Mina
A Photographic Novella in Twenty Episodes
Text and Makeup by Jennifer Broome
Photography by Allie Mullin
Š2012. All Rights Reserved
The Theatre of Last Resort (text-only episode)
Mina took some time getting used to the pearlmap. It was almost alive. Once they were on the road, it bounded out of her hand and settled on the ground. As soon Mina began to move toward it, the pearl-map rolled a little further along. Mina spent a good half hour trying to catch the dratted thing before she realized it was actually leading her somewhere. The odd little object seemed to recognize when Mina understood and proceeded to bounce along the road, almost merrily. The trio followed along until they approached a crossroads. The pearl-map began to roll towards the left, at which point Tatter gave it a vicious poke with her parasol. “We’re not gahn ‘at way!”
Mina turned towards Tatter. “Why?” she asked. “Because there’s only one fink down that road, and we don’t want to go there. Just believe me when I tell yer it’s not a good idea.” Before Mina could reply, a grunt from Hatter called her attention to the pearl-map. Evidently it meant to go on its way, for it was rolling quite rapidly along the left road. Mina uttered a cry of dismay and trotted after it. Hatter lumbered after Mina, and so Tatter was left with no other option than to follow, grumbling darkly about the tricks of certain map-making toffs. After many miles the pearl-map started to slow. It crested a hill and finally stopped all motion. Mina looked at the valley below and gasped. There lay a village like none she had ever seen.
It was a small enclave, alight with torches and a central bonfire. All the villagers seemed to live in a series of canvas and silk tents. These tents were brightly colored in patterns that appeared to move with the wind. It then occurred to Mina that it was an exceptionally calm night, and that there was no wind. Tatter answered Mina’s unspoken question. “The bleedin' tents move on their own, ‘owever they feel like. If yer not careful, yer can get sucked into one permanent-like.” “What kind of village is this?” Mina demanded. “It’s no village. Come on, they’ve noticed us by now.” Using her parasol as a walking stick, Tatter picked her way down the stony hill
towards the tents. The pearl-map nudged Mina’s ankle, then began to roll down the hill. Hatter and Mina followed. At the bottom of the hill, the orb rose and leapt into Mina’s pocket. Tatter was right; the trio had indeed been spotted, and the inhabitants of the tents were massed to greet the strangers. An oddly protuberant figure, comically overdressed, was obviously the head of the group. Striding forward, he gestured grandly to the tents behind her and exclaimed: “Welcome to the Theatre of Last Resort!” Mina gaped at the figure. “The what?”
The man seemed annoyed. “The Theatre of Last Resort. I’m the Director, and you’re all my guests.” It was the strangest place Mina had ever seen. She was accustomed to odd-looking people by now, but this was something different. Every single inhabitant of the village looked, in varying degrees, depressed, bemused, frightened, offended, or angry. In fact, besides the Director, there was not one happy face to be seen. “Come off it,” snapped Tatter. “We’re not ‘ere to join yer bleedin’ parcel o’ paffetics.” “My what?”
“Paffetics. Ya kin jest put away yer ledger, ‘cause we’re not staying.” “Paffetics?” the Director queried again. “PAFFETICS! Yer deaf or sumfink?” Mina whispered to the befuddled man, “I think she means ‘pathetic.’” The Director nodded sagely, apparently deciding a woman who had problems with dental fricatives would be at home in this place. Clapping his hands, the Director made an attempt to defuse the situation. “Well, you are welcome regardless. Would you like a performance? We produce the finest tragedies in the Realm. Yes, any tragedy you want, we can
do. Unrequited love? Childhood trauma? Baby fallen down a well? Hero slain by a dragon? Dragon slain by a hero, if you’re fond of dragons? We’ve got it.” He prattled on, warming to his subject, “We have tragedies of abduction, addiction, adultery, arson, assassination, assault, burglary, counterfeiting, defenestration, desertion, embezzlement, exsanguination, fratricide, fraud, grifting, harassment, homicide, impersonation, juntas, kidnapping, loan sharking, matricide, mistaken identity, nonpayment, overdose, patricide, perjury, quisling, regicide, robbery, spycraft, theft, treason, usury, vengeance, war, xenophobia, yodeling without a license, and zoophilic activity.
