

AND SILAS ARE AGAIN STANDING IN

THE EMPTY LOT OF 1974 OAK STREET.

WES: All right, Silas. I think I finally see who you

are.

SILAS: Hm. This vanished husk of your house again.

WES: I invited you. You accepted.

SILAS: You’re a quick learner, young man.

WES: I had one more question for you.

SILAS: If you must.

WES: You told me that you felt you and I should speak.

SILAS: Yes...

WES: You told me you didn’t know this place.

SILAS: I didn’t. You said you had a question.

WES: Then why did you come here to find me instead of

going to Fenwood House?

SILAS: (WARY) I...don’t know.

WES: It’s because you knew I’d be here. Because it was

me who thought we should talk. So you came.

SILAS: What presumption. I serve The One Who Blooms. I

will not be summoned by some mere wisp of a

child.

THE BIRDS LAND AROUND WES.

WES: I never said I summoned you. I said that I

thought we should talk. And you heard me. (BEAT)

I told you, Silas. I’m not a young man. You

should stop thinking of me that way. I already

have.

SILAS: Very well. A mistake I won’t make again. I’ll

take my leave of you, Theodore Wesley.

WES: Until next time, Silas.

SILAS: Yes. Until then.

SILAS WALKS AWAY IN THE RAIN. WES

VANISHES. THE BIRDS FLY OFF.

END