A Night at the Opera

(a psychotic/filmic farrago)

::begin::

(A black screen with a green letter delta (Δ) in the center. Music plays in the background, softly [“Rope on Fire,” Morphine]:)

Hand over hand up the lifeline, luckily the knots stay tight.
Silhouettes of the two of us climbing, climbing up a rope on fire.
Climbing up a rope on fire.

(White text appears on the background, fading in:)

“some day…

(The song fades down, replaced with sound from the Marx Brothers’ movie, A Night at the Opera:)

CHICO: Hey, wait, wait. What does this say here, this thing here?
GROUCHO: Oh, that? Oh, that's the usual clause, that's in every contract.

“some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality…

GROUCHO: That just says, uh, it says, uh, if any of the parties participating in this contract are shown not to be in their right mind, the entire agreement is automatically nullified.

…terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein…

CHICO: Well, I don't know...
GROUCHO: It's all right. That's, that's in every contract.

…our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation…

GROUCHO: That's, that's what they call a sanity clause.
CHICO: Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! You can't fool me. There ain't no Sanity Clause!

…we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”

CHICO: There ain't no Sanity Clause!

— H.P. Lovecraft, “The Call of Cthulhu”

(As the screen fades to black, “Rope on Fire” comes back on. The sound of fists hitting a punching back, repeatedly.)

Trapped in a room in a fortress, running outta air to breathe.

(IMAGE: Agent Spartan at the barracks, beating the piss out of the punching bag. At his feet is a large duffel bag, containing various items, including an empty syringe.)

Only seconds to go and we'll break free, I didn't think that we would reach.

(Every time he connects with the bag, a memory intrudes onto the screen:)

Only the two of us can disconnect the bomb.

WHAP! – Titus’ expression as Spartan runs to the van
WHAP! – The van explodes

And save ourselves before the oxygen is gone.

WHAP! – The cannibalized, living torso of Scully
WHAP! – Tamora transformed

I'll call for backup, you start to scream.

WHAP! – The arrow in Santo’s foot
WHAP! – A hooded figure with a Japanese-style bow
WHAP! – Raven’s death
WHAP! – A hooded figure with a Japanese-style bow

It's not the first time we've been in this dream.

WHAP! – A hooded figure with a Japanese-style bow
WHAP! – A hooded figure with a Japanese-style bow
WHAP! – A hooded figure with a Japanese-style bow
WHAP! – A hooded figure with a Japanese-style bow
WHAP! – A hooded figure with a Japanese-style bow
WHAP! – An empty, abandoned room with a window and a Japanese-style bow

(Spartan snaps out of his enraged flurry of blows, looking around. There’s a TV on the wall, tuned to ESPN, babbling on about Barry Bonds and steroids.)

SPARTAN: Oh, leave him alone… fucking media.

She said you're no angel, no angel anymore.

(Image shifts to Agent Titus, sitting on a fold-out cot in a Manhattan apartment. He and Agent Faust have a bottle of Drambuie out, with glasses and ice.)

FAUST: I’m beginning to think you spend more time here than at your own place.
TITUS: Aw, shit, I’m sorry, man. I never meant to put you out—
FAUST: (laughs) No, no! I meant… well, you usually visit me when you’re mind’s snapped.
TITUS: Oh—yeah, that I do. Glahd I’m visiting at a more salient moment. (laughter)
FAUST: True… but you seem to be ‘visiting,’ you know, more often, lately…
TITUS: Yeah, well…

All the wheels are coming loose. Close-up shot of a burning fuse.

(Agent Titus looks down at his drink as his mind wanders…)
(MONTAGE – Titus ripped up by werewolf, a smile with a gold tooth, sweating while writing at an impossible pace, warhammer vs. Tamora’s priest, watching Valentine’s funeral from a secluded spot, starting into the tear in reality and seeing… the primaevil… chaos… at the center… of the universe…)

The sky is filled with question marks. Will the chains come apart?

