POWERLESS #5

POWERLESS

A Composite Graphic Novel exclusive to Absinthe Hour

PAGE FIVE

“Naïve and Ignorant”

1 – Wide panel.  The broad, concave window which guards the once safe and impregnable living room of an average suburban home allows inquiring eyes to perceive Chief Harrison handing a greatly contorted Captain America action figure to an on-duty police officer beside him.  Monstrous, electric police lights atop a police car stationed just outside impertinently emblazon the corner of the panel and brush delicately with soft ambience the house.

CHIEF HARRISON: Bag it.  Mark as evidence.

NARRATOR (CH): It’s been my biggest fear since James Tulley entered my life.

2 – Medium panel.  Chief Harrison is set off to the side of the panel, staring at the far wall of the house.  It’s aglow in iridescent red from the intruding police car light outside.

NARRATOR (CH): I had dreamt this nightmare so many times before.

3 – Medium panel.  Same image as panel 2, except that the police car light has shifted to a soft blue, which impedes itself upon the wall in place of the once red glare.  But Chief Harrison sees something completely different.  Dark black silhouettes perform the crime against the pattered blue light on the wall: The figure of James Tulley, tall, intimidating, angles a gun at a cowering FAT MAN begging for his life.  The silhouette of a SMALL BOY, no taller the fat man’s waist, chases toward the fat man.

NARRATOR (CH): I had held hope his vigilantism would never carry him so far off.

4 – Small panel.  Close on the small, still hand of a boy lying lifelessly on the carpeted floor of the house.  His small fingers are naturally curled in rigamortis, curled from pinky to forefinger like the crest of an expansive wave which tapers back to sea.  A gun rests a ways away from the hand.  The red glow of the police car drapes over the scene transparently.

NARRATOR (CH): Even if unintentional.

5 – Small panel.  Chief Harrison bends to floor and reaches for the gun in the blue cast of the police car lights.  A silhouetted hand is caught opposite of Chief Harrison’s reaching hand; it quivers uneasily, and Tulley drops the gun all over again.

NARRATOR (CH): I guess I was too naïve and ignorant to think otherwise.

6 – Small panel.  Chief Harrison tucks the gun deeply inside his coat pocket, and does so with trepidation and caution.

NARRATOR (CH): I tell my guys not to tell the press a thing.

NARRATOR (CH): Not to tell anyone anything.

7 – Medium panel.  Chief Harrison walks toward the door, both hands tucked inside his pockets.  He hangs his head low, his shoulders even lower.  The red lights from the police car outside mark his path to the door.

NARRATOR (CH): I tell them I’ll handle the talking,

NARRATOR (CH): and in all my reports, my interviews, my small talk,

8 – Medium panel.  Chief Harrison closes the door of the house behind him.  Another silhouette is caught against the blue light on the door.  It’s of Tulley, hunched and sulked, walking with the same impressing weight as the one Chief Harrison carries; seemingly walking out the door away from the house, just as Chief Harrison had done.

NARRATOR (CH): I don’t mention Tulley.