Sometimes I get a hold of a very silly idea, and it won’t let me go; Maybe it’s a film script, maybe a book, maybe something vaguely like this really took place.
Opening scene; a car parks hurriedly outside a large and brightly lit building entrance (a hospital?), It’s probably night time and definitely raining.
Figures scramble swiftly out and run to the tail of what we now see is an absurdly long estate car. With tremendous care they slide a set of steps, swathed in a blanket, out the back door. One of them makes a vain effort to shelter the steps with an umbrella, heedless of their own soaking.
Staff await them inside with a (ridiculously long) trolly to which their burden is transfered with exquiste care (“together… one two three”). They are hastened down a series of corridors, we only see overhanging concerned faces and ceiling lights.
Bashing through a door we enter into the presence of a surprised older man, bespectacled, wearing a brown lab coat, carpentry tools adorn the walls.
“What this?” he exclaims.
“we got here as quickly as we could” “can you do….. anything”
Our doctor figure runs an experienced eye over the covered scaffolding, and composing himself stands beside the trolly. “So what do we have here..?”
Raising a corner of the blanket, we see his composure slip as he looks. Gently he places the cloth back over the exposed break.
“I’m sorry ” (Stifled cry from others), “but when a strut has gone like that……there’s really nothing we can do.” “It would be kinder just to…..” and he nods towords a previously un-noticed chainsaw and fire pit.
“Nooooooooooo!”
One of the party throws himself across the stretcher in a partial hug.
Fuzzy dream sequence: Opening a cupboard while walking round a new house, to be surprised by, the Realy Tall Steps. Clambering upwards on a slidey floor, as the steps gallop forward with each riser…Leaning off at a dizzing angle while the steps pivot in the opposite direction… sprawled laughing on a couch (covered in paint?) with the top end of the steps propped beside on the couch too…….. fade back to reality
“NO!” “You can’t have them, I’ll never burn the Really Tall Steps! ” ” I’ll find a way”
We move swiftly through views of calculations, measuring, planning,but papers are crumpled in frustration and thrown in a bin, then we cut to the Really Tall Steps, hanging on a wall (as if in traction).
A vast sea of timber is delivered in great disorder.
Scenes of sawing, nailing, screwing, building….a heart rending moment where we see the Heavy Steps, the extending ladder, the cheap aluminuim steps, even the step stool, all out in use amid the work….but the Really Tall Steps hang -alone- on their wall.
Slowly the wood diminishes, order creeps in.
Then one day….a Mezanine Floor is revealed! and with painstaking care the Real Tall Steps are brought out and placed -unopened – but strategically angled – to provide access. Once again fullfilling an important role.
Pan out and away to sunset
(faintly)”That’ll do, Steps. That’ll do”
Next week on IaDL : Something a bit less mad?
Dalmallyfest the Asylum 