Randi confronts a stranger she knows. Cast Randi Halle Millien Shane Mark Millien Victor Coyotito Kelly / Mark Millien SFX and Music Contributors SFX Q Tone [Query] Tone 4.wav by patchen of freesound.org Q Tone [Response] Tone 3.wav by patchen of freesound.org Victor Drop thud2.wav by Topschool of freesound.org The L FOLEY - BODY FALL IMPACT.wav by cjosephwalker of freesound.org Music Marcus’ Letter Theme Twilight Zone by MelodicMoe of looperman.com Created by Mark and Halle Millien Cover Art by Halle Millien Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien Thank you to everyone that has supported us during this difficult time. Thank you to the protesters risking their bodies and health. Thank you to the medical professionals who are healing bodies or granting them peace. Thanks dad. To Mitch, who I originally wanted to for the role of Victor, I dedicate this to your wellness and freedom. Glossary ECCO: multinational corporation specializing in deep fake and catfish tech. modulator: a voice synthesizer that mimics real voices from high quality samples. #covid39 #covid19 #createathome #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi #generationc #flattenthecurve #stayathome #welcometowinnetkaheights #oakcliffdallas #atlanta #castleberyhill #theuninformedparent #covidpodcast #applepodcast #spotifypodcast #listen #scriptedpodcast #scifipodcast #scriptnotes #newpodcast #audiostories #amplifymelanatedvoices #amplifyblackvoices #shareblackstories #tiktok #dad Marcus’ Letter: When your folks sent out the email for this project I was like cool, I dig time capsules. But then I was like, shit, that means I gotta type an email. I know that I could’ve left a video or audio joint, but I felt like with everything going on, I wanted to type something that I could edit and get right. That I could look at and read through, and if I read it out loud it would’ve felt like a performance, and given the moment we’re living through, I wanted to do it justice. And so it took me awhile to get it together and send this out. Your dad’s are my oldest friends, so this is humbling, I take this very personally. You aren’t too young to understand what’s going on. You’re all smart kids. I think about y’all a lot, wondering what the world will be like when you’re my age. What you’ll remember about this time we’re all surviving. I know people who have lost someone recently. Some because of COVID, some just because they were unlucky enough to die during a pandemic. I’ve heard about the awkward Zoom ceremonies. Old people not knowing to mute their feed or unaware that any noise they make centers the video away from whomever is speaking. Rambling. And the typical inappropriate speeches that go on that seem more cringey because you’re wearing a bathrobe while giving it. Today was George Floyd’s memorial. Al Sharpton was there, of course. He beseeched those in earshot, America in this case, to get your knees off our necks. I wonder what America will do with that advice. She’s always been a stubborn kind of kid, convinced of her own nobility despite evidence to the contrary. They set bail for the officers, the other three that were there when Floyd died, at $750,000. Seems like a lot, but the police unions have fairly deep pockets. Police unions. Who knew there were ANY unions left with power, much less ones holding cities hostage. We’ve learned a lot about cops lately. We, US, we always knew but now everyone is getting glimpses. Like how often and to what degree the police will blatantly lie. There was this protester in Buffalo who the police pushed over as they went to close off the area. Pushed him to the ground and left him to spasm and bleed on the pavement. He was a 75 year old white man. They said he tripped and fell when there’s clear video evidence that he was pushed. White people are getting a front row seat to how they manipulate the narrative unfairly, triggering fresh distrust in communities with calcified police resentment. It’s also an opportunity for people with no interest in the truth to tell you how they really feel. It’s...so crazy. These people think we don’t like the police because they stop us from being the criminals we were born to be. Dogwhistles are gone. Now they just say it. Honestly, I’m thankful for it, because it reconciles so many things I never really understood before. How they absentmindedly strip us of our humanity. How the tears of white women super-cede the lives of black women. It’s because they really think we foster a culture of crime that comes to us naturally, genetically. Like we’re the human version of pit bulls, prone to aggression and a physiological yearning for rigid discipline. Some of them know the history and dismiss it. How cops were always the enforcers of legal inequalities. The word systemic scares them so much that they’ve forgotten that Jim Crow refers to a set of laws, not strongly held opinions or cultural norms. Forgotten is my way of being generous. Separate but equal was always a spoonful of sugar in a barrel of poison and they knew it then and they know it now. They’ve always been talented at telling digestible lies designed to hide inconvenient truths. We want to close abortion clinics to protect the health of women. We want to support ID and signature laws to protect the integrity of elections, even though there is zero evidence of widespread voter fraud. Climate change is a hoax. Dogmatic individualism, except when it comes to a woman’s body. Guns rights, unless the cold dead hands holding them are black or brown. And on and on and on. I wonder what stories the right wing will make up about this old man. His age won’t save him, not from their machine. There’s evidence that Travis McMichael, the white man that shot Ahmaud Arbery, called him a fucking nigger, as he lay there dying. Dying because Travis shot him. I wonder how long it will be before they stand before a judge, him, his father, and their neighbor, and claim that they aren’t guilty of anything, that they did nothing wrong and that he was armed with the concrete of the road, like Trayvon’s lawyer argured. Given the tumultuous times, the president decided he wasn’t safe enough behind the walls of the White House or the men and women of the Secret Service or his military attaches and what not, so he built a wall around it, the White House, so that the protesters can’t get him. I wonder if it’ll still be up as some kind of odd monument somewhere when you hear this. Tattooed in black lives matter iconography. I look around at a lot of things and wonder if they’ll be in a museum someday. So much about now seems destined for archives and study and discussion. How did we get here? Are these the last days of the last empire? Will we be mourned? What will be left for the meek to inherit? Ex soldiers are making their way into the protests, inciting violence, a group called Boogaloo. Semi-automatic rifles and Hawaiian shirts. The feds just charged three of them as conspirators to terrorism, while Rand Paul is holding up anti-lynching legislation in the Senate. Reporters are no longer safe. They’ve been shot, beaten, sprayed, arrested, and intimidated. International Journalistic integrity organizations have expressed concerns, like we’re Saudi Arabia or something. Newspapers are having their own reckoning with the moment, the movement. On Thursday the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a headline that said “Buildings Matter Too”. A couple dozen reporters called in sick. The New York Times published an op-ed written by Tom Cotton titled “Send in the Troops.” 800 staff members signed a letter in protest. No one is prepared for this. No one has the answers. Everyone is flailing, but we are still showing up. We are fighting. Right now it doesn’t feel like enough. How did they do it? Turn the other cheek? How did Dr. King have that kind of discipline for so long? But he was wrong about some things too, the preacher and the activist. At least, I don’t think it can work today. If you two are to inherit anything, my suggestion is, abandon meekness. These people are incapable of shame and there’s no longer any such thing as shared truth. The movement then was capable of persuading hearts and minds is dead. Don’t trust these allies, they are fairweather. Bored. Resentful of confinement. Trust yourselves, your family, and that America has not been subtle about her intentions.