10/16/2007

Aesthete TV 6


This gritty episode, the most suspenseful yet, is titled The Swarthy Man.

On a cold and windy day the camera crew is sent to find a temporary structure that, by chance, provides a grand approach to an unremarkable door.

Once unpacked, the crew crawls toward the door with all the awe and apprehension of a simple peasant approaching the palace of his lord (say, to beg permission to chop down a tree favored by vultures scaring his milk goats, thus starving his children).

When the crew finally arrives at the door 25 minutes later, the bravest of them knocks, then jumps back.  Loud clanking and scraping can be heard within the building, as though a deformed giant is dragging leg chains across a metal floor.

The tension mounts; the wind blows; the crew whimpers.

The door finally creaks open to reveal a small, swarthy man wearing rubber knee boots, a leather apron, and a hair net.  He peers from the shadows, scratching his cheek with a greasy finger, then barks an aggressive question in an unfamiliar tongue (we assume it is a question; one eyebrow is raised in a ?).  He waits, unblinking, then pulls a rusty pipe wrench from behind his back.

The wind blows harder; the tension mounts higher.  Finally, "To be continued..." flashes across the screen.

But of course it won't be continued -- both the temporary structure and swarthy man will be gone by the time the crew can be convinced to return.