House on the Moon

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House on the Moon


	Spaceport \| House on the Moon \| Visual Paradox \| Visitor's Log

The Story of Lester Scroggins

An original concept by Angus Wilson

What you are about to read is the story of a young man, his fall from grace, his battle with sanity and the trials he endured on his journey back into reality. This is the story of Lester Scroggins. Let's begin.

Act I - scene 1

Lester lies in his cold boring bed, restlessly dreaming. He tosses and turns, his mind creating wild tricks as it furiously tries downloading colors from memory. In it's want for domination, the self-installed firewall prevents chromatic signals from travelling through each synapse, instead creating falsely perceived "energized" colors. Refusing to surrender, his mind pulses small doses of hue and saturation as component, instead of a composite signal, into every of billions of pathways. Slowly but surely, something begins to happen.

Lester (still dreaming):
I can feel something moving around this dull gray landscape
That lies between my ears
Colorless trees are beginning to sway, to a place of unfamiliar clarity
A brightness I've not known, for sometime now

Now these which are the magnificent colors of my dream
Will they come back to me
As I leave this land and wake up alone
Again....

Suddenly Lester is awoken by the buzzer on his video tele-com. The lights come up in his little house on the moon and a face appears on the screen. It is the blank face of his auto-messenger. He sits up, rubs his eyes and hits the answer key.

Auto Messenger:
Wake up Lester, there's a telegram here for you
The government sent it, and they want you to leave the moon
You've got to go back to earth today, your shuttle leaves at nine
It seems that war has broken out between the boilers and mankind
Apparently they're calling all able bodied minds from the colonies

Lester jumps out of bed. Knowing he has no choice in the matter (as is with most governmental demands) and knowing he must return to the Earth, he starts collecting his belongings and shoving them into a small blue suitcase. For reasons forgotten to him, Lester has a strange feeling. He does not want to go. Surprise, surprise young cavalier. Hadn't he been there before? Why should he not then, for the good of man? The words in the video message ring out in his head.

Lester (thinking out loud):
No, No, I don't want to go
There's something in the air down there
A sickness in my soul

Lester rushes out the door with his suitcase in hand. His feet beat out a nice little pattern on the way. A familiar beat he thinks. Boop-tap, boop boop-tap, all the way through the main lobby and waiting area of the spaceport. Not important, It'll come he thinks. He finds his little shuttle, gate 9, the gentleman's query. Uneasily he boards the shuttle and takes his seat. As the shuttle takes off, he falls asleep and begins to dream. He dreams of a balding, old white haired man. A transparent beard worn comfortably upon the man's face. Lester can't be sure, the old man begins to speak.

Old Man:
Young man, you've got to get your head out of the clouds
Young man, you've got to put your feet back on the ground
Young man, there's something you've got to do here
Young man, you've got to come back down to earth

Lester:
I'm trying to figure out just who you are
Old man, your eyes are blue lighting, they electrify the skies
There's a priest in chains, he's standing right behind you
With the devil's eyes and a voice that cries of lies
In one hand there's a picture, it's bursting into flames
And in the other hand, a yellow pill that's screaming out in pain
A golden haired lady, she's beautiful and sweet
She looks just like she's waiting for the two of us to meet
Oh man, I don't understand just who you are old man

Lester wakes as his shuttle is landing. Still disoriented from his vision, he grabs his suitcase and slinks down the gangway. Everything planet-side is a blur to him as he leaves the spaceport. He is visibly having trouble keeping focused. War, old men, familiar tunes, Earth, fragments of memories floating around his newly changing bean. What the hell is going on in there? NO! All Nonsense, keep it together boy, you're here for a reason. Forget this crap, you're still dreaming. This particular firewall is very strong, indeed. He flags down a hover-taxi and gets in. It pulls out into the airways to deliver this young, fresh morsel to the regional military base. There, he finds his way into a merry platoon of mindless rubber mannequins bent on the destruction of all the robotic-style creatures dominating the cellars of their tiny little world. Reluctant-like, Lester marches off to war!

Act I - scene 2

Steeped in battle and surrounded by the sounds of war, Lester finds himself crouched in a moist, dirty foxhole. It seems odd to him how the other soldiers are so happy to fight this war, what with all the laughing and such. Too scared to move, Lester counts the grains of sand upon which he sits and thinks. His platoon fights merilly on.

