From: Alex Michael Bonnici (albonnici_at_vol.net.mt)
Date: Wed Mar 19 2008 - 07:37:02 PDT
A very humorous but very fitting tribute to Clark.
2008: Clarke's Final Odyssey
A 90-year-old man sleeps in bed - this is ARTHUR C. CLARKE. The rasping sound of his labored breath fills the room until it suddenly stops.
CLARKE suddenly awakens, instantly alert though unmoving. We see a smile slowly form on his lips, a twinkle in his eye.
Shot of THE MONOLITH, a box with sides of length in the ratio 1:4:9 (with the sequence progressing naturally through the higher dimensions), hovering about one meter above the prone CLARKE.
CLARKE: Ah, come back to visit one last time, have you, old friend?
A beat.
CLARKE: Funny. Everyone's out at the moment. No assistants, no family, no agents, no ... groupies. As though a nonagenarian would be crawling in the amorous and oversexed...
A short coughing fit briefly overcomes CLARKE.
CLARKE: You do realize you're purely a fictional product. Not even grounded in reality - at least the communications satellite was built. A fair amount of people even understand it! But you ... I alone understand what you really are. Now that Stanley's gone...
A beat.
CLARKE: Your presence here means the next step in evolution is imminent. My next step, presumably. The largest step for a man...
CLARKE briefly peers through the curtain at the sun. (There is always a last time for everything.)
We hear the breathing stop.
Shot of the bed. It is empty, covers left disordered. The MONOLITH has also disappeared.
EXT. EARTH'S ORBIT. DAWN.
CLARKE has been reborn as the STAR CHILD, which turns its oversized infant head to us and nods.
CUE MUSIC
[TITLE CARD:
R.I.P. Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008), author of Childhood's End, The City and The Stars, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Rendezvous with Rama, and "The Nine Billion Names of God" among many many others.
http://www.miamipoetryreview.com/2008/03/2008_clarkes_final_odyssey.html
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