Thursday, May 17, 2018

American Prometheus

American Prometheus
© Surazeus
2018 05 17

Of the necessity of death for love,
sing, Muse Sphinx, about rebellion of man
in this vast visionary tragedy
of our American experiment
when blinded Oedipus searches for light
that Prometheus stole from pulsing atoms.

Dressed in slick black suit with tablet in hand,
Brandon stands before the executives
of the movie production company
nestled in the lush hills of Hollywood
who stare at him with stony indifference.

"I was inspired to write this movie script
which I call American Prometheus
when I read this weird quote by Harold Bloom
from his book Anxiety of Influence."

Brandon reads from the slender well-thumbed book
with deep dramatic voice, "For every poet
begins, however unconsciously,
by rebelling more strongly against
the consciousness of death's necessity
than all other men and women do.
Romanticism, for all its glories,
may have been a vast visionary tragedy,
the self-baffled enterprise not of Prometheus,"
he pauses, "but of blinded Oedipus,
who did not know that the Sphinx was his muse."

Gazing at them with ominous expression,
Brandon unveils poster of the synopsis.
"Tragedy of an American Prometheus.
Just after graduating with high honors
from the posh ivy league university
with degrees in finance and management,
Paul is hired by elegant Oliver,
the founder and president of Impetek,
a vibrant high-tech company involved
in cutting-edge electronics research."

"Invited to the company picnic,
at this lush country golf course by the sea,
Paul meets the beautiful wife of Oliver,
a former model and aspiring actress
named Stephanie, whose shining golden hair
and silver eyes dazzle his heart with love.
Paul and Stephanie fall madly in love
while talking heart to heart about their feelings,
then make love on the beach in the moonlight,
so they begin a secret, passionate affair."

"One night after they make love in a hotel,
Stephanie cries while she tells him her story.
She was adopted after she was born
so she set out to find her real birth parents,
and discovered her father was Oliver,
who fathered her long before he was married.
But he fell madly in love with her beauty,
and not long afterward his old wife Gladys
died in a tragic driving accident,
so they got married in a nice cathedral,
concealing the fact that she is his daughter."

"Paul hacks into the company archives
and finds numerous questionable deals
which he copies on a secret hard drive
for Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Oliver is charged with financial crimes
and subject to a long and complex trial,
scandalous stories in Forbes Magazine,
and investigations in Wall Street Journal.
But though he is found innocent of charges
he loses everything in the process,
forced to resign from his own company,
and then pretty Stephanie divorces him
after revealing in court he is her father.
Homeless, living under a highway bridge,
Oliver wanders lost, shivering in anguish,
lamenting his fall from grace like Oedipus."

"Paul is hired as the new young president
of Impetek as reward for his work,
then he buys the mansion Oliver lost
and marries Stephanie in same cathedral.
During the lavish wedding and reception
Charlene, beautiful blonde mother of Paul,
watches Stephanie with fierce scrutiny,
and asks questions like the oracle Sphinx.
Paul talks with industry professionals
about more efficient computing methods
and leads the company in new directions
so Impetek grows under his leadership."

"After Paul and Stephanie have a child
they realize that Martin is autistic,
so they take two genealogy tests
and discover that they share the same mother,
the beautiful blonde former model Charlene,
so they go to talk with her who explains how
she bore Stephanie as an unwed teen
and gave her up for adoption before
she married Samuel and gave birth to Paul.
Paul and Stephanie are shocked and confused
to find out they are half brother and sister."

"Now when Oliver gets sober and clean
he tries to retake his old company
by finding evidence of basic facts
to prove that Paul took control of Impetek
by commiting fraud through illegal methods.
When Oliver succeeds taking control,
convincing board of directors to rehire him,
since he was found innocent at the trial,
he fires Paul and calls police to arrest him
and lock him in prison like Prometheus.
Paul stomps out of the office in a rage,
but then returns with semi-automatic rifles
and storms through the shiny glass office tower,
killing everybody in a hail of bullets."

"When Paul finds Oliver and Stephanie
kissing in the posh presidential office
he kills them both with bullets to their heads
and then blows out his own brains with a blast
just as the police arrive with drawn guns.
The last scene rises up from the glass tower
to show it small and insignificant
in the vast metropolis of America
where life continues on in maze of hope."

After discussing complex social themes
expressed by the plot of his tragic tale,
the movie producers shake their heads no.
"Since your movie is like Wolf of Wall Street,
mocking sacred tenets of capitalism,
you should go and find Martin Scorsese
to finance your American tragedy.
We want to make movies that are more wholesome,
showing how our capitalism is good
and America is the greatest country
to exist in the history of the world."

Driving silver Porsche home to his small mansion,
where his wife Stephanie cooks him roast beef,
Brandon tries to find the telephone number
for Martin Scorsese, so he looks down,
distracted for a moment as he plows
straight into the giant garbage dump truck.

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