In your benevolence, hear the Fanatic’s plea for a grey day tomorrow.
Starring Caleb Obediah as Frist, the Fanatic (he/him)
With additional voices from the season 1 cast
A grey day tomorrow
I Need A Miracle, season 1, episode 10 of 12
Written and created by Matt Boothman
Directed by Robert Valentine
Music by Katharine Seaton
Sound design by Sarah Buchynski
Casting by Fiona Thraille
Recorded at Jukebox Studios
Broadcast assistance from Teresa Milewski
Cover art by Dionysis Livanis
Produced by Sarah Golding of Wireless Theatre for Foggy Outline
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Transcript
Delicate synth and violin music plays; mysterious, calm but slightly haunting.
ANNOUNCER 1:
Foggy Outline presents: I Need A Miracle. Produced by Wireless Theatre.
A grey day tomorrow. Written by Matt Boothman. Performed by Caleb Obediah.
The music ends.
A murmur of many pleading voices, overlapping indistinguishably.
Out of the murmur, a single voice breaks through.
THE FANATIC:
…In your divine benevolence, I humbly entreat you. Hear my plea and bless me with your intervention.
The murmurs die away. THE FANATIC’s voice echoes from the walls of a wide cave. The wind whistles.
THE FANATIC:
Thank you. Thank you. Always … always your approval is such a blessed relief. I will never, never take it for granted, that’s a sacred promise from me to you.
I can always stop, if you wanted me to stop I could stop any time. But I get the sense now is not that time. That’s fine. That’s good. You can rest assured I won’t be changing the arrangement now. As always, I’ve got the whole plan in place, everything I can possibly do without intervention from you. I would never, will never, presume to ask you for anything I could do myself, even if it means … dragging myself through fire. Even if it means holing up in the tundra ’til my fingers and toes and nose crumble away. I would never abuse your benevolence just to spare myself a bit of effort or avoid a bit of pain, so I’ve done everything it’s in my power to do to make this happen.
There’s just one part of the plan that’s too much up to chance. That’s all I need to ask you to help me with. I’ve taken it all on my shoulders, built this whole thing in your honour with the strength you gave me. I’m just here to ask you to cut the ribbon and enjoy the result.
The target I’ve chosen this time is the collector, (unintelligible).
Perhaps THE FANATIC names his target, but something muffles his voice, just for that one word. He doesn’t appear to notice.
THE FANATIC:
Of course I don’t presume to know your mind, but I do have hope that this’ll please you. She’s been in seclusion for a while now, but before that, this target had a reputation for real petty invocations. Drawing on your benevolence for just – absolute, utter, frivolities. Even to gain at other people’s expense, flying in the face of your benevolent creed.
There are some incredible treasures in her collection. Masterworks representing lifetimes of practice and devotion – but I would call them rightly yours, not hers. She never earned them. Just asked to be granted them, and if she asked, how could you refuse, in your benevolence? But she should not have asked. She’ll make a worthy offering, I think. I hope you’ll agree.
If challenge is a measure of worthiness, she’s definitely a worthy choice. She’s had herself locked down tight ever since the partner’s accident. Supposedly all the protections on her home are for the collection, to prevent damage to all the irreplaceable artworks she’s managed to amass with her abuse of your benevolence. But they work just as well to protect her, since she never leaves these days.
But let me take you through the plan, so you can satisfy yourself I’ve put enough of my own work in.
I started with research and progressed to observation. The target’s home is in an alpine valley. Very remote for someone who used to need to come and go as much as she did. Thin air and high winds on the approach make it a long, hard flight. A bit more manageable since your Skyward Renewal, but still tough. Lady of the house used to charter a crossing-craft to pick her up, or make her way to the interchange in Bellspring in a little private glider. She passed that on since she stopped using it. The launcher at the house is under covers now. There is an earthbound route to the house, but it’s even harder: basically non-viable without a climbing partner, and I’m not about to start involving other people in what we’re doing here. The shame and the glory both are all mine and that’s the way it should be.
There are other homes in the valley, but not many, and they’re scattered – none of them adjoining the target’s home.
Other than the one we’re interested in, the rest are only seasonally occupied. Most food supplies come in with the residents. They also take turns tending a small communal farm. Our target doesn’t take her turn any more, but her neighbours still keep her supplied. At one point I thought that might make poison an option, and I wouldn’t have to impose on your benevolence at all this time, but the partner rules that option out. It seems the accident only left them with the very basic functions, but those do include eating. Without getting inside the home, I can’t know which supplies the target keeps for herself, what she makes for the partner, or if they share. It would be easy to write off the partner as an acceptable loss. But if I took the easy way I wouldn’t deserve your benevolence any more than the collector does.
