Ether Driscoll from District 2
Victor of the Twenty-Eighth Annual Hunger Games
The following play, Flickering, was written by Ether Driscoll, victor of the twenty-eighth Hunger Games. That year, the gamemakers periodically flooded the arena with toxic gas, a powerful hallucinogenic. Unfortunately, the victor's mind was permanently damaged by the gas, leaving her with limited mental capacity and a number of severe anxiety disorders. She spent the next five years in a high-security mental institution, making her one of the few victors not to inhabit the Victors' Village in their district.
Despite her shattered mental state, Ether had quite a brilliant imagination. One of her therapists recommended she write a book or play about her past. Her overseers in the mental institution were apprehensive about providing her with a writing instrument, fearing she might use it to hurt herself, but they allowed it in the end.
The handwritten text of the play – which consists of a single scene and tells the story of Ether's Hunger Games – was not recovered in its full until after the second rebellion. A historian from District 12, interested in documenting the lives of the past victors, recovered the pages from the garbage can in her long-abandoned space in the mental hospital. Before then, only half of the pages were known, having been kept in a museum in the Capitol. Now, we can piece together a complete picture of Ether Driscoll's artistic vision.
Despite having no rigid structure, the play Flickering can be divided into numerous sections based on style. It begins with a scattered collection of contrasting scenes, eventually resolving in the bloodbath of the games, when the narrative becomes substantially more solid. As time passes, the plot once again becomes non-linear.
To date, it has been staged only once. As it is unlikely Ether ever intended the work to be performed, it contains some unpolished dialogue and stage directions that would be nearly impossible in a real theater. Therefore, it is better enjoyed in the written form than in actual performance. Flickering has been repurposed and adapted for both film and stage, though the author disapproved of this practice while she was alive. The text is presented here in its original and unabridged form.
FLICKERING
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL STAGE PLAY BY ETHER DRISCOLL
Darkness. Three bright lights appear, which resolve into rotating spotlights. We are on CASSIAN FLICKERMAN'S stage, mere moments before the cameras go live. Avoxes rush across the stage as the crowds fill. CASSIAN taps on his microphone. There is a screeching moment of feedback.
A harassed-looking peacekeeper appears upstage, carrying a flashlight. He grunts [or groans; handwriting unclear] at the crowds of tongueless servants. They are below him, literally and socially.
PEACEKEEPER: Cameras rolling in five minutes. Mr. Flickerman!
CASSIAN: Thank you.
They retire.
The scene changes.
The streets of the Capitol are seen. A traffic light flashes. A crowd of passersby, as colorful as exotic birds, rushes past. A clattering noise is heard: trampling feet, train tracks, coal being shoveled into a wheelbarrow. A child, dressed in pink, giggles and throws a lamp, which shoots sparks over the candy-colored sidewalk.
There is a whistle from far off. A shop window flickers. The lights begin to darken. Power has been unstable as of late.
Two peacekeepers enter.
FIRST PEACEKEEPER: Uprising in Five, eh?
SECOND PEACEKEEPER: You could say that.
FIRST PEACEKEEPER: And how's it going?
SECOND PEACEKEEPER: Snow is keeping things under control.
FIRST PEACEKEEPER: Under control?
The SECOND PEACEKEEPER knocks on his gun, laughing a little.
The scene changes.
The lights begin to brighten. At first they glow faintly, casting creepy shadows over the devices and appliances littering the aircraft. Offstage, a rumbling sound is played. This suggests we are inside a moving vehicle.
This is the inside of the tribute hovercraft. The twenty-four terrified kids are locked down to their seats. The light focuses on ETHER, the girl from District 2. She hopes her training does not fail her, though she is far too exhausted to worry about such things. She rests her head on the shoulder of her district partner, PAXTON. Nothing is being suggested.
ETHER: How much longer, you think?
PAXTON: An hour, I don't know. We could ask.
ETHER: They'd tell us to shut up.
PAXTON: We're their favorites. You know that, don't you?
A clock beeps five times.
ETHER: They have to have us at the arena by six. Less than an hour left. You think Maximus is already there?
PAXTON: Yep. Tyrell too.
ETHER's eyes run wild with anxiety. She is no longer tired. She hopes her training will not fail her. Her eyes nervously twitch, as though coinciding with her rapid heartbeat.