Lester (thinking):
I'm not a violent man, I shouldn't be here
But I am for the sake of all mankind
This place makes me feel strange
There's something deep inside I can't recall

I thought it was all used up
Like these rusty boilers in our homes
Spitting steam and oil around

What is this melody I hear inside my head
What does it mean to me

I thought it was all used up
Like these rusty Boilers in our homes
Spitting steam and oil around

This particular battle draws to a close after the human feed troops storm the Boilers destroying all strongholds. Lester is relieved, to be sure, and he assesses the carnage as he crosses the battlefield back to town. On his way back to the spaceport, he walks down the deserted street past the grocery, past the filling station to the corner of Start and Finish. A shiver runs up his spine and a pathway opens up across the intersection. He hears a golden interlude and he decides to take it.
Lester walks down the path following the stains left by the crushed dandelions until he reaches a small shack. He looks up at a large sign, which reads: MR. SUNSET'S HOUSE OF AMBIGUITY. WE CAN HELP. Lester walks inside. The room smells of burning flowers and spices and a fat woman sits in a small chair smoking a glass pipe. "Well, well, well," she says, "look at you. I can see you're exhausted and there is something we can do. Answer me this, squire. Have you called the sun to feed the trees?"

Lester:
I called the sun to feed the trees

"And have you called the air to feed the breeze?"

Lester:
I called the air to feed the breeze

"But...have you called the universe?"

Lester:
I called the universe for free!

"Ha, good answer." the woman chuckles. She points to a wooden door, which reads: MR. SUNSET-LIGHTS OUT! "You can go right in."

Lester warily steps through the door into a large room lit with colored candles and perfumed with burning incense. Atop a pile of pillows on the far side of the room, a skinny, worm-like man sits swaying back and forth, his arms folded cross-legged. They stare silently at each other for an eternity, looking intently into the other's eyes. Finally, Lester breaks the silence.

Lester:
Get up Mr. Sunset, the war is over
And it looks like they've gotten the best of me
I want to close my eyes and go to sleep
So, Mr. Sunset turn out the lights for me

Mr. Sunset slowly extends his frail arm, handing Lester a small bottle of liquid. Colored bubbles dance around inside the glass enclosure creating an infinite amount of optical illusions. Lester takes the bottle, turns and begins to walk out. As he leaves he can hear Mr. Sunset hissing, "Drink that before you get on your shuttle, to ensure a smooth ride back to the moon, to get those silly thoughts out of your head and to ease you through all of those long lines!"

Lester:
I can't afford another line

As Lester steps out of the nasty shack he can picture the old man from his vision calling to him. This time, however, the old man calls in a young boy's voice.

Young-Old Man:
It wasn't supposed to end up like this but it's all right

Act I - scene 3

Lester walks through the crowded spaceport. People push and shove. People are definitely more aggressive Earth-side, he thinks. Mr. Sunset was right, silly thoughts indeed. Songs, people, places...who needs it?..getting crowded upstairs. The Earth is certainly no place for Lester Scroggins. Gotta get the hell out of here! Ahhh, gate 72...Nice! The player's gamble. Lester opens the bottle given to him and slugs it. To the moon! He takes his seat and opens his random thought function.

Lester (thinking):
As I take this shuttle back to the moon
The air was so moist on the Earth I found it hard to breathe
I've been living on the moon so long
The atmospheric generators keep the air clean
And I can't kick that feeling, of something I've lost here

Once again, Lester wakes as his shuttle is landing. Home, on the moon? Yep. This time, however, he is feeling super-anxious. Electric-light lightning, almost as if he can not contain himself. Something is definitely happening. Was it Mr. Sunset's elixir, or did that just stave this off for the while longer? He couldn't be sure.

Lester:
I step off the shuttle
There's a feeling of urgency all around me
Walked in a coffee shop
Heard the old man talking about his wife
Well it sparked a feeling and I don't want to go home
Walked out without my coffee
Got on the tram and I took it to the park
Saw a little old lady
with her grand kids, and she had a grand old time
Well it sparked a feeling and I don't want to go home

The electricity builds up in Lester's spine, now to an explosive level. Suddenly, as if by magic, Lester freezes up and begins to separate, body and spirit split into two beings. Corporeal Lester and Spirit Lester. Spirit Lester floats up seven feet in the air and looks down on corporeal Lester who moves to a park bench.

