The Seven Deadly Castaways

Two aliens share relaxation mist drugs while watching the holo stage before them. They are much better looking than most slimy extraterrestrials—at least in their human form. Vacationing here, on Maui, they look like any other hominids, except perhaps of higher status. Let’s say Brad Pitt/Harry Styles types. They don’t seem any worse than those already ruling the earth, so what’s the big deal? Could be an improvement. They watch the show. We watch the show.

* * *

Gilligan presents himself as a cabana boy to work for the Howells. They use him to display wealth, create an alliance, bribe other castaways, and work as liaison to bribe Ginger with a film deal. For all those months since they left Hawaii, Gilligan convinced everyone that he was just a goofball, a doofus. He was, they thought, a couple of paper parasols short of a Mai tai. Well, he just wasn’t as insipid as everyone had presumed. He swept a hank of hair, crookedly, off to the side of his ear. He smiles as he approaches the camp, wearing his most doofussy, charming smile.

Ginger meets him first.

“Mr. Howell says he wants an interview?” Ginger murmurs, confused.

“on the couch!” Gilligan scratches his head in puzzlement. "That makes no sense-- we only have hammocks here.” Ginger frowns.

He got the expected, “Oh my God!” reaction. It took so very little, really, to inspire the others to think ill of one another. He continued to ooze his poison for the reaction he expected. It’s so easy to play Ginger! Ego putty in my hot little hands, thinks Gilligan. Gilligan reveals to Ginger that Thurston implied a dalliance with him would get her any starring role she desires when they leave the island. Howell could assure her of food and shelter meanwhile, so long as they are stranded. And Ginger could use the lust card to play Howell. It was perfect.

When Lovie Howell caught Thurston in a compromising situation, she shoved Ginger into a molten lava tube. Lovie strained her neck watching the last sparkling sequins upon Ginger’s gown twinkle out like a winking star. Feeling anxious with over-exertion, Lovie collapsed upon a mango tree log. She slept until awakened by Gilligan. “I saw what happened. Poor Ginger! It was an accident, right? Please, Mrs. Howell, please tell me it was an accident!”

“But, I, ah,” Lovie Howell falters.

Mrs. Howell?” She starts to cry. Gilligan takes her by the arm, trying to console as he led her away. “We’ve gotta go get the others…”

Realizing Gilligan is a witness. Lovie tries to buy him. But he insists on telling the others. “My dear boy,” she stutters, edging him ever closer to the edge of the volcanic slope they climbed down. Gilligan is quite adept at behaving cluelessly. He all but allows Lovie Howell the final, cliff hanging push. He stumbles into the act, a seasoned bumbling clod.

“Aaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhhhh…” He trailed off the last bit of his death yell quite convincingly. She thinks he went completely over.

He waits for her fading footsteps. “I’m not the clumsy idiot everyone thinks I am,” he smirks to himself. He holds tightly to a branch and scrambles below where he meets the Japanese security guard. He doesn’t act as surprised as one would think. They shake hands and high five like old pals.

Torpid in her usual sloth, Lovie didn’t bother to walk the extra four steps she could have taken to check out Gilligan and the Security guard right under her nose. The Japanese security guard alerted Gilligan to the existence of an enormous resort Hotel on the remote side of the island. Who knew? Sweet, he thought, This is going to be even easier than I thought.

Meanwhile, Lovie devised a story explaining quite convincingly, that Gilligan decided to search the far end of island for provisions. She revealed that Ginger’s death was a tragic and horrible misunderstanding. Mr. Howell and the Professor went to investigate the lava field Lovie had discovered. Both are distraught and distracted by the loss of the loosest hottie, well, their only loose hottie, in the tropics.

* * *

“That’s the divide and conquer play?” The commander is dubious, how gullible could these earth people be?” “Believe me, Commander Dylanbobber, it doesn’t take much. Remember our old sit com ‘bout seventy years back, “Earth people are stupid, stupid, stupid?” “Yeah,” Dylanbobber and Slooch nod together.

“Well, it’s an exaggeration, but not by as much as you might think.” Both leaned forward a bit in their chairs to watch the ripples of the holo vid smooth out into a glassy puddle, halting the image of the Professor in mid-scowl.

“So, this particular bunch, except for the “Jap” there are no minorities, no foreigners, How can you be sure they’ll turn on one another?” The scout motioned toward the castaways shimmering before them. “It’s true, there are few people of color, and no obvious outsiders, but think about it. You have a class war between the elite and the service crew. You have the predictable tension between world celebrity skank, super star and the unsophisticated plain girl. Then there’s the whole gender roles junk as well as the obviously smarter, but never compensated, professor. Lastly, you have the ever so blame-able nitwit and his superior officer…” Dylanbobber stole a half serious side-ways glance at the scout, his “inferior”.

