Radiance

There are no rules at the end of the world. Everything is permitted. [SEVERIN smiles with one side of her mouth.] The people of Enki have spent weeks painstakingly hammering out the rules for a ritual of rulelessness. Parliamentary procedure was decorously observed. [SEVERIN produces a beautifully typeset broadsheet. She reads out its contents.] The final official broadcast from Paris will play until orbit silences it at approximately forty-six minutes past midnight. For a period of not more than seventy-two minutes afterward—one for each year the Earth will slip beyond notice—law and order shall be suspended. Post-hoc prosecutions will blind themselves to all incidents save the most egregious crimes of murder and rape, grievous harm to Enki or her essential mechanisms, or injury to children. To this end, firearms must be turned over to the constabulary, as ballistics are, at best, unpredictable bedfellows. Rank shall not be enforced or acknowledged. Stores of food and alcohol shall be open to the public. All other contraband will fall under the discretion of its purveyors, and the council certainly knows nothing about the identity or location of such persons. Those not wishing to partake in the festivities may enclose themselves in the southern sphere of the city, whose gates will close at twenty minutes to midnight and not reopen until morning under any circumstances.

The list goes on.

It is not yet nine in the evening. The public announcement system pulses a warm and comforting stream of French. They have read us a bit of Molière and Voltaire, some Victor Hugo, some Chrétien de Troyes, a bit of Apollinaire and Balzac. They have sung us “La Marseillaise” seven times, by my count. They have exhorted us to remember the ideals of the French Republic and the glory of Jeanne d’Arc, Charlemagne, the Sun King.

[A MAN’S VOICE crackles over the shot of SEVERIN on the balcony.]

RADIO FRANÇAISE

Rappelez qui vous êtes. N’oubliez pas d’où vous venez. Nous ne vous oublierons pas. Nous vous attendons pour vous. Terre est votre maison pour toujours. La France est toujours votre mère. Le Soleil est encore Roi sur tout… Remember who you are. Don’t forget where you come from. We will not forget you. We will be waiting for you. Earth is always your home. France is always your mother. The Sun is still King over all.

SEVERIN

I recognize the voice: Giraud Lourdes, who fell off the Moon, as they say. Monsieur Lourdes failed so utterly on-screen that he suffered a most modern form of professional disgrace—he returned to Earth. And then became Chaunticleer, the voice of Radio Française, reading the news each morning and telling his tall tales every Wednesday night.