Spirit Lester:
Lester sat down on a park bench
and opened his suitcase to take a look
he pulled out a tissue to wipe his nose
a picture fell out, he looked down to see
he reached out and grabbed it with his two hands
and brought it to his face to take a look
a light clicked on in the back of his head
and Lester jumped up and said

Corporeal Lester:
I remember everything. The girl, the pill, the transformation
Even the song I used to sing

Spirit Lester descends rapidly, and in a blinding flash, merges once again with corporeal Lester. As a crowd gathers around, the strange pair begins singing his song in unison.

LESTER'S SONG

I'll mortgage all my assets, and I'll buy a shiny car
I'll motor out to LA and I'll live just like a rock star
I'll buy a bag of cocaine, and I'll buy a hundred friends
And waste away to nothing waiting for the game to end

It's what I'll do when I get up the nerve to get over you

I want to live in a house on the moon
Where the chicks don't bite and the beats don't groove
I'll have a robot that cleans my room
With the dustpan hands, to clean the memories of you

I'll move to New York City and that'll be my launching pad
I'll walk around on Bleeker Street pretending that I'm bad
I'll buy a pair of shiny pants and wear them everyday
And talk to all the freaks and smile at all the stupid things they say

It's what I'll do when I get up the nerve to get over you

I want to live in a house on the moon
Where the chicks don't bite and the beats don't groove
I'll have a robot that cleans my room
With the dustpan hands, to clean the memories of you

Maybe I'm a lunatic, a lunatic with drive
Possibly a lunatic with water in his eyes
Maybe I'm just starting, starting to go mad
Probably I'm just a man, just a man

I want to live in a house on the moon
Where the chicks don't bite and the beats don't groove
I'll have a robot that cleans my room
With the dustpan hands, to clean the memories of you

Lester sits back down on the bench, there in the middle of the park, trembling. The park-goers that had gathered were now staring at him in wonder. Bright, colorful images and memories swirled around the broken firewall inside his head, sending him into an alternate state. Everything around him began dissolving...not into darkness...no, something else.

Lester:
Let me think back
To get it straight in my head
All that has happened
To make me fly away

Act II - scene 1

Six o'clock. Lester walks into the living room where Penelope sits on the loveseat sewing her ill-fitting socks. Considering their troubled relationship, he professes his love for her.

Lester:
Once before I know we truly missed
But it's an aspect of your loveliness
Your eyes I see inside and I can only guess
Just why I love you so much, funny how it's you who makes this

I have never felt quite like this before
I can see that you've been waiting here for
Me, a name I call myself for you
Why find this prize

I may have made you feel some bitterness
And that's an aspect of my loneliness
I know I blew it once and built up your defense
But now your back inside my life I really need to tell you

I have never felt quite like this before
I can see that you've been waiting here for
Me, a name I call myself for you
Why fight this prize

Penelope, always indifferent, giggles and pats poor Lester on the head. Befuddled by her aloofness, He turns and walks over to the fireplace. "I'm meeting with the church group this evening, Lester." Penelope squeaks, "I'll be back at 9 o'clock." She stands, and Lester peers at her sideways upside down, his little optical beams trying to pierce the look of satisfaction on her face. "I'll see you in a while." She says as she walks out of the room.

Seven o'clock. Lester, feeling quite restless, decides to go for a little drive. He cruises moderately downtown, parks on the street and gets out to walk around. Past the grocery, past the filling station to the corner of Start and Finish. Looking across the intersection, a terrible image unfolds before him. The most heinous of scenarios reveals itself, for coming out of room 12C of the Red Lantern Motel is Penelope, happily holding hands with and kissing the church minister. Church group indeed! Lester crosses the intersection and confronts Penelope. In a crazed frenzy of screaming, he rants around circling the two, waving his arms above his head. His sweaty palm strikes hard on her cheek and the minister slinks back a step or two.
"I never want to see you again Lester Scroggins!" she yells. Lester watches sadly as Penelope walks away arm in arm with Father Bonds. The minister shoots Lester a sinister grin as he walks. That's that, weirdo. Let the festivities begin!

Act II - scene 2

One week passes. Lester, missing Penelope very much, decides to go see her at her place of vocation. He drives his car to the Dairy Farm where Penelope is out back milking Mr. Dagnasty's prize cow. She is quite mordant at the sight of him. Lester begins to tell her how he feels.

Lester:
It's really kind of sad that I really can't get past
All the things that make me act just like an ass
Maybe late next week we will have a chance to meet
And make things right, oh well at least for me

I get up every day to feeling that's been made
And a kind of sadness I can't really say
But this gloomy little place has developed a new face
And I just can't control it anymore

It's unfortunate but it's true, I guess I'll always be in love with you

Penelope:
I don't love you anymore, I hate you!

