286. The Inventor: A Steampunk Parable - Leslie

• FADE IN:


• INT. AMELIA'S LAB - NIGHT


• AMELIA sits over her work bench, a jeweler's glass strapped onto his eye.


• The lab is a small, crowded room, filled with strange, DaVinci-like inventions.


• An articulated wooden and brass skeleton for a set of wings hangs above her head.


• Shelves are neatly lined with notebooks and unfinished gadgets.


• Candles in carefully blown glass cases hang around her from the ceiling; each bookcase is fitted with small gas lamps.


• Windows surround the room, most covered by thick curtains, but one is slightly open, allowing moonlight to slither in across the floor.


• Brass fittings and pipes line the room, kissing the exposed brick walls.


• A corner is filled with large bronze and brass tanks, carefully built and riveted.


• Amelia grasps tiny tools between her fingers while carefully working on the intricate workings of one of her machines, a wooden box whose back is open, exposing brass gears, tiny plates, and screws.


• NARRATOR
• Once upon a time, there was an inventor named Amelia. She loved creating new and beautiful things. Strange and intricate jewelry for the people of the town and new farming tools, elegant and efficient for the country folk.


• INT. AMELIA'S INVENTION ROOM - DAY


• Amelia stands in a large closet lined with drawers and shelves filled with her finished inventions.


• She is frantically pulling out drawers and searching the shelves.


• NARRATOR
• One day, Amelia discovered that one of her inventions was missing. It was a trifling little thing of no real importance, a mechanical firefly. She could have easily created another one, but she valued each of her creations and saw them as irreplaceable.


• EXT. TOWN CENTER - DAY


• Amelia walks nervously around the town center, stopping passerbys and gesturing to them, describing the gadget with her hands.


• People shake their heads and she moves on.


• NARRATOR
• Amelia was heartbroken; she could not find the gadget anywhere.


• EXT. AMELIA'S NEIGHBORHOOD - NIGHT


• Amelia knocks on a door, and when a MATRONLY WOMAN opens the door, she again describes the object.


• The woman shakes her head and Amelia moves to the next house.


• She moves to another house and another, receiving the same answer.


• INT. AMELIA'S LAB - NIGHT


• Amelia searches the lab, lamp in hand, turning it upside down.


• The formerly neat lab is now chaotic, things thrown everywhere in Amelia's search.


• INT. AMELIA'S INVENTION ROOM - NIGHT


• Amelia searches the room, inspecting an inventory list, then checking the shelves and drawers, shutting drawers in frustration.


• NARRATOR
• She searched until the early edges of morning.


• INT. AMELIA'S LAB - DAWN


• Amelia searches the floor for the gadget, the pauses.


• Seeing something, she moves faster, flinging loose paper, pushing away boxes, and larger gadgets.


• There, under a pile of sketches is the mechanical firefly.


• She picks it up, cradling it in her palm.


• NARRATOR
• When Amelia found her lost invention, she was so filled with joy she couldn't contain it.


• She runs out of the room.


• EXT. AMELIA'S FRONT DOOR - DAWN


• She opens the front door and yells.


• AMELIA
• I found it! I found it!


• A PASSERBY stares at her and neighbors peer out of their windows.


• INT. AMELIA'S INVENTION ROOM - MORNING


• Bleary-eye and happy, Amelia carefully places the firefly in its small drawer.


• NARRATOR
• And that, in a nutshell, is the Kingdom of God.


• FADE TO BLACK.