Meet the Jorksons
Episode 3: Form Follows Function
INT. AN OLD CASTLE.
TECH, a small, melancholy thirteen year-old, and ROBBIE, a normal, semi-circular child, are in an old castle fighting unarmed, empty suits of armor. They are hitting the suits with broomsticks. (Bang, clang, etc.)
TECH: Let us! Show you! Our! Tickets!
Tech topples another suit of armor.
TECH: We're just here for the Marmalade Exhibit!
ROBBIE: ArugulaaaaaAAA!
UMBRELLA KID, Tech and Robbie’s younger sibling, and LILY, Tech’s human friend, run in from around the corner carrying armfuls of ancient books.
BOUNCE, a normal dog, slides along the floor behind the children dragged by his leash as if the floor were frictionless, smashing into all of the walls.
UMBRELLA KID: Aim for the head, you sad, sad old man!
Tech hits the suit again, sending its helmet spinning clockwise like a grogger after H*****. It falls into a pile of identical suits with an aluminum clang.
TECH (exhausted): We really. We really do have tickets.
One of the fallen suits stifles a sneeze.
EVERYONE: Gesundheit.
INT. THE JORKSONS’ KITCHEN.
BECK and NEW WEBSTER’S COLLEGIATE DICTIONARY are sitting at the kitchen table. New Webster is reading a newspaper, whose headline is "HELLO!"
BECK: There will be a Home-owner’s Association meeting.
NEW WEBSTER (concerned): What is that?
BECK gestures to the ORB. The Orb PULSES VIOLENTLY.
BECK: There have been “noise complaints.” Some of the neighbors think that there is noise. Not always, but sometimes. Noise happens when air is compressed. I think the Orb compresses the air.
The Orb PULSES again. A glass shatters.
NEW WEBSTER: I don’t understand why the Orb needs to be addressed.
BECK: You don't understand the orb?
NEW WEBSTER: There's a relationship between air and the orb that I think is important.
BECK: The Home-owner’s Association does not think that.
Beck takes the pepper shaker and the Orb drops apart.
A LAUGH TRACK plays.
BECK: Hm.
The Orb parts reassemble themselves, and continue PULSING, shattering New Webster’s tea cup as he attempts to take a drink and shattering the plate that Beck’s croissant is on as she attempts to take the croissant off it. They continue in silence as if nothing is happening.
NEW WEBSTER: “Tranquil,” four letters?
BECK: Hmmm.
Her coffee cup shatters.
BECK: Calm. Damn.
INT. CASTLE.
The children rush up and down several flights of stairs and peek inside a series of rooms that are increasingly not the Marmalade Exhibit.
Umbrella Kid opens the door on a room full of slowly rotating lamps.
Tech opens a door to a room full of other open doors.
Robbie opens a door to a single POTTED FERN. He stares blankly at the fern.
Tech opens a door on a room that drops off into a deep, dark chasm. The walls move like insects.
TECH (annoyed): Ugh! This is not the Marmalade Exhibit.
Umbrella Kid opens a door on a room full of slightly different rotating lamps.
Lily opens a door on two suits of armor having a tea party. They both turn to look at her.
LILY: Oh gosh! I’m so sorry.
She closes the door and leans against it.
LILY: Ohh. That was so awkward.
Robbie stands outside a door hesitantly, and then bursts in. The fern is in exactly the same place as it was before. Which makes Robbie sad.
Bounce opens a door by standing in front of it and vibrating. The door swings open to reveal another, identical Bounce. Both Bounces’ hind legs begin to float, as gravity is negated.
LILY: Okay. Okay... think: Marmalade Exhibit. Think... marmalade.
The door opens to the same two suits of armor. One is giving the other a massage while it lies on a chiropractor’s table. They both look at Lily.
LILY: Oh God! I’m so sorry! I — gosh, I...ah!
She closes the door.
LILY: HHHHHHHHHH...
INT. — THE CASTLE HALL.
TECH: Anyone?
LILY: No luck.
TECH: I don’t get it. The map says it’s on this floor.
Just then, in the other room, the Bounces collide, merging. They pop like balloons. With a fizzle, the children are standing in a gallery with framed POSTERS of marmalade, informational PLAQUES about marmalade, JARS of different types of marmalade on pedestals, and ten to twelve gallery patrons wearing marmalade-themed HATS and carrying marmalade-themed HANDBAGS.
LILY: YES! (She hugs Tech in excitement.) It looks like all we had to do was believe in it hard enough!
TECH (blushing): Yeah, haha! Hey, there’s the plaque about quinces.
INT. AN ATRIUM.
A few dozen people are mingling, creating indistinct CONVERSATION in a large glass-walled room. There is a table with CHEESE and FRUIT. This is a Home-owner’s Association meeting.
A door manifests in the middle of the cheese table, destroying it. There are two loud thuds, and the final Jorkson, MISTER, in a top hat and three-piece suit, neither animal nor mineral, enters through the door, followed by Beck and New Webster.
Mister opens their mouth and there is a PROLONGED SCREECH OF RENDING METAL.
NEW WEBSTER: Is this the Home-owner’s Association?
The LAUGH TRACK plays.
BECK: No, I’m not sure.
Beck stands on the table.
BECK: Attention, noise-hearers. I have brought the ORB.
The Orb floats out from the door and oscillates randomly above Beck, changing color with violent intent and glitching out of shape.
The Jorkson children -- Tech, Robbie, and Umbrella Kid -- and Lily arrive in the door wearing “I opened a dimensional doorway into the Marmalade Exhibit and all I got was this T-shirt and the experience of a lifetime” T-shirts.
BECK: We have the Orb completely under control. The Orb can now do tricks. Observe. Orb! Sit!
The Orb PULSES VIOLENTLY and the entire room VIBRATES like an elastic band.
BECK: Orb! Stop doing that.
The Orb explodes and reforms. Time distends like hot taffy. The room flashes yellow. The home-owners clutch their ears against the vibrations, rattling blast like microphone feedback.
BECK: Bad Orb! Roll over! Roll over for treat!
From the crowd, Tech looks at Bounce, a normal dog, who is pulling against the leash, as if drawn magnetically to the Orb. The leash doesn’t break.
TECH: Oh no! The leash broke!
The leash, which had missed its queue, snaps in half lengthwise like a cheese-stick. Bounce stares blankly at the children, then evaporates.
The tumult grows unbearable even for the Jorksons: chthonic, orotund, piercing and round like a jet engine. Lily and all of the home-owners topple onto the floor. Bounce (dog-shaped) appears above the Orb, mouth open.
TECH (clutching her ears): BOUNCE! You can’t just keep eating our problems!
BOUNCE: Tech. Tech. Tech Jorkson. We are your denouement. We are the last word in your poem. We are your unraveling and your raveling. We are the name of every ending. We are a good boy. We are a good boy and we deserve a snack.
Bounce is a mandala spiraling around the Orb, room-filling, unfolding crystalline, entropic. The bounces coalesce in a lateral sweep and ringing silence clears in the room. Bounce consumes the Orb.
TECH (empathetic): Ugh. Bounce!
BECK: Revel in the supreme domesticity of the Orb!
NEW WEBSTER (aside to Mister): I still don’t understand what a Home-owner’s Association is.
The suits of armor have stolen the cheese table.
THE END.