It’s a “It’s a Wonderful Life” Clarence fable
FADE IN.
EXT. AMONG BLUSTERY CLOUDS. NEITHER DAY NOR NIGHT.
CLARENCE the “Wonderful Life” Angel, wearing a pink-and-white-stripped apron with lacy trim, sweeps amongst the clouds, which swirl tormentingly but never really shift. He hums a cheeringly earnest rendition of “My Grown-up Christmas List.”
MR. JORDAN, the suave, nattily attired head of the ethereal betwixt-and-between station, streams in noiselessly while studying the contents of some directives on a clipboard. CLARENCE dances to one side to avoid collision.
CLARENCE
JORDAN
Oh, that’s all right. I suppose She’s seen worse. She’s done worse.
CLARENCE
I’ve never actually met Her before. Um, how do we address Her? I wouldn’t want to cause offense.
JORDAN (hesitant)
I’m not sure I understand you. We’ll actually have two prominent guests to accommodate presently. The first, I’m sure you’re very familiar with. (GUST of wind blows CLARENCE and JORDAN about like milkweed in a spring storm.) I see She is incoming now.
CLARENCE
Mother! Sweet forbidding forgiving Mother Nature!
CLARENCE and JORDAN bow reverently as the indomitable Supreme Earthly MAMA sweeps in majestically. Our view is completely dominated by this mighty wind. Er, entity.
MAMA
You called.
JORDAN (mystified; checks the clipboard)
I beg your pardon, Madam, I don’t seem to have the correct ….
MAMA
Not you! Her!
HOSAA (off-stage)
aaaah- aaaah-
JORDAN
Oh yes, I see. Her directives. It seems she has been under the weather.
JACOB "BIFF" MARLEY (appearing through the clouds at his usual clerk’s desk, aims a giggle at Mother Earth.)
“Under” the weather. Get it? They’re all under the weather with You around.
MAMA, JORDAN, and even CLARENCE roll their eyes in perfect unison.
MAMA
I suppose she’s blaming me again.
JORDAN
Well, you did thwart her birthday trip to Florida with that hurricane. And then this Christmas cold, again, thwarting the revised plans.
MAMA
I object!
HOSAA (off-stage)
aaaah- aaaah-
MAMA
Is it my fault? Is it my fault?
CLARENCE
Could have been the housework. You know how germs build up down there. They get dislodged when someone tries to clean without a mask and they breathe in the gunk.
MAMA (haughtily)
My microbes aren’t “gunk.” But of course you are right. We give them tools, those fools. But still they mess with Mother Nature!
Thunder and lightning strike around MAMA’s indictment.
MAMA
Now what do you want?
HOSAA (off-stage)
aaaah- aaaah-
MAMA
Never mind.
MR. JORDAN finishes flipping through the pages on the clipboard and tucks it under his arm.
JORDAN
Ah. Oh, no, not that. What I mean is, I believe I may be able to illuminate the situation. We have a case I believe is known as unrealized potentiality. Our Great Author (eyes briefly but reverently turned upwards) has endowed Ms. Hosaa with a great gift, that of authorial omnipotence, which she has thus far failed to deploy. I suspect that she has come to a decision?
HOSAA
CLARENCE
Or, perhaps, is still needing the assistance of a handy guardian angel?
BIFF MARLEY (from his corner desk)
We already gave her one!
MAMA nods approvingly at BIFF MARLEY, who beams with the appreciation.
MAMA (fading out)
I see you have things under control. That’s all I meant. I’m not the omniscient, omnipotent one in the Family. And they all have powers they never use. Or at least never use appropriately. See ya.
MAMA has left the station. MR. JORDAN and CLARENCE approach BIFF MARLEY’s desk for conference. BIFF removes a dusty volume from a rickety bookshelf. He flips through the book’s yellowed and crumbling pages.
BIFF MARLEY
Before digital. Sorry.
HOSAA (off-stage)
aaaah- aaaah-
As though by magic (you know where we are, right?) scenes from the dusty book appear across the handy Cloud-o-scope monitor. We see a young, scruffy American female with easy and relaxed manners greeting, of all people, a severely stiff-necked and proper English butler. He is there to serve her every need, which she is convinced she doesn’t need. They face each other off indignantly.
 |
| Edward Duke, as prototype for "Perry" |
CLARENCE
Oh, yes, I remember these two! Our sweet little Ms. Hosaa down there, with all her authorial omnipotence, writes a cute mismatched boy-meets-girl story. Joy and Perry, right?
BIFF MARLEY
They had a happy-ever-after, but the story went nowhere.
MR. JORDAN (addressing some unseen entity)
Unpublished? There are tools for that, surely?
BIFF MARLEY (flipping through the book’s pages toward the end)
It wasn’t the ending. Look at all these blank pages!
CLARENCE
But surely young Joy and her guardian angel Perry had more adventures to seek, more tales to tell, more conversations we all could enjoy and benefit from!
HOSAA
CLARENCE
The heroine treated her perfect English butler like a roommate. It’s like being given Aladdin’s lamp and all three beautiful wishes, and then setting it aside on a broken-down bookshelf.
BIFF MARLEY
I’ll fix the bookshelf, I just need the tools!
JORDAN (checking the clipboard again)
I think I understand something now. This Ms. Hosaa also stopped wishing for things when she blew out her birthday candles!
HOSAA (off-stage)
Couldn’t think of anything.
JORDAN (smiling knowingly and lovingly)
If the genie grants all the wishes, the genie goes away. Our author fell in love with her own hero! If she finished the story, he’d disappear!
BIFF MARLEY smiles as he closes the unfinished story and replaces the book on the shelf.
CLARENCE
Well that certainly keeps one guardian angel in full employment! Bless you both, my dear!
HOSAA (off-stage)
-chooooooooooooooo!
FADE OUT.
Love,
hosaa, wish-saving
Catch up with "Clarence" (2021) in "Saving Anybodys, or: Forget Americans in Paris"
The "Clarence" oeuvre:
2013: Saving Mr. Potter
2014: Christmas Belle, or Saving Miss Fezziwig
2015: Saving Mr. Sawyer
2016: Saving Mr. Jordan
2017: Saving “Big” Susan
2018: Saving Miss Gulch
2019: How Now, Voyager? Or, Saving Dr. Jaquith
2020: My Fair Freddy, or Saving Pygmalion
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