Scene 3

For this scene, the quality of the image changes, as though filmed in DV with a camcorder. We are no longer in Cambridge - or are we? STORYTELLER and four OTHERS – two males, two females – clot around a campfire. Our angle is behind Storyteller, over the top of his head, so we can't see his face. The fire lights the dirty faces and messy clothes of the four listeners. They are covered in scratches and bruises and look like they could use a meal. Yet there is a kind of powerful resolve about them – they are not only exiles, but also, survivors.

STORYTELLER: Asawonwonswere!

This noise has a ritual quality.

The listeners wear expressions of extreme absorption. Most of the time Storyteller commands their alertness. From time to time, in response to some evanescent unease, the vigilance of one of the listeners moves to the space around the camp fire – woods? – and he or she stares, or pricks an ear, till the alarm is assuaged, and he or she returns intent focus to the tale.

STORYTELLER: I parked. Mist over the harbour. Beer trucks rolled by, up to their foo-foos in the reeking foliate wash. This is getting old.

STORYTELLER: I hurried across the road.

STORYTELLER: Dr. Zemeckis had huge lapels and intense, smoky eyes. Her heart-shaped face was framed by generous ringlets of unruly, Autumnal hair. She shook my hand curtly, pursing her tempura lips.

STORYTELLER: I didn’t want to descend that staircase with Dr. Zemeckis. I didn’t want to think what lay at the bottom. My motion was pseudopoidal, was toe hegemonikon. Every step was a triumph of will. Dr. Zemeckis was patient and discreet. I had to hammer the blood through my blood vessels exactly like Heinz. In particular I had to beat on the back of my left elbow like a exultant peasant. The final steps were a triumph of internalised oratory. I had to exhort my left foot forward with the figure of exergasia and down with expeditio. I used bespoke combos of litotes, conduplicatio, synzeugma, ratiocinatio, dirimens copulatio and bdelygmia to cobble together a temp minimum coalition of the toes of my right.

STORYTELLER: Dr. Zemeckis circumspectly raised the cerements. My friend and my friend’s friend, and my friend’s friend’s friend had died in this fire. I said, “Yes that’s him – that’s my best friend. This one, although he’s no more badly burnt, I can’t be so sure about. But I am pretty sure it’s him. And this one, I’ve only met once or twice at parties and I can’t say, with complete conviction, that we’re talking about the same – never going to give you up, never going to let you down, never going to run around and desert you.”

STORYTELLER: This was probably the first time a positive ID on the corpses recovered from a tragic farmstead fire had been used as the run-in to a Rick Roll.

STORYTELLER: “Brilliant,” said Dr. Zemeckis, when she had composed herself. “Anyway, you’ve been incredibly helpful. Listen, how busy are you this afternoon?”

STORYTELLER: “I have to be at the gym at four,” I said, “but what can I do for you?”

STORYTELLER: “I don’t want to impose any more than I already have. But you seem like a really well-connected guy. Would you consider giving the rest of the morgue a quick once-over, to see if there’s anyone else you can postively ID?”

STORYTELLER: “If it’ll save the family members a trip, I’d love to,” I said. “The bereaved have enough on their plate – or slab!” I joked.

Scene 7

STORYTELLER: As it happened, I didn’t recognise any of the other bodies personally, but my knowledge of film, music and popular culture trivia came in handy. I pointed out that a gunshot homicide was Steve White, drummer for The Style Council and that that torso belonged to Julia Louis-Dreyfus, best known for the role of Elaine Benes in the hit 90s sitcom Seinfeld. And there was . . . something else.

STORYTELLER: I admit that I expected Dr. Zemeckis to be impressed. But she just seemed shaken. “My God,” she said. “I can’t believe I didn’t recognize Steve White. I used to have the biggest crush on him.”

STORYTELLER: There it was again! Some vortex, perturbing the quiet of this secular resting place, countervailing upon the patterns of my complex, ginko-enhanced stamina.

STORYTELLER: “This must be hard for you,” I managed to say.

STORYTELLER: “Mr. Quarles, is it just your routine work-out, this afternoon at the gym? Or are you registered for a class?” Before I could criticize her for assuming I could be more flexible about the expectations I set myself, Dr. Zemeckis spoke again, now with a voluptuous urgency, almost of arousal. “Mr. Quarles, you and I both know you have no need to hit the gym today. I’ll need you to assist me . . . in reanimating the corpse of my girlhood crush!”

STORYTELLER: “You’re insane, Dr. Zemeckis! You crave ecstatic, radical experience that evades any kind of moral evaluation!”

STORYTELLER: “This important research could bring back the friend you so cherished! How can let that opportunity slip by?”

STORYTELLER: Suddenly I realized I had another motive for not wanting the drummer brought to life.

STORYTELLER: I had fallen in love with Dr. Zemeckis.

STORYTELLER: “Well?” she said, in a fierce whisper. “My laboratory isn’t far. Our first task is to smuggle out the body. Will you help me?”

STORYTELLER: There was a metallic shudder and the light changed. The door at the top of the stairs had been flung open.