Surviving 4: Gracie and Jesús Have Lunch

Actors: 2
Reference: Ephesians
Notes: This one is harder to do without the filmed asides – you’ll need to come up with another ending, for instance. Possibly the last joke about the “Holiday Inn” will do the trick.

Synopsis

Scene: Gracie is sitting on a tree stump, roasting a rat over an open fire. In a filmed aside / film-noir address, Gracie explains that she’s just about had it. Her teammates are starting to turn on her, no one will listen to her talk about Jesúe and she’s starting to have doubts about the whole thing. She needed to get out on her own for a while, so she caught a rat and took a hike into a likely meadow to cook lunch. Back in live action, as Gracie is roasting her rat, Jesúe appears on the scene. Ecstatic to see him – and more than a little relieved to have it proved she’d not dreamed the whole thing – she invites him to pull up a stump and share her – err – rat, such as it is. Looking less than tempted by the hapless rodent-on-a-stick, Jesúe asks if she’d like him to help cook. He’s got a few ideas. “Sure,” agrees Gracie, although she’s fairly certain that not much can be done to spruce up a rat. For the rest of the skit, Jesúe intersperses his conversation with instructions on how to prepare Rat Mediterranean. All the ingredients seem to be on the island if you look hard enough and exercise enough creativity. Behind Gracie is a grill-shaped rock, under a tree is a large pot of water boiling on a geyser, and one of the coconut varieties is filled with olive oil. Certain stumps contain cans of stewed tomatoes or mushrooms, Uncle Ben’s Minute Rice may be found beneath some of the ferns, and there are little baggies of garlic under the leaves of a certain tree. The crowning discovery is a nicely chilled bottle of wine in a cooler built into a rock. Gracie meets these revelations first with incredulity and then with growing excitement.

While lunch is being prepared, Gracie takes advantage of Jesúe’ presence to ask a few questions. First, just why did Jesúe give her that boat? What had she done to deserve such a gift? Nothing, of course, is the answer. But Jesúe asks her to think back to that day: toiling uselessly to build a boat without tools, materials, or skill, she’d finally reached her breaking point and cried out to the universe at large that she couldn’t do it and needed help. This is where Jesúe had found her and offered her the help she’d asked for. “Why none of the others?” is Gracie’s next question. “Because none of them have yet asked for my help,” Jesúe answers simply. This next question has been bugging her for a while. Jesúe had been a member of the Zombie team when he was alive – err – on the island. Wasn’t she being disloyal to her own team by talking to him – even if Jesúe wasn’t really supposed to be on the island? “No,” Jesúe explains, “When I was voted off the island, everything changed.” Now that he’s back, he’s no longer a Zombie or Ghost, so Gracie is certainly not being disloyal, although her teammates may see it that way. His ultimate goal is to bring both tribes together. “Why,” Gracie asks next, “can’t I always see you? Where do you go?” “Oh, I’m always there,” answers Jesúe mysteriously, “think about it.” On a video aside, Gracie admits that she’s somehow known that intuitively all along – even when she’s been the most discouraged she’s sensed Jesúe’ presence. In fact, he’s here right now – (to the camera man) uh, you can’t see him, can you? (camera “nods” in the negative.) “I’m going to have to ask him about that!” Gracie’s last question to Jesúe, now that she understands a little of his purpose, is what he’d like her to be doing – what is her role? She’s getting concerned – her teammates are starting to turn on her and she’s afraid she’ll be voted off. “Don’t worry about that, Just keep doing what you’ve been doing,” he answers. “Oh, you mean like helping Julie out of the pit or helping Floyd find the camp.” Jesúe agrees and goes on to explain that soon some friends of his will be arriving on the island, at which point Gracie’s role will change a bit. When she asks how she’ll know these friends, Jesúe explains that you could almost consider them a quote-on-quote “Army.” The scene switches to the video aside where – we assume – Jesúe is about to explain that last comment. However, all we can see is an empty space next to Gracie. “He’s not there again, is he?” she asks. “Ah well, I’ll ask him about that right away.” Back at the campfire, Gracie asks Jesúe point blank why he never seems to show up on video. “Oh, that,” he answers. “Well, first of all, they had their chance to talk to me while I was a member of the Zombies. Now that I’m off, well…. And secondly, there are some channels out there that have really dragged my name through the mud. So, naturally, I’m a little camera shy – at least when it doesn’t suit my purpose.” At this point, the Rat Mediterranean is ready to serve. Jesúe pulls some bark off the stump - the underside looks amazingly like a Corel plate - and dishes it up. He then points Gracie to the wine cooler. Gracie asks if there are glasses for the wine, and Jesúe jokingly asks her “What do you think this is, a Holiday Inn? This is an island: just drink out of the bottle.” Gracie shrugs and dives in. The food is amazing. “Wow,” Gracie exclaims, “I had no idea you were this fabulous of a cook! You should do something with this!” “As a matter of fact,” Jesúe answers, “I am working on a little project. Would you like to see?” Back on camera, we launch into a full-on cooking show w/ Jesúe as host, demonstrating the finer points of preparing a tuna-fish – err – rat – sandwich for the islander on the go. The End




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