Inside the Chair, Episode I

INSIDE THE CHAIR, EPISODE I

Opening shot is a dark screen and total silence. After what seems like a short eternity of silence, there is the soft sound of breathing. Not a human breathing, but the breathing of a large expressionless emu. Suddenly, the lights turn on and the stage is revealed. The stage is a medium sized empty bedroom with no furniture, one closed door on the back wall. The walls are painted a pale white, and in the extreme right foreground is an emu's neck and head. The emu stares with dead emu eyes, right into the camera. The lights flash off and back on again. The emu has an emu sized party hat on its beady little emu head. Still the emu stares directly ahead. The lights flash on and off again and the hat is gone. The emu does not blink. Perhaps it has stunning eyelashes, if emus even have eyelashes.

The light flashes off and on again. The emu always staring into the camera. This time, there is a baby in the corner behind the emu. Someone offstage is throwing ice cubes at the baby. Every shot is a direct hit. Blamo! each ice cube sounds a wet slap on the baby's crying stupid face. There is a pool of clear liquid next to the baby. It should not be clear to the viewer whether the pool is melted ice, baby tears, or both.

Suddenly, the room gets very bright...like the inside of a microwave. The walls of the room and everything in it become blurred by the light. Everything, that is, but the emu's hollow, soulless eyes. The emu turns into a puff of smoke. The light dims and the empty room is revealed. The door opens onto black space. Then, as rousing brass music starts to play, thousands and thousands of butterflies start to fly through the door, filling the room. The butterfly swarm comes together to form the shape of a chair. As the chair hovers in the middle of the room, the name of the show, "Inside the Chair" should appear across the screen, over the chair.

The butterfly chair disappears. There is now a dirty window in the back wall where the butterfly chair was hovering. It is coated with a fine layer of what appears to be soot. Some parts of the window are darker than others. The obscured form of shrubs are barely visible through the window. Next to the window is a chair. In the extreme right foreground the emu reappears. The emu does not move as the guest is announced. The guest is academic philosopher John Searle. John Searle walks onscreen and sits in the chair. He is not nervous at all. He is very cocky and looks just like he did in that cheesy photo on the cover of "Expression and Meaning" and "Intentionality." The emu asks him what his favorite TV show is. John Searle answers, "Prison Break." Then, catching the opportunity to ham it up, John Searle adds "...and Inside the Chair, of course." John Searle actually winks into the camera. The emu is not amused. The lights flash off and on again. The party hat is back.

But John Searle is gone. Then the back of the chair starts to move. It appears that someone is trapped...inside the chair. The outline of John Searle's horrified face can be seen pressing out on the cloth on the back of the chair. There is no sound. Slowly, from a slit in the seat of the chair, an index finger emerges while the horrified face continues to struggle against the inside of the chair back. The finger wiggles back and forth erotically. It is not clear whether the finger belongs to John Searle. The finger appears rather pale. Blood slowly soaks through the seat cushion, but the finger continues to wiggle. The emu walks to the finger and slowly sucks it off, while the face continues to struggle.

Fade to black.

Thank you for watching Inside the Chair, Episode I.