[Apathy's_Child]

Green River continues to play as the action switches to the Deep South, where a group of twenty-somethings are partying on the swampy riverbank, the music now blasting from portable speakers. A barbeque is flaming in the background and people are milling around, drinking, dancing, some kissing or sitting on the riverbank. Screen caption reads ‘BRAKE, LOUISIANA’.

Panning over the dancers, the shot hones in on a girl, barefoot and with the front curtains of her straight hair braided like a hippie. She is dancing by herself, really getting into the music, arms above her head in rapture as she wheels among the other dancers with her eyes closed. A twenty-something man approaches, his pupils the size of saucers & appearing in much the same state as her. They start dancing together, coming together in mutual drug-fuelled rapture.

Song continues to play into second verse as action switches back to a small apartment in NY. Solumina leaps up at the bang on the door – Versus enters and drops his backpack as they hug. Miss C jumps down from her perch on the counter and bounces over, slamming into them to make it a group-hug. They let go, usher him to the table and pour him a drink from the open bottle of whiskey as he sits.

Cut back to Brake, where the hippie-haired girl is still dancing with the man, wheeling around and twirling one another more slowly now, eyes big and rapturous as they flow to the ground. Song fades down gradually over following as he rolls lightly on top of her and speaks to her [both have heavy down-home accents going on].

MAN: Damn, girl. What’s your name?

GIRL: It don’t matter. You know my SOUL. [moves hand in front of his face wonderingly] We share vibrations.

MAN: Well shit, I should just take you right here and now. [gestures to the other partyers] They wouldn’t know WHAT to do. Goddamn small towners – betcha they’d flee in horror.

GIRL: [laughs in delight] Do it! Take me down here in the river-mud. [writhes beneath him as if the idea turns her on] Like the gods of old.

MAN: [with a suddenly lucid & sinister smile] Blood running on the riverbanks... now that does sound like the God of old. [his eyes scorch black] Well, since you’re offerin’... [moves in to bite her in the neck; suddenly stops, and spasms on top of her]

She shoves him off, pulling the knife from his gut; he lands on his back, twitching.

CUCKOO: [getting to her feet, now talking in a south London accent] “Take” me? Fuckin’ patriarch. I bet you hate Jews and blacks. [spits on the ground]

MAN: [glaring up at her with black eyes] What ARE you?

CUCKOO: Er – demon hunter? Mate, seriously, I know it walks and quacks like a dumb-arse little hippie chick – but “We share vibrations?” You actually FELL for that? I thought I’d overdone it there. [shrugs] You’re not the only ones who can assemble like a MOTHERFUCKER when required. And my side’ve been hearing some shit about the End of Days that's got them all antsy. Truth is, I’m just passing through. This is WAY bigger than your shitty little Podunk town.

MAN: [gasping as the gut-wound smokes] You don’t know what you’re getting into... you stupid child...

CUCKOO: [now REALLY indignant] CHILD? Bitch, I’m twenty-seven years old, and something tells me there is no WAY you would be using that kind of minimizing language if it were a bloke standing in front of you right now. Fuckin’ child ME. [kicks him hard in the side – he yelps and tries to grab at her ankle, but he is wounded & slow, and she dodges back easily]

CUCKOO: Even with that straight white male privilege working for you, that’s STILL the best you can do? Good to know. That prophecy I keep hearing about just got about 73 per cent less intimidating.

Man strains as flames begin to consume him from wound outwards. Onlookers scream and run as burning man’s eyes scorch black and the demon beneath reveals itself - the flames climb high, burning with unnatural brightness as the partiers flee, their screaming fading into the distance.

The demon explodes into embers, its final howl shrieking through the night. Cuckoo stays where she is, barefoot on the riverfront, watching the embers settle in the moonlight. Something howls back across the swamp, and she pulls her knife reflexively.

Realising it’s just an animal, she sheathes the knife and picks up her satchel from where it fell, scrubbing idly at her soot-smudged face. Turns and walks away from the riverfront towards the road, muttering about denizens of evil and overprivileged dickholes. Seems to cheer up before she has gone too far – starts humming and then singing “Take It From the Man” as she pootles along in the hot, heavy Louisiana night.