Contagion at our Gates

BY FRANCIS CROT

Scene 1

It is a sunny week towards the end of Spring, in Cambridge, England, a cul-de-sac town for privilege, and calibre, and brooding royalty of all races but especially the rat and fish people.

We seem to see a man with a guppie for a head. The fish flutters away: we are looking through a fishtank at a man (named PREGNANT), brooding on a chair. But he does actually have a guppie for a head. The guppie gasps and the man dies, his crown clatters out of shot.

The shot pans away . . . out the window . . . a street scene . . . an observant viewer may spot CORNTROUGH wheeling his bicycle through the crowds . . . title, “Francis Crot’s Scrum in the Cum” and opening credits . . . as a suicide jumper lands on a mattress . . . several children shouting whee! come onto it after him . . . pans farther . . . another window . . . into another apartment.

A man apparently with a goldfish for a head. The fish flutters away: we are looking through a fishtank at a young man (named LEMON), brooding on a chair. He has a normal head – frankly, perhaps a shade more pensive than normal.

Lemon arises and approaches the tank.