POWERLESS #4

POWERLESS

A Composite Graphic Novel exclusive to Absinthe Hour

PAGE FOUR

“Hopes and Dreams”

1 – Small panel.  Hazy and faded, like an old, forgotten photograph of the past lost in a dusty shoebox.  A man’s hand grabs a limp, lifeless Captain America doll, similar in style to a Raggedy Andy doll.  Cap’s arms flail behind him as gravity offers it its only recourse.  His legs dangle straight down.

NARRATOR (JT): I’m not Captain America.

2 – Small panel.  Modern day, crystal clean and in the present.  Chief Harrison grabs a Captain America action figure, stiff plastic radically contorting Cap at all its joints; all 32 points of articulations being worked. 

NARRATOR (JT): I can’t slap a star on my chest and an A on my head and feel better.

3 – Long panel.  Chief Harrison stands contemplatively—morose in his demeanor, sadness in his sullen eyes which stare at the action figure in his hands.  POLICE OFFICERS at the end of anopen door in the background of a suburban house share knowledge of the immediate case before them.  Red and blue lights patter the white washed walls.

NARRATOR (JT): It’s FANTASY.  FALSE, and not glorifying in the least.

NARRATOR (JT): It’s DIRTY, depressing.

NARRATOR (JT): Disgusting in more ways than you can ever imagine.

4 – Long panel.  Hazy and faded, in the same nostalgic fashion of the tone and presentation of panel 1.  The man, a police officer set in a seemingly similar location as the one Chief Harrison is investigating in the present, peers over his shoulder at A YOUNG BOY curled, and with his knees hugged close to his chest, on a tall, rustic looking chair.

NARRATOR (JT): Something not fully realized until it’s LIVED through.

5 - Long panel.  Modern day.  A police officer whispers to Chief Harrison, who doesn’t care to angle his head over his shoulder to hear the officer.  Chief Harrison simply stares at the figure in his hands, wildly deranged at all its limbs.  As the police officer talks, Chief Harrison reacts without the demand or insistence of an interested human being, let alone an officer of the law.

NARRATOR (JT): That’s when it all changes.

POLICE OFFICER: It was Tulley, sir.

NARRATOR (JT): When you realize HOPES and DREAMS are as significant as a pulp fantasy,

6 – Long panel.  The past.  The officer extends his arm out to the boy on the chair, offering him his Captain America doll.  The boy, still scared—tears in his eyes, lip quivering—reaches for it cautiously.

NARRATOR (JT): In the end, you realize their notions hold no more weight than the letters used to spell their carriers,

7 – Long Panel.  Modern day.  The Police officer walks away from Chief Harrison, leaving him alone with the disfigured action figure in his hands.  Chief Harrison is motionless, staring at the figure.

NARRATOR (JT): That they’re TRANSPARENT feelings.

8 – Small panel.  The past.  Close on the Captain America doll, the boy’s arms wrapped tightly around it.  The boy squeezes the doll close to his chest, eminently stressing the seam lines which struggle to hold in the doll’s stuffing.

NARRATOR (JT): That they should be tossed away like YESTERDAY’S NEWS,

9 – Small Panel.  Close on Chief Harrison chest.  His tie is as disorderly and unkempt as his sunken shoulders, as the Captain America action figure clinging loosely to his hand, both of which are hung carelessly at his sides.

NARRATOR (JT): Or like an old, ratty RAG DOLL.