FAUST: Do you ever remember the dreams?
TITUS: (snapping out of it) What?
FAUST: When you’re incoherent, on that cot. You talk in your sleep. You dream.
TITUS: No. (laughs) I guess that’s the only time I don’t remember my dreams…
FAUST: Not even the one about the tapestry?
TITUS: Uhhhh…?
FAUST: You babble about it, then snap awake. You look at your warhammer, then quickly away. You stare at your reflection in the window.

These few seconds that I've left to go. Flames and chaos down below.

TITUS: (deeply troubled) No. No, I don’t.

And the earth opens wide. Got to climb a rope on fire.

(IMAGE shifts to another view of Valentine’s funeral, still secluded. The camera pulls back to reveal Agents Vexx and Vader, watching solemnly.)

Look at the clock. Look at the clock.

(IMAGE: Agent Vexx violently wakes from the dream. He looks at the laptop in front of him. It has a message from someone named ‘Alphonse’; its subject line merely ‘A Night at the Opera.’)

Make it to the car but the car won't start.

(IMAGE: Agent Viktor looks up as his laptop makes a noise. He sees that he has an encrypted e-mail from someone named ‘Vexx’; its subject line merely ‘A Night at the Opera.’)

VIKTOR: Fuck. Not this soon. Not already…

We try to move the car but there's no more time.

(IMAGE shifts to Agent Santo, in a Swiss hospital, looking at the urgent Interpol documents and queries on his table. He looks at his laptop, waiting for an e-mail that never arrives.)

SANTO: Get me back in the game, already. It’s not too soon…

(He stares at his leg, encased in its oversized cast…)

We'll have to climb a rope on fire.

(IMAGE shifts to a dream-like montage: Santo gets shot in the foot, Raven’s death – Something in the cornfield, Ulysses after his encounter at the barn – Things lurking in the deep, fire from the sky – Invisible terror, the smile of Alzis.)

(IMAGE: the death of Razell, accompanied by a fading scream…)

(Agent Rayna wakes in terror and sits up in her bed. In the silence, she fingers the Ravenheart on her bedstand. She looks at the clock and the phone.)

Hand over hand up the lifeline, luckily the knots stay tight.

(Rayna picks up the phone and dials. The voice on the other end is heard, but its owner is never seen.)

::click::
UMBERTO: Hello.
RAYNA: You lied to me.

Silhouettes of the two of us climbing, climbing up a rope on fire.

UMBERTO: Good evening to you, too, Rayna.
RAYNA: You lied to me. You never told me it would be like this. All I have left of Raven is some fossilized… thing. Given to me by Alzis.
UMBERTO: I think it was Virgil who wrote, “beware Greeks bearing gifts.”
RAYNA: And it’s more than I have of Razell. And all you can do is quote your stupid fucking classic literature?!

Climbing up a rope on fire.

RAYNA: How could you not tell me it would be like this?
UMBERTO: How could I? Imagine if I’d shown up to recruit you… with a face lined with the sorrows of ten lifetimes, a man who’s outlived colleagues and friends... would you have joined? (long pause) All of them were better than me, yet I’m the one who’s alive.
RAYNA: And will you outlive me?

Climbing up a rope on fire.

UMBERTO: I don’t know. All I’m certain of is that Alzis will outlive both of us.
RAYNA: (after a pause) You know, I’ve always thought he looked more Egyptian than Greek…

(They both laugh as the screen fades to the black/green background as before. A new set of words fades in over the sounds of “Rope on Fire”: )

“We're Delta Green, and we may be outlaws and cowboys and fools, but we've kept this green ball of shit safe and sound for longer than most people have been alive.

Only the two of us can disconnect the bomb.

They're upstairs, tripping my internal alarms. In minutes they'll come through the hidden passage and spread my insides across the wall…

Then save ourselves before the oxygen is gone.

…I may be eighty, but I'm the toughest goddamn son of a bitch these assholes will ever meet. I'm Delta Green, and I'm not dying alone…

I'll call for backup.

…They have no idea the kind of Hell I've prepared for them. May God have mercy on my soul.”

You start to scream.

—Major General Reginald Fairfield, U.S. Army (Ret.), moments before his death at the hands of MJ-12

It's not the first time we've been in this dream.

(As the delta fades with the text, these words appear:)

Personal apocalypse returns... 2007
[Be seeing you]

::end::