SOMA | The Meme Dump
JEREMY
This whole place is my grave marker. This is where I intend to dissolve into my music.
LEVON
...
JEREMY
It’s so strange you’re visiting now. I had a dream about you the other day. A waking dream while I was practicing. I was deep in the flow, and I dreamed that you and June were visiting this place after I had gone. It was night, and you came calling unannounced as usual.
You came into this yard and heard my requiem looping through these speakers. Then the train approached. You saw its line of growing windows parading through those trees, like the candle bearers in Disney’s “Night on Bald Mountain.” And you noticed the rhythm of the train aligns exactly with that of my violin! And June screamed out “My god, Jeremy! It works! ” And then the train passed. And the two you looked up at the stars and realized that the long dead parts of heaven are still visible from Earth. And that his whole world is just an echo of worlds that came before.
Jeremy picks up his violin and reprises the music from earlier. Levon rolls to his back and looks up at the stars. He begins to cry. In the grass near his head, small Soma mushrooms have sprouted and gone unnoticed. Levon falls asleep as Jeremy plays.
13. Interior. Night. MemeTrade Head Office.
Character: NICK, LEONARD. Extras: Asian couple.
Props: Dog Day decorations, an ice bucket, a toilet paper dispenser.
Nick Steib walks through the offices of MemeTrade, completely naked. He is surveying the aftermath of MemeTrade’s Dog Day party. The office is strewn with yellow and green decorations. Most of the party guests have either left or have passed out in MemeTrade cubicles. Steib is still poking at his phone trying to reach Levon. His thumb has hit redial so many times, he now does it 95
SOMA | The Meme Dump
instinctively without looking.
Nick strolls past flatscreen monitors broadcasting The Best of the Westminster Dog Show. He presses a button on the monitor and turns the channel back to MemeTrade’s regular stream of simulation data. Nick approaches the hors d'oeuvres table. His dog, Deltoid, is eyeing the leftovers. Nick drops a platter of cold cuts on the floor.
Deltoid dives on it. Nick grabs a bucket of ice from the table and heads into the bathroom.
The bathroom is decorated with whimsical paintings of dogs acting like business people. On the floor, two androgynous Asian twins are spooning each other, fast asleep. Nick steps over the couple and sits down on the toilet. Every thirty seconds, his thumb hits redial on his phone, then hangs up. Nick grabs ice cubes from the bucket and begins chewing on them.
NICK
You had better be in trouble, Levon Monk. You had better be on a prison ship off the coast of Vancouver with your feet cut off. 'Cause if not...
LeoNard appears on Nick’s phone.
NICK
Oh, hello, LeoNard.
LEONARD
Nick? Can I interrupt?
Nick looks down at the spooning couple.
NICK
The more the merrier.
LEONARD
I have some updates on the stories we posted about Levon Monk.
Our first article has a very respectable viral rating.