The overhead light sparks and goes out. One of the outliers panics, bracing for a hovercraft crash, but none comes. Hovercrafts never crash. This is a dramatic trick of the gamemakers, meant to toy with their senses of what is real from before they even enter the arena. Are the lights flickering at all, or is it just their wild imaginations? The audience can't be sure.
The scene changes.
The stage fills with fog. The twenty-eighth annual Hunger Games are mere moments from beginning. The competitors are gathered in a circle, preparing to dash into the fray or run for their lives. Whatever their mentors advised them toward.
There is a mad rush, a scene of utter chaos. The cornucopia stands tall and proud, a shining monolith against the sky, a temple to the horrors of humanity. Tributes rush around it: we see ETHER, PAXTON, and the pair from 1, DAZZLE and PEPPERMINT. Blood splatters the stage.
PEPPERMINT: Two!
ETHER: Yeah?
PEPPERMINT: Get them over there. Dazzle and I'll take the horn.
They depart.
ETHER makes her first kill, skewering the boy from 7. He falls to the ground, coughing up blood and wriggling like a dying fish. A lamp shatters over the stage, sparks raining down.
PEPPERMINT and DAZZLE have established their reign over the cornucopia. More smoke machines turn on, drenching the stage in fog. More lights shatter overhead: more lives extinguished. As they continue cutting down tributes, ETHER emerges downstage, her blades covered in blood.
ETHER: Helluva morning.
The battle begins to die out. There are eleven dead bodies on the stage; their blood splatters the cornucopia like an explosion of red paint. A gruesome image, sure, but doubtlessly an appropriate one.
DAZZLE: And that's how it's done!
PAXTON: Eleven?
ETHER: Eleven.
She has carefully counted.
DAZZLE: The 4s. Where are they?
He is referring to the tributes from District 4, who have been close friends since childhood and paired off by themselves rather than running with the career pack.
ETHER: They ran off.
PEPPERMIT: Bastards.
The last light sputters and goes out. There is darkness. DAZZLE, PEPPERMIT, and PAXTON retire from the stage, their footsteps echoing like thunder. This indicates they are in a large, yawning rocky space. The whole audience could fit inside of it.
There is a spark, a flame, and a candle is lit. ETHER's eyes are wide again, but perhaps not so wild as before; the worst has come to pass. The candlelight dances over her chin like wax dancing on water. Otherwise, the space is completely dark.
There is a loud banging noise, and a hiss like a million tiny fires. A light roars at the back of the audience, then dies out. Another hiss. ETHER notices the disturbance and slides off the stage, struggling to land on her feet as though she has fallen a long distance. She is battered from the fall.
ETHER: Pax… Pepp…. She is nervously calling for her allies, but they are not there.
The flash and the bang come again.
ETHER: Hey! Do you see this?
The actor who played the boy from District 7 appears at the end of the aisle. He slowly approaches ETHER, his hand outstretched. He is beckoning her. His face is covered in blood where ETHER stabbed him.
The hallucination strengthens. The lights flicker more rapidly.
ETHER: I'm going crazy, aren't it?
She has said it.
DAZZLE, PEPPERMINT, and PAXTON appear around her. The lights suddenly roar to full strength, and the hallucination stops.
DAZZLE: Finished sorting the supplies yet?
PEPPERMINT: Just about.
PAXTON: Look what I found back there! (wielding a wicked-looking sword)
DAZZLE: Nice, I'm very scared.
He is joking.
ETHER: Yeah.
She is not joking.
ETHER steps away from the other career tributes. She is in a daze. She has never believed in ghosts – not before now, at least.
PAXTON: Something wrong, Ether?
ETHER: No.
PAXTON: You're lying.
She says nothing.
PEPPERMINT: Time for lunch. I'll get something ready for each of you. Should we start hunting now or wait until tomorrow? I'm down for either.
DAZZLE: Let's wait. Let the gamemakers show us what this arena is made of before we go headfirst into it.
PEPPERMINT: Understood.
The lights fade away. All that is left is ETHER, her eyes wide, standing in the fog at the mouth of the cornucopia. A light flickers at the back of the audience. Then everything is quiet.
The scene changes.
Sunlight pours in through an open window. CASSIAN FLICKERMAN is seated at an ornate wooden desk, beyond which is the elaborately decorated back set of his daily talk show. He is surrounded by cameras, whirring and blinking and turning [or twinkling; handwriting unclear] around him like little mosquitoes. How pesky. They do not seem to bother him at all. Beyond the window is the Capitol, decorated using the same set as it was in the opening scene. Perhaps the lamp the child threw is still sparking on the ground.
