The Immeasurable Apotheosis Of Sid Wright: Episode 1

In which the Prophet of Sleep experiences a crisis of faith.

Starring David S Dear and Muna Hussen

Written by Jon Ware

Production and sound design by Muna Hussen

TRANSCRIPT

We hear a cassette player whirr into life.

Soothing music plays, and we hear the voice of a THERAPIST ON TAPE.

THERAPIST ON TAPE:

(Sweetly)

Are you feeling despondent, low or uncertain? Lacking motivation to continue? Take comfort. There are thousands of people who feel exactly the same way.

Welcome to the Tragus On Tape, treasured friend. You’re in the right place, and soon you will be well. The Tragus is here to listen.

To begin the therapy session, open up your starter kit.

Your kit should contain: six introductory tapes, to be played at the beginning of each session. One sacred text, containing the Wisdom of the Tragus. And a pair of twenty-sided dice.

If any piece is missing, please contact your nearest branch of the Chapel of the Sorrowing Ear and request a replacement.

A dictaphone has not been included with your starter kit, but you may wish to acquire one yourself in order to record your feelings and lend them a sense of permanence. Remember: your words matter. Your feelings are important.

When you’re ready, begin to explain what’s upsetting you, at your own pace. You may find yourself omitting key details, repressing crucial information, or misrepresenting objective facts. This is perfectly normal, particularly at the beginning of the process.

When you’ve finished speaking, roll the red-inked die first, then the black-inked die. Combine the numbers as a single result - for instance, 17 and 3 would lead to a result of 1703.

Then decide whether you would like a Prompt or a Solution - these are in different sections of the sacred text - and consult the appropriate entry to receive your therapy.

Top tip: To enjoy the full benefit of the session and accelerate your recovery, you may wish to read out the Wisdom of the Tragus aloud in a commanding voice that’s also steeped in soothing calm.

Click of a dictaphone.

SID WRIGHT:

(Uncertain and a bit despondent)

Uh, um…

All right. Let’s give this a go.

My name is Sidney. Sid Wright.

I have, overall, eighteen years of experience in the radio business, quite a successful career, in fact - I, uhm, started out with a runner, ended up with my own show.

More recently, my life’s taken a turn. Not the sort of turn you expect to happen at my age, to be honest. You don’t expect to start believing in things in middle age.

It’s a little hard to explain, um…

(Warming up to telling the story)

I suppose the trouble, if you can call it trouble, began last week.

It was my third time carrying out the Stupor - that’s what I’d come to call it. I was finally starting to feel like I was getting the hang of it.

I’d learnt my mistake from the first time, at the radio station. Don’t start out too ambitious, because you get attention from all the wrong people.

Cops. Military. That sort of thing. You read the news, I’m sure you remember.

I spent five months hiding out in a barn on the polluted coast, while they tried to track me down for what, uh, I’m referring to as my ‘resignation letter’ at Greater Glottage Radio.

That gave me a lot of time to think about tweaking my approach.

First you settle on a specific location, somewhere people are working en masse - a factory, an office - far from the centre of any town.

You break in during working hours, perhaps posing as a team member.

You find your way to the staff intercom, deal with whoever is manning it. Violently, if that proves necessary. And then you use the Voice, the power of your god’s great Voice, to summon the workers to you.

You lead them into a great central place deep within the building - a basement, somewhere deep underground - where you could gather them in and lock the doors behind them and send them all to sleep undisturbed.

(With wonder)

And the elation comes to you, the rapture and the pride, because you’ve seen the dullness in their bleary eyes, you’ve seen their hands trembling from their ceaseless toils.

You know how important it is, to give them that lasting chance for slumber.

This time, this third time, it was a sawmill, and my voice echoed out all across the yard, through the speakers that were strung from each office room and workshop-

“Down tools, my children,” I told them. “It’s time to sleep.”

The saws whirred to a halt upon my command. The noise of the conveyors ceased.

And my children turned to look skywards, with wonder, relief, and…

…yes, a little fear. I don’t mind admitting that.

Fear is the ripple that precedes any significant craft, after all.

My new converts did not disobey me. They filed through into the mess hall, one by one, just as I instructed them.

