Shadows dance on the walls of a cave, flickering with orange light. The sound of pulsing sticks pounding on rock and sand.
The pulsing slows and comes to stand still.
OONA: We approach the waxing gibbon time.
CHORUS: Waxing gibbon!
OONA: The seer eyes the fox in the hennow, and brings forth the rising tide.
CHORUS: Rising tide!
OONA: Oh astral mother, renew us, renew our spirit, renew within, renew us.
CHORUS: And as it shall be, we are newer than we were…
Oona lowers her staff, a glimmering orange stone shows flecks of green.
OONA: Join within the mother.
The circle of raggedy cave dwellers sit around the smokeless fire. A wave of metallic insects flees the cave floor like smoke and forms into a hovering triple ring, which begins slowly to pulse in shades of purple, cyan, and magenta.
OONA: So sayeth the seer, today marks the fifth wave’s cresting after the fall of the Republic and the rise of the age of the potato.
OONA: Free dwellers, the seeds within us will in time stain the ties of men. Let us not throw tomatoes though, for —
BUONO: *cough*
OONA: [pausing and glancing at the youngling] — none among us can catch a falling star. Only with grace and knowledge shall we pass the golden arches…
OONA: Sorry, Buono, are you in need of something? It’s the 5th wave ceremony, we need you to attune.
BUONO: I .. I don’t understand. The meanings. Why do we celebrate?
The assembled clan chuckles at the youngling’s indescretion. They once were young as well. Obviously. Duh. Whatever.
BUONO: What … what came before… what… happened to the ‘public?
Oona looks resolutely in silence, her staff’s golden eye flickering amongst the stalagtites [mites?]
OONA: Our curiosity serves us well. We join in inquiry. Let us consider..
They consider.
OONA: There came a great wave, sweeping over the Eastern plains, bringing death and mayhem. It poisoned the mind and ushered forth the uprising. The purge and the quelling. The gods, angered in their clouds, reaped a mighty wind–
BUONO: No! But what *happened*?
Close up on Oona’s glowing skin and wisened wrinkles.
We see her image shimmer in vertical swirls as the theme song to Sanford and Son is faintly heard in the wind chimes, and pan to the mouth of the cave, looking out at a barren land of grass-covered ruins. A Shell station, a Chipotle, largeish bunny rabbits running amok.
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