Cenotaph: Mini-Play. For your reading pleasure.
K [sits quietly beside the old cenotaph, strokes her greying beard]
J [walks up confidently]: I hear this cenotaph is one of 70 that meet the criteria. It contains the cancellation, the intimidation, the mob letters, the petition!
K: Hello. Welcome. I have been here for a while. This cenotaph contains no such things. It has been thoroughly investigated. I have documented my own searches. Over there, in that box, are my notebooks. Have a look if you like. [returns to the posture of stroking her beard]
S [enters stage]: Ah! There have been more and more of these graves! Filled with dead bodies. Only efforts like the Harper's letter are slowing them down. It is not even about more graves and dead bodies, it is about the new culture of arbitrary mobs screaming for dead bodies!
K: Funny you should think that. I have investigated. See this box? Here's one of my notebooks. Have a look.
S: It has dead bodies in it. From mob justice. Disproportionate punishment destroys our culture.
K: There is no body in there. I have looked.
K: You can read my notebook. In it I say the following . . .
S: You can only have found a dead body. The mob spoke of a dead body. They made this grave. There must be a dead body in it, as per the accusation. Which, BTW, should only elicit "hmm, quite strange" as a response.
K: Ha, I wonder what you know about cenotaphs.
J: I mean the accusations should really have been something else.
S: And it shouldn't have mattered.
J: I vaguely recall something, something strange. But yes, it shouldn't have mattered an inch.
S: Yeah, those accusations that shouldn't have mattered are issues some other people may bother about. They should not be relevant here!
J: I think it was related to some work.
S: Work is a wide field! Not much further afield should matter to it.
J: I agree, I agree. I don't know what's in this monument. But the whole structure reeks of rotting dead bodies. And looks just like other mob cancellation graves.
S & J [walk off stage, still talking]
K [puts notebook back in box; sits down beside cenotaph; looks at the sky]
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.