Episode 36- The Valley of the Bones

Did you know each of us has a clock inside our chest?

It goes tick, tick, tick.

How lucky you must be if you didn’t know.

How happy are the people who never hear the incessant tick, tick, tick.

How unlucky are the people who do hear it.

How miserable.

To always be aware of the time slipping away tick by tick.

Someday every clock stops.

Sometimes you can replace the batteries.

But more often the clock never restarts.

Its hands will remain forever fixed and time will never move forward again.

Is it any wonder so many of us seek to slow time?

Is it not shocking how many more seek to make it pass faster?

Mortality is a miserable condition.

ext. valley cliff morning

A sheer cliff that overlooks the Valley of the Bones, a desolate valley of red rock walls, brown and copper dirt, dried vegetation and ancient, dust covered bones. Rusted armor and broken swords pepper the soil, half covered in the drifting, crimson sand. Distorted waves of heat radiate from the heavily featured boulders that dot the floor of the valley.

Upon the cliff’s edge stands the Pale Horse, now in his natural form, alongside Alice, the Knight of Cups and the Queen of Swords.

The Knight of Cups withdraws an ancient telescope, which he extends to comical length. Leaning forward, he squints an eye shut and attempts to spy the distant valley floor. The weight of the scope’s front causes him to fall forward and his tumble is only stopped by the iron grip of the Queen of Swords.

KNIGHT OF CUPS
My thanks.

PALE HORSE
How does it look?

KNIGHT OF CUPS
(fiddling with the telescope as he closes it)
Were it a cup, it could not be more empty. The Valley of the Bones remains a void that only saddens me.

ALICE
Why is it called the Valley of the Bones?

KNIGHT OF CUPS
(sadly)
A great battle happened here once- a trial of love, between two houses. Love did not prevail that day.

ALICE
Who did?

QUEEN OF SWORDS
The Sun.

PALE HORSE
Traveling the Valley of the Bones by day will hold an unavoidable risk, especially by day. The Sun keeps a special watch over this passage. But the sooner we reach the City of Waite, the sooner we will find refuge.

KNIGHT OF CUPS
There is no love for the Sun in the City of Dreams…

Alice looks up at the sky, cloudless and blue. The rays of day stretch out over the horizon, their source- a molten disc which flashes ominously from behind distant peaks. Day breaks.