“Of course,” and here the Director paused thoughtfully, “You three look like discriminating customers. I’m thinking you want something a little out of the ordinary avenues of tears and tempests. Yes, the more I look at you, the more I’m sure of it. We’ve been rehearsing something new, something more wretched, dejected, forlorn, despondent, sorrowful, desolate, melancholy, and desperate than anything yet produced in this Realm!” With a flourish of his hands, he turned towards her Pathetics. “Set the tents for the Tale of The Memory Thief!” Tatter was gathering breath to shout down the Director when Mina tugged at her sleeve. “He said the Memory Thief, just like the Cartographer! Let’s watch and see if it has anything to do with the Alchemist.”
In the time it took for Mina to whisper these words, the Pathetics had galvanized into an efficient machine. The tents folded back and set their pattern to reveal a mist-shrouded mountain. Chairs were placed behind the trio, and they were guided into their seats by three grim-looking ushers. Melancholy cellos warmed up alongside ominous kettle drums. In less than sixty seconds, the entire troupe had readied itself for the performance. A sweet slip of a girl appeared in front of the tent. She stared at a point somewhere to the left of Mina’s shoulder and began to sing. It was a haunting, lonely tune with no words. It made Mina think of icy sheets of rain and abandoned children, sodden and starving.
The girl left the stage and was replaced by an impossibly thin, blue-skinned Philomorph. This part of the play was evidently a pantomime, for she spoke no words. Instead, she danced fluidly, her face becoming more tinged with the sickly blue, until she ceased breathing and dropped to the ground, apparently dead. Two jaundiced-looking fellows dragged the dancer into the wings behind the tent and then reappeared. They were joined by a third man, who wept uncontrollably. The three formed a line and stepped forward. “Memories come from the dance of the Memory Giver,” they croaked in unison. The crying man brought out a soiled handkerchief and blew his nose. “The Memory Giver dances for all of us. What she gives, she can never take back. What
we give her is imprinted forever. Our sorrow is her sorrow, our pain is her pain, our regrets are—” “—’er regrets, like. We know. No need to keep bleatin’ about it.” Tatter thumped her parasol to accompany her complaint. The three men took a minute to look offended, then silently filed off the stage. They were replaced by the asphyxiated dancer—apparently playing the role of the Memory Giver— who flitted around the stage strewing flowers. She bent to present a withered daisy to Mina, when a black-cloaked figure appeared behind the dancer. With a twist of a knife, the Memory Giver dropped to the floor, apparently dead.
The cloaked figure raised its hands in triumph, then turned upstage towards what was obviously a Philomorph. With movement of sadistic glee, the murderer barreled into the Philomorph, who collapsed melodramatically on the stage floor. After a moment, the Philomorph rose and began a zombie-like shamble offstage. He was followed by the cloaked figure. The three men of the chorus reappeared. “And so the Memory Thief began her war on the changlings. Peaceful Philomorphs, helpless against the Thief’s curse, had no defense against the purloining of their sacred treasure. Their memories were taken to be used by the Alchemist in ghastly experiments. Memories died or returned twisted out of recognition.”
At this point the crying man broke from the line and stepped towards Hatter. He proffered his dirty handkerchief, and at that moment Mina realized that tears were leaking from Hatter’s face. The silent one took the scrap of silk gratefully, wiped her face, and solemnly returned it to the crying man. Before Mina could begin to theorize about Hatter’s actions, a new scene appeared onstage. The cloaked figure, now identified as the Alchemist, loomed over a sizable cauldron. Into it were thrown bits of metal—the troupe’s interpretation of memories, Mina supposed. From the side of the stage, the chorus continued.
