EXT. FRONT PATIO OF THE VIEUX VOISINS HOTEL – THE NEAR FUTURE

JULIA and REMUS sit stately between feathered pillars, almost as statues, basking in caramel sunshine. JULIA sports a blazer the color of ripe Chelan cherries, or dried blood, her venomous image grounded by a pair of snakeskin loafers. She is somewhere in her late 30s. Her hair is sharp as a crown and black as ink. REMUS is as old, but he’s aged worse. He wears whatever is most comfortable; today, a light gray track jacket with matching sweatpants, held together by an ill-advised orange stripe. The bizarre duo have seated themselves near a little brass table, nursing outrageous multicolored cocktails while dragging pensive glances over the world before them. Their faces absorb the scene without giving anything away, speaking calmly to the other in low, secretive snatches.

REMUS

I’ll never understand you. Why in hell did you pick THIS one?

JULIA

It’s simple, really. Unlike at our other properties, the Chevron-BP Martini Bar & Lounge (®) serves fresh gooseneck oysters, hand-plucked from the shores of Cascadia and sauteed in Napa reserve. Then, here in Oregon, Boeing’s upcoming Boomtime Bonanza Funsplosion Play-pit (™) hasn’t blemished our lobby yet. Some drama with the hippies up North. So, that means no drooling kids and sexless, neglectful parents interrupting happy hour.

REMUS

Fuck the oysters, and fuck the play pit. If I’ve gotta sit through one more “broOOOooo!” the next time that skater lands an ollie, I’m gonna splatter his guts right on the goddamn pavement. HAHA! Whoda known these urchins have a taste for barnacles?

REMUS grips the hefty six-shooter sagging in the pocket of his sweatpants, considering the chamber, teasing the trigger. The group of skaters trace a circuit around the hotel grounds, taunting him specifically.

JULIA

That’s the catch, Remus, they don’t have an appetite. They’re mean, uncreating things. I’m sure they’ll be the first to go. [She sips her drink slowly, taking care not to allow its decorative peacock feather to rub against her makeup.]

REMUS

Whew, mean and uncreating? That’s rich coming from you, Jule. Tell me sweetheart, with all your vay voy-zen hotels, what have you actually done for your people?

JULIA

Don’t you DARE question me, you worm. You were inside of me today, and you’ll beg to be fucked again tomorrow. What changed? I thought you were all about being told what to do. Will you moan for Robert E. Lee when you cum, or will it be Mussolini this time? You fascist, you’re pathetic.

REMUS

Look—Ju—mistress, please, hear me out. I’m trying to save our asses here, and there’s a lot of ecclesiastical merit to this national socialism stuff. Meanwhile, where’s Reagan getting you? You think God’ll be happy to see you’ve turned half of his planet into a parking lot?

JULIA

You make me nauseous.

REMUS

I know it, baby. [He drinks deep, liquor dripping gluttonously on his chin. Beat.] But you didn’t summon me to mock my political enlightenment. You have a story to tell.

JULIA

(Colder)

Yes. I do.

REMUS

So? Get on with it. Don’t squander our time.

JULIA

(Clearing her throat, eventually:)

We were stationed right up against the Columbia river back then. The kids used to play tag in the backyard, chasing each other through the misty green and tottering along the bank. The sky hung low when it rained, which it often did. On days like that the Columbia’s abyssal blue could suck you under in a flash; one wrong step and you’d drop out of existence. I didn’t mind them playing while the river swelled, but CASSIUS always got nervous. He’s the better parent, I suppose.

REMUS squirms at the mention of her husband. Her wedding ring pokes him like a thorn. Cassius, he fumes, suppressing an unknown arousal.

JULIA (CONT’D)

One afternoon it was coming down so hard that you couldn’t see the furthest bank; Washington’s impenetrable mountains were gone, the current just swallowed everything. Cassius was shouting for the kids over the wild wind, sobbing hysterically, blurring his battered body with the darkening world. I’d taken my tea with LSD to calm my nerves, unlock a chakra or two, perhaps, while I slouched against the wall, my nose on the factory glass like a big puppy, finding fractals in the wet outdoors as the cool air bloomed beneath my nostrils, melted away, bloomed again; getting so lost in the sounds and shapes that they became all I knew—until it wasn’t—I wasn’t—it was all fizzled out, the kids, Cassius, everything.

REMUS

(After silence)

So… when did you see—

JULIA

(Interrupting)

—SUDDENLY I was awake, my heavy clothes stinking of freshwater, clutching the children to my chest while Cassius splayed on the lawn, stale as a corpse. But I always knew they’d be fine. What came next… I don’t know, Remus. It freezes me. I saw someone burning where I blacked out. Its skin was the hottest hydrogen of suns, its eyes endless, heroic, absolute. I knew then, that this was GOD. And it transmitted spoken words between our verdant distance that I thought but did not hear, and could not bear. “JULIA,” it spoke, “Gaius Julia Caesar, build for me the eternal empire, become lord of lords. It is your LAST COMMAND.” So, I did what any sensible woman would do. I put our inheritance into real estate, razed America’s kingdoms to dust, made their CEOs bend the knee. 

She pauses to survey her fortress; its baroque façade frames pendent chandeliers, whose brilliant flame sinks low and marbles in the swimming pool, rising up to cast liquid light on the coffered walls. On the closest panel, a painting hangs: John Martin, Belshazzar’s Feast. Sequoias pave the parking lot while real macaws sing symphonies in a sea salt sky. The world is going to end.

JULIA

Well, here we are.

REMUS

(Shaken)

That means—if the merger was a success—you’ve, you’ve… [with a twinkle of sudden revelation] you’ve done it.

JULIA

Yes, Remus. The last command has been fulfilled. Now, we wait.

They watch the sun ripen and sugar like a Turkish apricot, burning a bullet hole through the skin of heaven. Rush hour traffic bleats and ripples across the air, received for a false second as Michael’s trumpet. Not quite yet, they think, turning from each other. Sickened smog trembles on the horizon, smelling of brimstone, same as always. They sip and wait, slowly, slowly sip and wait.