I asked them to take off their coats and lay them on the floor, for safety.

“Don’t worry,” I told them. “There won’t be any cold inside the dream, there won’t be any kind of discomfort.”

They let the forewoman and the officer manager fall to sleep first. That seemed to come naturally to them - I didn’t begrudge them the gesture.

I laid my hand on the forewoman’s forehead, and I gave her her final orders.

She fell. Toppling forwards onto the heaped coats, with a smile lingering across her face as she slipped into a sleep that she would never be able to wake from.

And then the workers streamed through after her, and I delivered them into sleep - all thirty-four of them, one by one.

Until there was only one left.

A gangly, shy-looking boy in ill-fitting overalls. You could guess why he was the last one. He had the demeanour of someone who ends up at the back of a lot of queues.

And I laid my hand on this boy’s forehead, ready to speak the words that would send him to sleep…

…and he just looked up at me with anxious blue eyes and asked,

“What’s waiting for us down there?”

I told him, soft and gentle,

“Sleep. The end of aching bones. A great new god of sleep who will welcome us into his quiet empire and put an end to our ceaseless toil.”

The boy nodded, as if he understood me. But he still looked nervous.

And then he asked,

“What shall I call my god, when I see him?”

(Growing upset)

And I realised I didn’t have an answer for him.

I panicked. Laid my palm on his forehead as quickly as I could, whispered the words: “Sleep. Sleep, sleep. Never wake.”

The boy toppled to the ground, just like the others had.

No more awkward questions. What a relief.

I stared down into the darkness of the cellar, and I whispered to them,

“Sleep well. Sleep long. Never wake.”

And then I locked the doors behind the slumbering workers, and I left them there.

I took a turn around the yard to switch off the last of the machinery and neaten up the place, and I sat in the dust alone and watched the sun set over the pine forests.

(Becoming upset)

The expected elation, the triumphal ecstasy…did not come to me.

I felt hollow. I wanted to scream.

More than ever, I wanted to sleep, to understand the bliss that the children must feel when they hear my whispers in their ear, to feel confident that bliss is what I’m truly sending them to.

To know the name of the sleep I serve.

How can you love something you don’t truly understand? How can you speak for a god whose face has not been revealed to you?

How can you usher in sleep to others when sleep has become a stranger to you?

That’s how I feel.

A little lost, you might say.

I want to understand my god better, to feel more confident in his cause, to speak his words with more articulate detail…but I don’t know how.

So. What do I do? Where do I go? How am I meant to figure out how to…

Um…

Silence. Then SID rolls the dice.

SID WRIGHT:

Okay. That is…1114.

Oh, uh, ‘Solution.’

Flick of a page.

SID WRIGHT:

(Reading aloud in a wise voice)

‘Imagine you’re living in a beautiful estate. Take a moment now to focus on the details of the estate; the magnificent doors, the shining and elegant windows. Fill in the various rooms with aspects that you find particularly appealing.

‘Breathe slowly in and out as you visualise this wonderful place in full.’

(Faintly annoyed)

That’s not…that doesn’t help.

(Deciding to go for the other option)

Uh, ‘Prompt.’

SID turns to another page.

SID WRIGHT:

(Reading aloud)

‘Do you think this comes back to family trauma?’

Pause. This legitimately catches SID off guard.

SID WRIGHT:

Well, I suppose in a sense - I mean, everything comes back to that, right?

My family’s still out in the western hills, where I grew up. Town called Puckham’s Weald.

I haven’t seen them since…

…well, not in years. Certainly not since I became a wanted man.

But when I was starting out, when I was thinking I’d always be a runner and I needed someone to tell me that I’d find my way…I used to call my sister every night from the public payphone. We’d have these long, rambling conversations about nothing, and I’d hear my brother-in-law yelling insults from the kitchen because anything he couldn’t be at the centre of could be nothing but an offence.

She was always kind to me. We were always kind to one another.

That’s all changed, obviously. I haven’t spoken to her once since my resignation letter. I have no idea if she thinks I’m dead, or even capable of…

I…I do miss Jeanette.

…yes.

Yes, perhaps you’re right.

(Decisively)

Perhaps I need to go home.

Silence. And then the cassette shuts off.

END OF EPISODE.