“Okay, go on,” exhales Sloosh.

He drew another mist. They both inhaled deeply through the AI recliner console. Their attention was pulled up upon the holo-stage. The Professor and Howell are talking over one another about where Ginger’s alliance would be--were she breathing—and which of them holds the most attractive allure to women.

The ancient, and strangely addictive, “Ginger or Mary Ann??” cola wars unfold before them.

“Yeah so?” Dylanbobber takes a slow drag on his marijuana Jell-o-nebulizer hose. “Just watch what they do. Don’t worry; I’m unscrambling the sub titles back into Wellendian.” They sat back and relaxed back into deck chairs half submerged in the tourist pool. They suck in more theatre-brick vapor and watched the rest of the video. “Is this vegan cherry flavor?” Sloosh asks, inhaling deeply.

Gilligan watches the Professor and Howell from aside and devises a way to get the Japanese guard to approach them. Howell freaks out and pushes the Professor in front of the guard who raises a snub- nosed revolver. The Professor swings out his” Super Pole 3000”. The professor invented it for Lava measurement. It hits a coconut tree, knocking loose several coconuts, which tumble down in an avalanche of clobbering clatter and death howls.

Master Thurston Howell the third was then as still as the jumbled pile he lay beneath. The guard runs off. The professor turns white as another of his dissected toads. He begins jotting down digits to display his genius in equations that configured the rate of descent of lethal coconuts, wind variables, Howell’s body mass, and crushed skull circumference.

“I am the only one on this island.” he thought, “intelligent enough to utilize this data.” The others, rushing in from all sides are bewildered and filled with nervous energy. They grumble. “He’s the only one on this island prideful enough to think his useless data compilation is worth the dirt he scrawled in. “Please, people, do step aside,” He mutters, irritated with their dithering idiocy. They cluster around, trying to comprehend a dead millionaire, a pile of coconuts, and what looked to be voodoo numerology written in the dirt.

* * *

Commander Dylanbobber stopped the reel, in the professor’s mid-sentence.

“Sloosh. This is awful, they won’t watch it. They won’t even try it. It’s nonsense. I can’t tell if this is a spoof, a reality show, a re-doo doo of Lost, or something else, where ARE you going with this stuff?”

Sloosh folds his arms patiently.

“Stay with me, Commander Dylanbobber, hold on. Rome didn’t fall in a day.”

“What?” Obtuse idiot. “Okay Sloosh, we’ll watch the remainder, but then you better have a thorough explanation as to how—he reached a dismissive arm toward the stage-- this uuuckkk, uh,? Comedy, reality show? This drivel is going to defeat a complex society.”

* * *

Realizing the volcano is active, Ginger and Howell are dead, the others become more defensive and self-destructive. Skipper puffs up his ample chest and announces that as Captain it is his duty to take control, throw his weight around. Mary Ann complains with all her envy of authority as buoyant as her pigtails. Lovie fans herself with a jungle leaf and complains about her frayed nerves and exhausted limbs. She insists the men go off in the wrong direction to search and recover Gilligan’s body to prepare his corpse for a proper funeral.

This will, at least, she hopes, give her time for another snooze through the afternoon.

The Professor, to his credit despite his cold cunning, is disgusted with them for acting on emotion rather than logic. He scowls, and the Skipper thrusts up his fighting fists. The Skipper and Professor fight Brawn to Brain. There is thunking, punching, bleeding and cussing. The Professor sustained a flesh wound to his arm when he falls across a ragged tree branch. Mary Ann rushed to “comfort” him. He is now bleeding shark bait.

Above, upon a high rocky outcropping above swelling seas, Gilligan feeds his “pet” sharks. He has binoculars, a cool drink, and a goofy grin. He chats casually on his coconut phone to the Hotel. From here he deviously watched the others, plotting his crafted revenge upon Lovie.

After unsuccessfully wooing Lovie, whose only interest is sleep, Mary Ann seduces the professor. The dalliance is interrupted by Skipper who has decided to enlist the Professor to look for Gilligan. They depart to the South shore. Gilligan waits until the women are alone. He approaches Mary Ann in her hut.

“Comforting” Mary Ann, Gilligan draws her confidence away from Lovie and Prof explaining how desperately he loves her and how he can clearly see how the two of them could triumph as a couple.

Later that night, they make love. Gilligan is asleep and Mary Ann awakes, sees him there in her hammock, stretches, smiles, and does a quick dimple check in her hand mirror that hangs on her hammock post. She gets up early to bake him a coconut cream pie. She’s the only girl in town with Ginger gone. She is all sunbeams and coconut froth as she skips down toward the lagoon to wash dishes.

