A KNIGHT’S DILENMA
Premise: 4 Fellas from the 21st century get transported to a palace court in the Elizabethan Era mysteriously. They blend in immediately and switch their parlance to that of people who lived in that time, but like a glitch in a program their true method of speech comes up during their conversations.
Narration: Three comrades Lord Salem, Knight Shaba, and the Court Jester Laphtar discussing over flagons brimming with ale speak on their prowess. The Knight Shaba praises his skill in wooing the daughters of Eve, but the Court Jester Laphtar sulkily disagrees. Lord Salem watches the conversation in silent amusement. Just then, the renown Lady Petit Hermit gracefully strolls in.
Lord Salem: Been a thousand years milady, how art thou?
Lady Hermit : Fruitful on the dry dusty soil, beautiful to every eyes. You?
Knight Shaba (cuts in): Nice... and I was just thinking beholding you is a comfort for my mortal eyes.
Lady Hermit (plainly): Thanks
Knight Shaba: Out of curiosity though... If you're a hermit, who are you petty with ?
Lady Hermit : There's a time in life when everything become too annoying you demand solitude
Lord Salem: A profound truth
Lord Salem: Fairest of them all, do tell what is thy secret? Lo, the winter's breath threatens my being.
Lady Hermit: My secret is lost to the world and gold to the cold, take joy in living!
Lord Salem (in mock anger): I ask that you teach me your ways of perpetual youth and beauty, you dare say I take joy in living
Knight Shaba (grinning): Maybe she meant “leaving”
Lady Hermit: Leaving to the old or staying to see life unfold, pick one
Lord Salem: Isn't it a little boring to wait? Dare I say, the veterans shiver in their seats, not for fear of war, but a yearning of its damning thrills.
Lady Hermit: No thrills only suffocation, even beasting with the back thrives curiosity to breath on
Knight Shaba: Fair maiden, where didst thou doth hide from the time of mine birth ?
Court Jester Laphtar (glitching): Go ask her Mama na
Lady Hermit (to the Knight): Stray eyes wandered and you didn't see!
Lord Salem (exclaims in amusement): Ahhhhhhhh!
Narration: the Knight Shaba is undettered by the petty jabs he’s received. He presses the fair Lady Petty Hermit to grace him with her presence at the Theatre in 12 daylight cycles from the present. He prays that his graceful play on musical strings would soften the stony heart. Lord Salem joins in his prayer that she graces the Theatre with her presence.
Lord Salem: Mercy, I prithee. Let him wish upon thine form.
Knight Shaba: Ah, my heart doth cry tears of blood as they have sorely missed a comrade soul... But that thou wouldst grace it with thy presence at dusk on the 12th day of the present moon.
Lady Hermit (unfazed): It's a sin to want who heaven didn't appoint...
Lord Salem (cuts in): what is man but a little lower than the angels. Ye the desire of the eyes seeks the high heavens
Lady Hermit (to the Knight): and a damsel untouchable by the hands of Quasimodo
Lord Salem: Aye... Even so, the father of they who dwell in the tower of shadows is free to dream. To reach, placing hand in hand to the damsel fair in heart and form.
Lady Hermit (sighing she turns to the Knight): Present your case
Lord Salem: you are in Luck!... Knight Shaba the heavens smile on you today
The Knight speaks
Knight Shaba: Words doth flee my lips and my throat is parched of honey to sweeten my tongue. But I doth come accompanied by the strength and wishes of my dear Lord and brethren (Lord Salem) that thou wilst with great splendour grace our eyes with thine presence on that beautiful day that is only shadowed by thine beauty
The palace courtier comes in and observes the conversation for a while, he looks both lost and interested in the conversation.
Lord Salem (To the Courtier): Do you wish to join us? The Courtier : Thanks My Lord, but I do not understand even half of what is going on.
Lord Salem (to the Courtier): Son of man, that which you seek is for the heavens to reveal. Come up hither to the realms of yore.
Lord Shaba (irritated by the interruption, he barks at the Courtier): Or descend to the gates of Hades … (mockingly) where the jester is 'chilling'
The Lord and The Lady chuckle at the subtle jab to the Court Jester
Lady Hermit: Mean
Lady Hermit (returning to her conversation with the Knight): You speak false vain Knight. Lilith, fair and equal belongs nowhere and cannot be overshadowed by your twisted tongue. I say again, present your case.
Laphtar (cuts in with sly humor at the Knight): Baby, have you ever considered if she would prefer it hot...? That's why I'm just "chilling".