Penelope storms off, grumbling loudly. Lester raises his arms to the sky and begins to weep. A new feeling washes through him now. Darkness creeps as clouds rush in causing it to drizzle lightly. The soggy, putrid manure begins to stream through the mud, puddling around Lester's boots.

Lester:
I think I'd be better off dead, God. I think I'd be better off dead!

Lester returns to his barren home and grabs a small bottle of pills out of the medicine chest. Skull and Cross-Bones worn proudly across it's front, poisonous text clearly evident on the little plastic packaging. Lester opens the bottle and slowly extracts a single yellow pill for close examination.

Lester:
I have this little pill, and if I take it all my ills
Will fade away into my clouded mind
I have this little pill, I think I need some time until
I feel my heart start guiding my frail hand
I have this little pill, ingesting it will surely kill
And this is one thing you can't take from me
(once it's done, now)

Lester tosses the little pill into his maw and swallows, assimilating the poisons into his stomach lining. But as he begins to feel the burning in his guts, he becomes very frightened and starts to feel as though he's made a grave mistake. Rushing back to the medicine chest, Lester moans to find no kindly antidote living there. He keels over onto the floor.
In desperation, Lester crawls to the phone and dials the authorities. He fears, however, they will not arrive in time. Now thoroughly delirious, Lester begins to speak to the little devil prancing around gingerly inside his intestines.

Lester:
You have seen all of me, and I don't want it back
There is no more, I didn't want to take you

I was alone right here, what did I do to me
I should have read the label, I didn't want to take you

Now I am feeling so tired, I could just sleep
Only one pill stops me, I didn't want to take you

Fortunately for Lester, the paramedics arrive just in time to pump his stomach and fill him with proper medicines. Sweet intravenous juices. They push and pull his little, numb carcass onto the stretcher and throw him into the back of the medical truck to cart him off to the hospital. A strange feeling, to be sure.

Act II - scene 3

Now, as with any attempted suicide patient, Lester is immediately rushed right to the psycho hospital. There, other crazies, narcissistic, puffed-up, fat-headed psycho doctors man-handle him, fill him with even more medicines (psycho medicines) and attempt to correct his clinically proven and documented noggin-ailments.
In a haze, Lester looks up to see three silver-suited doctors staring over him, drooling. Android doctors with blinking eyes and whirring servos. Wires and electric currents buzz around their heads. He listens as hard as he can to their dialogue, double speaking around brilliant new procedures.

Doctors (psycho chorus):
Don't worry Lester, We're here to help you
We'll take all of these unpleasantries and flush them down the tubes
Now eat this anesthetic and sit down in this chair
We'll open up your head and see what's troubling you up there

We'll make all of your dreams come true, dear Lester
Cleaning up the memories to make a new man of you

This procedure here is harmless, you shouldn't feel a thing
And after we have finished you'll feel just like a king
Now eat this anesthetic and sit down in this chair
We'll open up your head and see what's troubling you up there

After deleting his memory, the doctors leave Lester in a large, cold, white room for observation. Anxiously they watch as the amnesiatic Lester wakes.

Lester:
I woke up in a very strange place today
I feel like I'm inside a box, but I guess that it's OK
I don't know how I feel about this, or anything else
So I guess I just won't feel at all

I'm gonna live in a house on the moon

Act III - scene 1

The shadow of the moon dissolves and Lester finds himself sitting on a dirty convertible couch in a nasty, dingy apartment. He smells garbage, old cigarettes and cat piss. Disoriented, he stands absorbing his surroundings. Was this his element? The atmosphere had changed. Beings were there with him. Friends? He couldn't tell. They moved as clay figures in slow motion, slithering around on the carpet, laughing. Colors coursed through his eyeballs like lightning bolts. Thoughts, ideas traversed across his universe.

Lester:
I remember everything, the girl, the pill, the transformation
even the song I used to sing
I can't even call this my old world, it's new to me and everybody
seems so far away from me

And everybody moves so slowly, just like they're in a picture show

This used to be a dark room, somebody turned the lights on, pulled the shades up
Funny to see me so brightly
I thought I broke this mirror, now the reflection here has reappeared
I'd call that a miracle

And everybody moves so slowly, just like they're in a picture show

Lester walks into the bathroom. It seems an eternity since he had turned the shower on. It's still running. Steam collects here and there.