The two Wellendians shuffled uneasily at the earth style copulations. They find it particularly disgusting that the castaways used their food preparation appendages, feeding parts, and all that sweat, sucking, and smacking noise. The two aliens fidget submerged feet. They swirl and fan their toes among a bleary flash of tiny tropical fish.

Sloosh slurps through a coconut shell. “Earth people, yuck, such animals.”

Gilligan wolfs down the pie when Lovie Howell appears, thinking she sees a ghost. She faints. He seizes the opportunity. He revives her just enough to shove scoopfuls of pie down her throat which she chokes on. She revives, gurgles a bit of cream, then succumbs.

He realizes death by pie blame will go to Mary Ann. Gilligan pretends to do a Heimlich maneuver upon Mrs. Howell. Mary Ann rushes up and frantically tries to help Gilligan rescue Lovie to no avail. Gilligan sighs in distress. He begs Mary Ann not to “blame herself for not chopping coconut chunks small enough.”

The confused and frightened remaining castaways all make their way down beside the sandy shore. The group decides upon the authoritative advice of the superstitious Skipper, that Mary Ann should be sacrificed to the volcano. She agrees, but plans to run away at the last minute.

The Professor agrees, although he thinks their idiotic superstitions are just one more reason that he wishes they would die. He proposes to monitor the seismic activity. Meanwhile he decides to employ his latest invention. He calls it the Board of Rapid Exhilaration Surfambulator 3000. The BORES. It is a rough plank carved from a mango tree. Despite the healing gash on his arm, the Professor maneuvers his new surfboard to go out further to reconnoiter the island, volcano, and the landscape. At this distance from shore, he sees what none of them have ever seen before. He sees the hotel, spots the guard. He frantically waves to the others. In his heroic exuberance upon seeing rescue so near at hand he re-opens the wound on his arm and the makeshift bandage of his old shirt floats off in bloody shreds.

He had noticed the sharks, but feels confident in his knowledge of marine biology that he can get through any tight spots. There is some of that “thadup thadup thadup…” Mesozoic fish-monster thrombulation.

Dylynbobber and Sloosh tap their fingers to it mindlessly. The professor is sucked down through the depths with all the sudden force of a blunt bamboo slide-rule thwacking him upside the head. He feeds the fishes. Only Gilligan knows the truth. “Good Boy, Fluffy…” He coos.

Mary Ann and Gilligan and the Skipper are warily stabbing at their campfire with torn branches. Continuing to manipulate Mary Ann, Gilligan convinces her to confess to Skipper about how Lovie Howell choked to death on Coconut cream pie.

Mary Ann dutifully begins to do so, then suddenly betrays Gilligan. Mary Ann, stammers and blubbers. She tells Skipper that Gilligan killed Mrs. Howell. Skipper tries to assure her she’ll have his protection if she will “favor” him. He is attempting to seduce her when she screams, Gilligan comes running and they fight with a galley knife Gilligan grabs from table. Skipper is stabbed in the hand and passes out. Retrieving the knife, Mary Ann falls desperately into an ensuing struggle with Gilligan. Gilligan feigns extreme concern. “Oh Gilligan, you do care, after all, Oh Gilligan, I knew you loved me! I knew it!” Bubbling with sunshiny joy Mary Ann leaps into Gilligan’s arms. Engulfed there, she finds only the cold steel of his blade. The last thing Mary Ann sees is an insipid concern upon Gilligan’s face that morphs into a chilling smile. She dies.

Night falls. There is a whisper of scurrying words in the jungle. The Skipper tosses and tumbles in his sleep. He dreams of a crazed and whimsical rescue by the Harlem Globe trotters. He bounces and dribbles with them, he scoots, rolls of his heavy pot belly jiggling. Skipper awakens and finds Mary Ann dead. No Gilligan in sight. The “Jap” guard approaches with a revolver. Skipper defends himself with a tiki torch, but with his weak hand he falters and falls into the fire pit reaching out to grab an unexplained basketball that rolls by. The Japanese security guard runs away.

The Japanese guard was really just one part Japanese, part Argentinean, and a lotta Hawaiian. He can’t believe the insanity of these whack job Haole castaways. Seven deadly sins, he mutters, walking slowly. He wanders back to the Thurston Lava Luxury Hotel to alert authorities of castaways going crazy and self destructing in tragic accidents. Most of the bodies are recovered, but no trace of Gilligan is ever found.

No, wait, what’s this? Sloosh and Dylanbobber lean in.

The camera pans over a boyish collection of precious objects: A comic book, a yo-yo, a ragged whittled little model of the Minnow, three pretty stones, and two seashells. It’s so sweet.