Knight Shaba (unfazed by the Jester's sarcasm): learn thine lesson from the tale of the woods that are green.
Lord Salem (realizing the humor in the Knight's retort): Guyyyyyyyy
Knight Shaba (laughing): I no say you go get.
Knight Shaba: My fair lady I have naught to present from these lowly calloused hands, but a prayer and plea that thou wilt grant this lowly servant thine ear and a chance to see true beauty as the heavens designed.
Lord Salem: O dear Knight, the words of the bards fail thee at this time. Your chivalry might stir her heart. Slay a dragon and she shall grant thee audience
Knight Shaba: Brother, it pains me to relay this tale but my sword is at the blacksmith's. It is being reforged for the days of battle.
Lady Hermit (offended by the crude joke): Dismissed! a man should know his honour in his word, sword and loins! God is your chance
Knight Shaba: All of these things that the maiden has doth listed.. are tried and true ... But what thou truly need is a physical demonstration of word, sword and loins
Lord Salem: O Knight seest thou what I have spoken? Thy words are frail before her. Return to the blacksmith and craft sword born from the strength of thine desire and the fires of the deep.
Knight Shaba: Dear Lord Salem if after all this plea the Fair Lady Hermit doth not grace our beautiful moonlit theatre play with her presence I shall wail till the heavens hear me.
Lord Salem: Lady Hermit grant the valiant amongst men audience, I prithee. When the days count to twelve and dusk envelopes us in this moon's cycle. Grant him audience, that he may prove himself.
Lady Hermit : In time in age, when death pass me by and bear my garment to the wind, only then will you have a chance
Lord Salem (spilling ale in laughter): E choke!
Knight Shaba (visibly shaken): Through my heart the cold steel of thine words doth live and so I shan't forget that even in death your words so elegantly draw my eyes and ears like the fabled siren
Lady Hermit: Let it quench your thirst
Lord Salem (to the Knight): No greater evil in the sight of the heavens, than a maiden reviling thee to scorn. O Knight, strengthen thine feeble knees, rise for scorn is unfitting for the valiant.
Knight Shaba: I shall strengthen my knees for naught but running
Lady Hermit: Good sport to learn swordsmanship
Court Jester Laphtar (mockingly): oh Knight just return to your single realm, come rule singledom with me!
Knight Shaba: Laphtar, your singledom is different from that of every other. No one envies you, neither do I... E get why...
Lord Salem: these words be true - man's undoing lies in the stubbornness of his desire. Aye, even the most valiant of men fall prey to love's crooked hands.
Lady Hermit (adds): Or fall to oblivion.
Knight Shaba: Salem, my Dear lord this maiden doth needeth no saving from the dragon.. aye, she be the dragon itself
Lord Salem: I tell you
Lady Hermit (laughs lightly): Haba! Not Fair!
Lord Salem: Dear Knight, I fear brother, the die is cast. Walk with me and drown thy sorrows. A flagon of ale and more until the desire is gone from thee.
Knight Shaba: Nay brother, for I shall only drown in my thoughts that such a fair maiden doth escape my grasp and eternity's companion is hidden from my eyes.
Lady Hermit : You lose what you have, it escapes. You never had me, not a twinkle in the nighttime or the scorching afternoon sun.
Lord Salem: Ahhh!!!! The lady hermit subtly indicates she'll be coming for the theatrical performance and rendezvous.
Lady Hermit (chuckles): I want to see how this ends
Knight Shaba (confused): How what ends abeg!
Lady Hermit (smirks): The whole theatrical package, I can't afford to purposely miss it
Court Jester (cuts in): My dear knight was baffled like Hollup!!, Hollup!!, Hollup!!
Knight Shaba (sighs): In the words of the great knight sir Bond, we live to fight another day
Lord Salem: Cheers to the loss of today. We ride to the battle of the morrow
Court Jester Laphtar (mocks the duo): Welcome back my people!
Knight Shaba (to the Lady): I have never for nights end or dawn's birth feigned to having or possessing such a few as thee, but have only sought a glimpse of thee. That is all this weary scribe has penned in earnest.
Court Jester Laphtar (mockingly): Eyyaaah!
Knight Shaba (angered by the Jester): Even the fowl of the earth doth speak
Lord Salem (to the Jester): We go reason your matter soon...
Knight Shaba (to the Lord): Don't waste your breath on the waste
Court Jester Laphtar (laughing): This fowl no fit get heartbreak..
Lady Hermit: farewell sons of Adam, this was intriguing.
(Exits)
Obaba Museum 