I'm looking out the bathroom window
But I can't tell if this is condensation from the shower
Or am I still closed

It's time to leave this dark room
My feet, they move so delicately through the doorway to the street
I look across the sidewalk, then back, the door is always open
Waiting for me to come home

Act III - scene 2

Now outside, Lester marvels at his surroundings, still unbelieving of his existence here and of the myriad circus he has just stepped out into...or out of. This difference is entirely too difficult for our young hero to determine. His eyelids stretch out hard around his little blue bulbs as his attention is drawn in so many directions. He speaks out loud.

Lester:
Here I am awake in this old world
I don't even remember how to act
As I look around I start to see
Things I couldn't stand before, and yet
I don't know just how I stood them for so long

The games are getting rougher as the people are desensitized
By the violence in transmissions, people screaming in their headphones
Laughing faces listen to the sound of ripping muscles snapping bones
And crumpled carcasses that lay before the laughing children

I may have been better off with my mechanical mind

Cows are being herded into tiny cubicles with all their
Bosses spitting orders people lining up like sheep
To get their daily rations handed out to eat
And I'm expected to participate

I may have been better off with my mechanical mind

Lester stands on the sidewalk sideways, upside down, inside out and looks upwards. The moon dissolves. His feet stick to the ground as he begins to move forward.

Lester:
I'm stepping off the sidewalk onto soft asphalt
melting underneath the sun
And it's very hard to walk underneath all this pressure
With no one here to help

Automobiles are screaming by me
Laying on their horns
And I can't believe they can drive in all this muck and confusion
Challenged by the tunnels of their sight

Anywhere I seem to go, I'm in the middle of the road

The moon has disappeared, and I can't even imagine
Just where it's gone
And high up in the sky, like a neatly skewered eye
Is an empty socket where it used to lie

Anywhere I seem to go, I'm in the middle of the road
For a moment I can glimpse the moon again, I see my friend
I try to bring him back with me, but he slips back in the shadows
covered by excuses that mean nothing to me
Oh how I'd love to pass you by, but I can't, I'm afraid
It's like a glistening in my eye, I hear you, I love you

I'm straining just to be here, underneath the staircase
with all the bugs and the dust
and I'm laying in a ball amongst all the garbage
I threw in here before I flew to the moon

Anywhere I seem to go, I'm in the middle of the road

With confusion and desperation now mounting to a dastardly level, Lester falls to the ground across the double yellow and stretches his arms and legs, sprawling out transversely. A motor car screeches and the lad clenches thoroughly, expecting the worst (or best depending on his point of view). As he opens his eyes, the smell of hot rubber snaps his attention to the black tread floating inches from his face.
A young woman steps out of the car and hovers over Lester. "What the hell are you doing?" As he looks directly into her dark eyes, he sees himself as an old man, the white haired man from his vision in the shuttle. Like some sort of abstract, kaleidoscopic time portals, her eyes transport Lester into the future where he sits at the right hand of his future self on a large wooded throne. He blinks like holiday lights as they begin to sing together.

Lester:
I got a brand new feeling today, I want it to stay
And I'll have to say it's ok, it's all part of the game
And it's making me want to play
I got a brand new girl today, and I'll have to say
It's making me change and rearrange
all the things in my life that are making me feel so strange

I got a new attitude
And I'm not blue anymore

I see the clouds are starting to run and I see the sun
I'm feeling warm for once
And it seems like a new episode has begun

I got a new attitude
And I'm not blue anymore

Two little black globes danced in front of my eyes
I think I saw the rest of my life

I found a whole new place dwell, outside of my shell
And I'd like to show you and tell
About a brand new life I've started, did I hear a bell
I see the clouds are starting to run and I see the sun
I'm feeling warm for once
And seems like a new episode has begun

I got a new attitude
And I'm not blue anymore

Two little black globes danced in front of my eyes
I think I saw the rest of my life

Feeling fresh peace, Lester's troubled soul ascends into immortality, and leaves him with bass and candles to complete his mortal life cycle in contentment. The sun sets to an array of bright colors streaming across the evening sky. Lester walks away with his woman and all ends well!

The view from the shuttle

Here is a really good shot of the view Lester has as he is taking the shuttle to the Earth. Just moments later, Lester falls asleep and has his vision.

The Humans Attack!

Here is a fantastic shot of the Battle of the Seven Boilers. Here we see the Human Feed Troops storming a Boiler Stronghold with support from the Royal Air Command.

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