Dylanbobber and Sloosh wrap themselves in brilliant bright colored tourist towels. They saunter up to the vid bar and pull down three more television shows; Nightmare Neighbors, Culled Cases, and Homicide Honeymooners, episode one. The highest rated reality shows on earth. “Hey Sloosh, grab a couple of those mega-bag potato chips.” “You want the ranch style dip with that, Dylan?” They slowly submerge back into the azure pools, considerable bulk displacing surges of tepid blue wavelets breaking over the vinyl bar.

Gilligan realizes he is rich, safe, and there is no evidence linking him to any crime. He has plenty of documentation of his new identity as the wealthy and erudite, Gilbert Egan Bates. Gill Bates. It’s perfect.

He could already smell the fresh Kona coffee awaiting him at the luxury suite in Maui that he had already booked on Thurston Howell’s platinum Visa. He picks up the ball, smiling, and spins it on his right hand. “Hey my man, Wilson, this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship” he laughs, walking confidently in his new sytlin’ aloha wear he had stashed away months ago.

“Sloosh, this is really bad. Really BAD. Itsssh jis gaawduuufall” His words are muffled between stuffed mouthfuls of junk food. “ I shhhtill say it’s drivel. ”

“Yes it is, Sir. Yesh,” He slurps through paw full of ranch dip he has just scooped from the bowl. “ Wish hoomuns itsh always Breeead ish shurkisses…”

“What?”

“Sharry Shur., ah humm,”

“what?”

“Bread and circus, uh, peanuts.”

“You really believe they watch these lurid contests; these reality shows and nonsensical power grabs?” The low rumble of sucking Jell-O reverberates off cooling tiles. “I’m one hundred percent sure, sir, The one you have been watching was rated most viewed reality show ever for the last consecutive fifteen weeks with our colony 4-H captive beam ups. They love it on 4 H. They’ll love it even more in Project Earth Away.”

“Isn’t Helios Four a captive earth cattle outpost?”

“Yes, well mostly. Ninety-seven cattle, forty-two sheep, eight warder collies, and ninety-nine redneck humans. We also have nine yuppies, two Bros and a Ho from da hood, and two former senators. We always go for the prime cuts, sir.” He chuckles uneasily. “So, to speak.”

“Ah, so this is how your crew won the most contented creatures zoo dwelling awards, eh?”

Sloosh’s smile spills over into a light laugh, his obvious pride seems to embarrass him a bit.

“Now earth has similar entertainments even on their business channels, and NetFlakes.

Dylanbobber guffawed in disbelief. Sloosh breezed on, munching chips, but let up on the tongue smothering dip. “Some schmaltzy over-pompadoured zillionaire holds court while several overly manicured bimbos and blokes fall all over themselves in obsequious suck up madness. The old mystery plays had the same effect nearly a millennia ago.”

“Old morality plays? That’s where you got the idea for seven deadly sins, then”?

“Well. Yes. And no. There actually was a sitcom about these castaways. The nostalgia factor really helps reel them in. Our earliest scouts arranged it. Believe it or not the USA alliance, and later global audience, never even realized the castaways were the seven deadly sins personified.”

“That clueless, eh?”

“That clueless, Sir. They watch this junk and never bother that their resources are dwindling, their world overheating, their infrastructure is crumbling and their highest institutions are disintegrating. They can’t be bothered with REAL reality. Too depressing. So, they hook up to the vid and suck it in.”

Commander Dylanbobber eased back into his chair. “They’ll let even their most sacred institutions, marriage, family-- fall into this manure. Wow. Well, let’s not waste anymore time. Let's buy it.”

“The real opportunity to serve man is to let him fade away softly, entertained and placated with titillating low drama, vaudevillian slapstick, smarmy sex and violence. Plug in the third world sky vids and let’s sit back and watch.”

“The real reality show: The final chapter.” Dylanbobber sighed. “It’s the oldest story ever told. Destined for limitless re- runs.”

Sloosh looked puzzled for a moment, drooped his shoulders, sucked in a Jell-o hit and collapsed into the chair.

"So it is," he shrugged.

From behind a silver wait-staff tray, Gil Bates smirked surreptitiously.

So it was.

END

The Cast of Seven Deadly Castaways

(available for your screenplay, call today!)

The invading aliens, Sloosh: Harry Styles Dylanbobber: Brad Pitt

Gilligan: Wrath, Thurston Howell: Greed, Ginger Grant: Lust , Professor: Pride, Lovie Howell: Sloth, Mary Ann: Envy, Skipper: Gluttony

Security Guard: Some racist stereotype who is actually Hawaiian