The actors are in place, costumed as the King and His Court. Hundreds of extras fill the Chamber of Horrors, ready to howl and moan on cue. Quiet on the set. Roll cameras, we’re shooting LA Bankruptcy, The Movie.
At 10 a.m. today, the City Council will take up deliberations of a far-reaching plan to downsize and restructure city government in hopes of avoiding the unthinkable, bankruptcy of the nation’s second largest city, the once glittering capital of glamour that has fallen on hard times, a victim of the Greenback Plague.
Oh, what a day it will be.
The rabble in their rags — laborers, peasants, cripples, stoners — will storm the Palace of Opulence that serves as City Hall, so handsomely refurbished with gold and marble adornments for $300 million across the meadow from the $500 million Bastille of Gendarmes.
Minister of Finance Miguel de Santana will tell the 15 princes and princesses on the Council of Blather how dire the situation is. The Treasury is bare. Bankers and creditors are demanding action.
There is no option but to take the bread from the rabble’s plate to feed the army of royal servants and fill the coffers of the Lords of Finance.
The Council of Blather, dressed in their finery, will nod their heads in agreement and then nod off to sleep, weary from their life of self-indulgence.
And then the king himself, King Antonio, will slip into the Chamber of Horrors from the back room where he has been cowering in fear for so long and announce they must act today or he will assert his royal prerogative and slash and burn under his own authority.
Nothing for the homeless bums, the blind and disabled, not even crumbs for the multitudes of peasants.
Prince Rosendahl dares to interrupt, demanding the king “explain to me and my district how he can better spend that money than
what we’re spending it on. We don’t waste a penny.”
Crown Prince Eric glares coldly at him and says, with the restraint he is so renowned for, “It’s not that those funds are used for bad things. It’s that we have people who are about to lose their jobs.”
Those people, the royal servants, cheer and clap in support and break into chanting “Feed Us, Feed Us, Feed Us…”
The lower classes mutter and grumble amongst themselves until one fearless soul, hat in hand steps forward and meekly asks for mercy, “Just a crumb, please just a crumb from your table, oh Lords and Masters…”
Tears welling up her eyes, the ambitious Princess Janice, touches the peasant’s shoulder with her gloved hand and says she hears his plaint and announces she will give up one of her body servants.
“If we’re asking everyone else to sacrifice, we have to also be willing to offer up,” she declares.
“Let these humble beings eat cake but only a small piece.”
When the king sneaks out the back of the Chamber much as he arrived, the Council engages the arduous labor of agreeing to everything demanded of them.
But then the unexpected happens, brave young Shawn Simons of Arc rushes forth and demands to be heard. She passionately calls on the Council to retreat from their actions, to see the disaster that will occur, how the whole kingdom could fall into poverty and chaos.
Her pleas fall on deaf ears. She refuses orders to be silent but as the gendarmes move to escort from the Chamber, the masses of nobodies behind her rush forward and a voice in the crowd shouts, “Off with their heads.”
At that moment, the director shouts: “Cut, and print.”