There are places in the valley walls – ledges and other outcroppings – that overlook the target’s home. But she keeps the secure shutters down on all the windows. The neighbours leave her food parcels in the vestibule. The outer door is keyed to their biometrics but the inner one only opens to (unintelligible). If only it was a physical key, I could lift one, get into the vestibule, and get her when she opens the inner door.
But with the biometrics, that method of entry would mean making myself known to one of the neighbours somehow. If this was to be my final offering, maybe. But I want to stay free, serving you, for a long time yet. That means no witnesses, no one who can connect my face with the death. I have to be invisible. An avenging spirit.
I know it can’t have escaped your immortal regard that I’m already on site. I made the arduous flight into the valley to confirm my research with first-hand observation. I’ve stayed hidden all throughout my preparations. I can only hope you’ll be satisfied, in your benevolence, that I’ve taken every step I can take alone. The only one left is the one we take together. The one where I place myself in your hands. Because in spite of all the target’s efforts to wall herself off from the world, there is a way to get to her, for anyone with the eyes to see it. Because after everything, she’s still a collector. And that’s where her defences fall down.
If the target had genuinely cut herself off, if she’d withdrawn completely and made that home her whole world, she might be safe even from you and me; but, it’s only people she’s shut out of her life. The things they make are another story. She can’t seem to live without them.
I sometimes think…
You can’t have an impenetrable defence if you also want a life with meaning. I think maybe living your life and being part of the world … it opens you up. Leaves you vulnerable.
It’s public knowledge that the (unintelligible) collection is now managed by a trust. It’s less well known that the woman herself still periodically vets new acquisitions. Well … I recently made some new acquisitions myself. An up and coming artist. Not much of a name just yet. Part of a small new movement working with votive crystal, the metamaterial Kildress developed for the Votive Apex. I can’t claim to be much of an art appreciator myself. But I do get a feeling of rightness from that. This is a substance that only exists because someone needed it to exist to worship you the way you deserve. And now it’s unlocked a way for me to worship you the way I need to. Because an artist can do some very pretty things with votive crystal, it turns out. Lovely twinkly projections, life-size people, and places shining out of a sliver the size of a knucklebone.
But you need sunlight to see them.
Can’t appreciate the piece properly without it.
Which brings me to my humble request.
All I need to ask of you, in your benevolence, is this.
Make sure it’s a grey day here in the valley tomorrow, when the new acquisitions arrive for vetting. I’ve already intercepted the shipment and added my pieces. On a grey day, there won’t be enough daylight coming through the shutters for the target to properly assess them. If she cared less about her collection…
(gleefully) …but her nature won’t let her.
She might open the shutters, which would give me enough of an opening. But as long as there’s a blanket over the sun, I’m confident she’ll go one step further, and step out onto the south-facing balcony to be sure of the full effect. I’ll be in position on the roof and she’ll finally be in my reach.
I’ve asked you for more than this in the past and you’ve allowed it.
I hope all the trouble I still go to proves to you that I don’t take it for granted.
When the day comes that you do turn me down, I want to know, I want to be sure, that it’s not because I asked too much. I just … I can’t tell you how grateful I am. For you. For always listening, always saying yes when I ask, so I know I’m doing the right thing.
The day the intervention doesn’t come, and I miss my target, and it all falls down … I want you to know I’ll accept it. Your rejection. You’ll never hear from me again after that.
I really hope tomorrow isn’t going to be that day. I believe the collector is a worthy target. But if tomorrow is that day, you have my thanks for your part in delivering all my targets to date.
A murmur of indistinguishable voices begins to swell up over THE FANATIC’s voice.
THE FANATIC:
In your divine benevolence, I humbly entreat you, having heard my plea, to bless me with your intervention.
All the voices gradually fade away.
ANNOUNCER 2:
I Need A Miracle is a Foggy Outline podcast produced by Wireless Theatre. Directed by Robert Valentine. Produced by Sarah Golding. Casting by Fiona Thraille. Broadcast assistance by Teresa Milewski. Music by Katharine Seaton. Sound design by Sarah Buchynski. Recorded by Stephen H. at Jukebox Studios. Find more audio gold at wirelesstheatrecompany.co.uk and foggyoutline.com.
Thank you for listening.