PEACEKEEPER: Cameras rolling in five minutes, Mr. Flickerman!
CASSIAN: Thank you.
An avox touches up his face.
PEACEKEEPER: Action!
CASSIAN: Welcome, welcome, to the Cassian Flickerman show! I spend all year looking forward to getting to talk about the Hunger Games, and so do you, so I won't keep you waiting. Before we look back on the bloodbath, let's check if anything exciting happened last night. Wouldn't want to miss any urgent updates, would we?
The screen behind him flickers to life. A scene of battle is played: the pair from 4 knifing down the girl from District 11 as she tries to run.
CASSIAN: Poor girl. I really did have some hope in her.
The light begins to fade. No sparking this time; the lights in the Capitol never spark. Not where people are so rich they never need to worry about electricity.
On the other side of the stage, the light shines on a different scene: a dirty house. Mud litters the floor. A family is gathered around a television set that is falling apart, dressed in rags. There is the faint hum of bees buzzing outside the window. A cloud of dust, a puff of smoke. Maybe even the smell of manure. The District 11 family sees their child die on screen, and they burst into tears. The light fades.
The light shines on CASSIAN FLICKERMAN again, as he excitedly narrates the goings-on in the arena.
CASSIAN: It's Day 4 and we have ten tributes left. Let's take a look, shall we? First off, we have Dazzle and Peppermint from 1. There's no such thing as a perfect career pack, not in any sense, but these fellas are doing pretty great together if I do say so myself. The effects of the toxic gas don't seem to have struck them yet. The same can't be said about the other tributes. Look at Tasha from 5. She's stumbling around like a mad woman! And Tris from 8 isn't doing great either. Oh dear. Let's take a look at the careers individually now…
As he reads off each name, a face flashes on the screen.
CASSIAN: Dazzle, Peppermint, Paxton, Ether…
When he says the name "Ether" the lights go out instantly. Stagehands rush to change the set in the brief timespan before they will once again shine. There is a trip, a scrape, and a spark. We see ETHER wandering the arena, candle stretched in front of her, murmuring softly into the air. She has split away from the careers; the hallucinogenic gas made her forget who they were. She ran from them thinking they were a threat.
ETHER: Come out, come out, wherever you are.
One imagines a creepy haunted doll in a horror film.
ETHER: Come out, come out.
There is a scurrying sound nearby. The audience realizes that we are no longer watching CASSIAN Flickerman's screen; we have been transported into the arena itself.
There is a scuffling noise in the darkness. ETHER pounces. There is a scream, a cannon shot, and ETHER rises with fresh blood dripping off her blade.
The candle in her hands begins to brighten. It illuminates more and more of the stage until the entire area is lit (helped by the lights in the ceiling). She draws into the darkness of the wings, and CASSIAN FLICKERMAN's set is once again seen.
CASSIAN: Day 6, folks. Day 6.
A clock ticks.
CASSIAN: Day 7. Day 7.
Time is passing in ultra-high speed. Tributes rush back and forth behind CASSIAN: bleeding, dying, running after each other with weapons. We see the pair from 4 attack the little boy from 3, cutting open his abdomen with two heavy chops. A fight breaks out in the career pack, and Peppermint falls at the hands of Paxton. We are racing through time itself, the lights rotating around the perimeter of the stage as though tracking the hand movement from inside a clock. Every time a tribute is killed, a lightbulb shatters and sparks overhead.
Time comes to a standstill. It is Day 14, and there are three tributes left. ETHER emerges from the vortex of time, her entire outfit stained with blood. DAZZLE from 1 stands at the other end of the stage, his eyes rotating wildly. He, too, has been driven to madness by the noxious gas. Finally, there is the girl from 7. She hasn't had a single line thus far, but she is played by the same actress who portrayed Peppermint.
CASSIAN FLICKERMAN draws away as the tributes rush into action. A barking noise is heard, echoing over the stony, rock-filled landscape like a clap of thunder. DAZZLE lets out a scream. The mutts have torn her apart. There will be nothing for her family to bury.
ETHER and the girl from 7, JUNIPER, circle one another with tact and fear and madness.
JUNIPER: Do you dare, big girl?
ETHER: 'Course I do.
JUNIPER: They did this to us, you know.
ETHER: Us?
JUNIPER points upward.
JUNIPER: The gods.
ETHER: You mean the gamemakers?
