Act 1, scene 1–Video projection screen shows a newscaster.
Newscaster: We go now to Bedminster cemetery, old site of the Reality Theme Park and final resting place of the ancient Drumph line, where a meeting of the Executors of Fate are gathered for their annual rites.
The screen lifts to show a rocky, wooded landscape. In the center is a small stone building from which emerges the sounds of the chorus.
Chorus: We bearers of the sacred flame lift our praise to the blessed real and true.
Two cemetery groundskeepers enter and sit down for lunch under Malignia’s tomb.
Juan: As a boy I came to the Theme Park. I got lost in the Deep State Labyrinth, saw the radioactive Butoh Trolls, and rode Mister Moglievich’s Wild Ride. Those were the days.
Rosalita: We had crossed jungles, trod the scorched highways of Mexico, only to be caged by ICE–all for our share of reality.
Chorus: Caged by Ice and detained.
Juan: But then came the fall of Drumph’s brand, and now these weathered stones are fallen; haunted only by wraiths and the ambiguous birds of augury.
Chorus: The ambiguous birds.
A View from the Wheelhouse 