“The Alchemist retreated to Mount Fuscus, where she is guarded by the Derklings. There is no day in this place, and the sun never shows his face. All is darkness and sorrow.� The scene changed yet again. This time it was a tableau. A striking young woman and an equally handsome man sat enraptured over a basket. In a few seconds, the basket began to wail. The woman broke the pose to reach into the basket and tenderly brought forth a sleeping child. As the woman cradled the child, Mina noted a movement on the stage. The Alchemist was crawling stealthily towards the young family. Mina wanted to scream a warning, but as she opened her mouth, the Alchemist swiftly plucked the child from the woman’s hands.
A pantomimed fight ensued, backed by the cello and drum. The man was knocked unconscious— some sorcery appeared to be involved—and the battle was soon decided. The Alchemist, victorious, clutched the child and began to depart. “Hold!” the mother screamed. “That child is young and ill-acquainted with the world. I have a surfeit of memories you can use. They are yours, freely given, in exchange for the child!” A sound effect of thunder shook the stage. The actors turned as if of one accord to the audience of three. They bowed solemnly and left the stage. Mina looked at the empty stage, stupefied. “Wait! What happens next?”
The Director looked embarrassed. “There isn’t any next. That’s the end.” “What sort of endin' is that?” demanded Tatter. She thrust the business end of her parasol at the Director’s copious stomach. “Like the child said, what 'appens to the lass, then, eh? What 'appens to ‘er babe?” The Director gazed at her helplessly. “We don’t know. The Theatre of Last Resort prides itself on telling only the truest of stories. Some stories don’t yet have an end. We live here and wait for the dénouement.” He stepped back from the parasol. “I warned you it was a work in progress,” he snapped. Tatter had never looked more disgusted. Sensing danger, the Director became more cooperative.
“We—that is, my troop and myself—were told to rehearse this story. We were sent the script with no ending and told to perform it only once, and only for a specific group of people. The letter said there would be four of you, but the descriptions were so precise that I just figured one of you decided not to come.” He stood back, wary and exhausted. Mina felt a shiver steal across her. “The Professor. Someone thought The Professor would be here,” she gasped. Tatter was momentarily taken aback. She considered for a minute and returned her parasol to the ground. She leaned on it and suddenly looked very, very old.
One of the performers trotted over and whispered something in the Director’s ear. He nodded and seemed to regain some of his composure. “It’s late, and I’ve told you all I know. However, there’s no sense in you going away tonight. Please, stay with us until morning. We’ve prepared a supper for you, as well as some post-prandial entertainment.” Tatter snapped her head back up. “Oh, no, don't try that line with us. We know what takin' yer 'ospitality does. We're payin' yer for yer performance, just so there's no confusion about what we owe.” She nodded at Hatter, who removed a coin from her copious headgear and presented it to the Director. He didn’t seem eager to take it, but a look from Hatter changed his mind. He grasped the coin
and said with forced politeness, “Well, I do hope you enjoyed the evening’s show. Please do come again.” At this, he turned on his heel and walked into the largest tent. The troupe followed without a single backward glance at the trio. Tatter led the way back up the hill. Once there, she looked at Mina and told her, “Awright, get out yer bleedin’ map and see what it 'as to say.” Mina plucked the orb from her pocket where it had rested during the performance. It hopped out of her hands and began to roll, a little slowly, to the north. After a few miles, the pearlmap suddenly lost its light and sat in the middle of a field, a dark mass indistinguishable from the shapes around it.
“Is it all right?” Mina asked. She had begun to grow fond of the object and was beginning to think of it as a pet. “‘Course it’s all right. When it goes dark it means it's time to make camp, is all.” So they did.
The next episode of “Mina,” titled “The Journey Continues,” will be available September 12, 2012 at literaturecouture.com/mina.