Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20
EXT. PONGO’S HOUSE — NOON
Shelly walks out of the front door of a house on N 8th Street across from the old and partially abandoned Emerson Elementary School. Her grandma, who everyone has called PONGO since Dirk dubbed her such when he was too young to know better, sits in a porch swing to her right. Pongo waves, and Shelly lifts the plate of pudding in her hand.
PONGO (as shy as if it was the first pudding she ever baked all by herself)
Is it good?
SHELLY
Better than Aunt Garth’s.
PONGO
Don’t lie —
but I’m glad you like it.
Shelly shovels a bite of whip-cream covered pudding into her mouth and turns towards the road, where the parade is rolling by. Firetrucks and police cars scream down near the end of the street, and the colorful cars from the car show stutter past Pongo’s door.
Dirk and Leo sit slightly apart from Officer Sharp and Shelly’s mother, BETTY, who form their own small group, in lawn chairs by the curb. They all watch the parade intently, but in a paradoxically relaxed manner — like kids who have seen this movie, once their favorite, too many times to count.
No one appears to notice the grim-grinning ghosts that have come out to join the parade. The spirits, intermingled with the floats, cars, and live marching bands, go by in their own otherworldly vehicles, on their hands, spinning like tops, and flying through the air. Together, the living and the dead form a torrential river of history, a vector of desires past and present pointing towards some unknown but rapidly approaching future. Like Hereafter, the mixture of the living and the dead is what gives the parade its magnetic draw.
Shelly steps down from Pongo’s porch and heads toward an empty seat by Dirk. Betty stops her on the way.
BETTY
Did you get
pudding for your dad and me?
SHELLY (blushing from the embarrassment of her seemingly purposeful but innocent forgetting)
I’m sorry —
BETTY (carefully)
It’s fine! It’s fine. I was only joking, is all.
Betty turns back to the parade, and Shelly sits down by Dirk. They silently watch the parade together while Shelly eats her pudding. Soon the classic cars have moved on down the road, and the mayor’s float comes into view.
The namesake of the float, the Mayor, JASON JUSTOAFF, dressed in a turtleneck and corduroy despite the heat, struts around like some giant of the tech industry. He waves an uncannily real mechanical hand at the crowd while the afterversions of deceased Mitchell residents make appearances in TV screens at each corner of the float.
R.J.’s face suddenly appears on a TV in the nearby corner, but something seems off. When R.J. disappears, Shelly can’t help but stare at the blank space he has vacated, which seems empty and broken. No other face appears. After a pause, Shelly turns her gaze back to the Mayor.
SHELLY
Was Mayor Jason in the war?
DIRK (tiredly)
Who knows.
LEO (half-asleep)
He waves that thing around just like a medal.
I bet it cost more than our house. And he
looks like he’s completely made of plastic.
DIRK
Maybe he’s got liver problems.
Dirk’s phone, hidden his pocket, buzzes demandingly. Shelly glances at the square outline, where Flori is undoubtedly shaking her head.
SHELLY
We shouldn’t
be sitting here, doing nothing. We should
still be working back at the Treehouse.
DIRK
What’s the point? I’ve seen her like this before.
Flori won’t know until she knows, but when
she knows, you can bet she’ll know it better than
anybody else.
SHELLY (confidentially)
Can’t you
speed her up or something?
Dirk’s phone buzzes again, as if in annoyed response.
PONGO (from the porch)
The parade
isn’t what it was in my day, but still, don’t you think
it’s prettier this year?
BETTY
It’s a good one!
Dirk leans in closer to Shelly.
DIRK (whispering)
Besides, if we leave now we’ll look suspicious.
LEO (yawning loudly)
And the last thing we need right now is to
get caught at Carpenter’s.
OFFICER SHARP
Get caught doing
what, exactly?
LEO (feigning seriousness)
Nothing, Officer!
Officer Sharp laughs and sits back in his wheelchair. Shelly looks like she might say something, but then her attention is caught by Rich, who she knows from class, and who goes walking by on the sidewalk in a hurry. Shelly, affected by his obvious out-of-sortedness, stands.
SHELLY
Hey, Rich! Is everything alright?
RICH (paused, but agitated)
It’s fine.
SHELLY
I haven’t seen you since…
RICH
I’m doing OK, I guess.
But I’m in a hurry right now. Sorry.
I’ll see you soon? I’ll be back in school next week.
Rich maneuvers around Shelly and continues down the road. He pulls his phone out of his pocket, turns it in his hands, and disappears around the next corner.
LEO
Whelp, it’s safe to say that was really weird.
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