JUNIPER: Same difference.
She would never speak like this if her mind was in working order.
ETHER: Why did they do this to us? Has anyone ever stopped and thought?
JUNPIER: I can figure.
ETHER: And?
JUNIPER: They're angry at us. We've done something wrong. And now we have to pay.
The madness of the stage grows alongside that of the girls themselves. The lights turn erratically in two different colors, representing the two tributes left in the games.
They pounce. We see ETHER and JUNIPER wresting on the ground, fighting for dear life. Clearly, they have forgotten all about their previous conversation. They can't remember anything at all anymore. ETHER drags her knife through JUNIPER's chest, and the lights dim as her eyes slowly close…
The scene changes.
Darkness. Then there is a single light, which resolves into a bright surgical lamp. The buzzing of electric lighting. ETHER, covered in blood, lies on a surgical chair with wires of every color hooked up to her veins. In this place, there are no more rocky hills, no more dangerous enemies, no more poison gas. Even so, she is uneasy. She is only partially conscious but she knows that something has broken inside of her. The Hunger Games have changed her forever.
Two figures loom in the background, suspended in mist. They look almost like ghosts. However, there is no supernatural visitor in the audience now. The action is confined the stage, the same way the thoughts are bunched up nervously in her mind.
One of the figures emerges, then the other. They are the two living victors from District 2.
MAXIMUS: Thought we'd lost you there for a minute.
ETHER: Who are you?
MAXIMUS: I must have been right then.
TYRELL: It's okay, Ether. Take a deep breath.
ETHER: Where am I?
TYRELL: It's okay. You're in the hospital.
MAXIMUS: They're tidying you up because your victor interview is tomorrow.
TYRELL: Maximus! Don't scare her.
He sweeps her hair aside. Nothing is begin suggested. He looks at her with the most powerful expression of sympathy imaginable. It's his annual tradition to comfort the new victor to the best of his ability.
TYRELL: You've entered a scary life, Ether. But you can be happy. I promise one day you'll learn to be happy like this.
MAXIMUS: A celebrity.
TYRELL: Oh, shut up. Well, yes. But you'll learn how to feel normal. It might take a long time. You might always feel like there's something missing. It's a scary thing. Not going to lie about that!
ETHER: What happened to me, anyway?
MAXIMUS: You were in the games.
ETHER: I know that.
MAXIMUS: And they broke you. Mentally. I've looked at the charts, and…
TYRELL interrupts him.
TYRELL: Don't scare her!
ETHER: Tell me the truth. I don't care if it's bad.
MAXIMUS: They fried your brain.
TYRELL: Terribly. It's okay, Ether. It really is.
ETHER: What have they done to me?
TYRELL: I'm sorry, young one.
The two men fall into the shadows.
Time falls out of order again. The movements on stage become rapid, vibrant, almost psychedelic. ETHER rises from her seat as the entire cast appears, their shadows stretching far over the stage even though their bodies can barely be seen. The seconds seem to move out of sequence – it is terrifying, the solid realization of her madness.
ETHER approaches the front edge of the stage. Her hospital gown rustles gently around her. The stage lights fade except for a single lightbulb hanging above her head. It sparks and dies out.
Finis.
List of Victors
District 1 (4 Victors): Luxor Dodge (1st), Citrine Whitacre (9th), Peridot Partridge (18th), Vintner Aphelion (23rd)
District 2 (5 Victors): Tyrell Crowley (3rd), Lancaster Percy (6th), Ajax Mathers (15th), Maximus Decimus (21st), Ether Driscoll (28th)
District 3 (2 Victors): Lumen Orlaith (12th), Cobalt Thindrel (19th)
District 4 (3 Victors): Mags Flanagan (11th), Ripple Hart (16th), Makani Lee (26th)
District 5 (2 Victors): Electra Wilty (4th), Fumer Griffin (25th)
District 6 (2 Victors): Jaguar Stratton (7th), Annley Benz (27th)
District 7 (3 Victors): Rowan Dobson (2nd), Willow Merrick (13th), Ebony Merrick (14th)
District 8 (2 Victors): Georgio Bronte (8th), Burton Flax (22nd)
District 9 (1 Victor): Izzy Mayfleet (17th)
District 10 (1 Victor): Argus Collymore (24th)
District 11 (2 Victors): Bluebell Singer (5th), Crow Kensington (20th)
District 12 (1 Victor): Canary Roselock (10th)