When I first started writing CodeSlinger humor was a small part of the story. So I came back to the Postal Fix and rewrote it as a radio drama with thicker humor. Here it is the radio drama rewrite never before published.
Postal Fix – Radio Script – Part 1
Character Voices
Narrator – Older deeper male voice, almost with an English accent.
Mark – Young voice a little nasally not high but not deep.
Victor – Deep healthy voice, enthusiastic mostly, with strong laugh.
Kelly – High school girl voice, a little valley girl and snotty.
Scene1 – The Phone Call
MUSIC: Silent background or cheesy music
Narrator: This show is dedicated to all the kids and adults who said “Don’t become a narrator you will never amount to anything.” Thank you, you were right.
MUSIC: (City Noises lightly in background)
Narrator: Our story begins here, a small quite office in the middle of a large consumer driven city. This is where our hero works, well our soon to be hero well actually he doesn’t save anyone or stop some big disaster so I guess he’s more like a main character more than a hero of the story pause anyway, and he is in the middle of another boring raining day of programming for C-Byte.
SFX: (Transition from city sounds to busy office sounds mostly typing and light talking)
NARRATOR: C-byte is not the best company to work for, although they have great insurance and dental plans their IRA and retirement leave something to be desired. They also develop silly semi useless programs that are embedded into children’s clothes. The last upgrade that Mark made to theses clothes was rather unsuccessful and made the fibers of the hideously designed clothes heat up forcing the children to remove them (low shrills and screams). As you know this kind of thing was not looked on as “good” by the parents of the now warm, half naked children and because of this Mark almost lost his job.
Mark (Sarcastic) Not that I would’ve minded, I mean who wouldn’t want to go mindless in a cubicle all day.
Narrator Ahem…right. That is exactly what Herb in cubicle 9 has done. Herb enjoys his work at C-Byte, writing repetitive code, humming, typing and drinking lukewarm coffee until 5:30 every day and he sometimes comes in on the weekends and holidays. Obviously he has lost his mind. Where if would just picked up the small cardboard box that is left of his broken office chair he would find it. He would then proceed to destroy his computer and run out of the office to the nearest hill and sing “The hills are alive with the Sound of Music” faint singing of fore mentioned song and then sound of a record scratching. Let’s hope he doesn’t find the box.
Now back to Mark. He is about to receive a very important call, that will transform the everything, well not the everything in the general sense of the word but at least Mark’s bleak existence.
SFX: (Regular office type phone ringing)
Mark Hello, this is Mark.
Victor (phone voice) Mark West?
Mark Yes.
Victor The Mark West who last month wrote an article on fixing a Linux based email program.
Mark Ahh…Yes. Who’s this?
Victor Oh yes. My name is Victor Ghetle, actually Dr. Victor Ghelte.
Mark Okay?
Victor I am, kind of, in need of your assistance. Do you think you could meet me at my office at 435 Fleck Street say around 6 tonight? I would like some help with an email program.
Mark Ahh…sure. See you around 6.
Narrator Now Mark made a slight hesitation because he mentally checked his date book, which was, not surprisingly, empty for the next 10 months. Mark’s after work life and more specifically his love life was a disaster.
It really all started when he was a senior in high school, he had to ride his sisters pink banana seat bike to school for an entire month. The reason he had to do that was because his mothers pink Cadillac, which would drag the bumper because the shocks where out, exploded in front of the school one morning from a lone spark that ignited the gas tank but because the car was always low on fuel it only caused a ruckus and didn’t injure anyone. As you can imagine this type of thing doesn’t help your chances of getting a date to the prom, which went a little something like this for Mark.
Mark (Nervous) Kelly would you …ahh… like to go to the prom with me.
Kelly Aren’t you the guy with that pink bike.
Mark (Defensive) No.
Kelly Then why are the back of jeans all pink?
Mark Ahh … ohh .. I gotta go.
SFX: (Sounds of Mark running away)
Narrator The whole pink bike issue humiliated him and he spent all of his time in his room programming, which is why he is now at C-Byte putting that skill he developed out of humiliation to good use.
The article Victor referred to was in fact Mark’s 5th article to be published in the monthly “Coders Monthly”, clever title, magazine. Where in fact 3.5 people actually read it and 250 others merely glanced over it to look good in front of their colleagues. The .5 from the 3.5 people, who read the article, was actually a dog that glanced over the article (pages turning). Being a very intelligent dog he immediately took it to his master (panting sounds and dog walking) who was working on the same issue with his email program that mark wrote about (frustrated male sounds and typing). Instead of looking at what his dog brought him, the dog’s master just yelled (yelling type noises and magazine being thrown across the room noise and dog whimpering) and threw the magazine at the dog. The dog in returned left a surprise in his master’s shoes later that day (squishy type noise and sigh from male voice).
After work Mark got into his late model car,
SFX: (car door shuts and something falls of the car with a clank)
NARRATOR actually very late model. He made his way downtown through the rain to Victor’s office.
SFX: (sputtering car noises with rain)
NARRATOR On the way he stopped at a stoplight. As the rain pored down on him an old street person started to clean Marks window with a rag.
SFX: (Old man grunts and window wiping noise)
NARRATOR: Which really didn’t help.
Mark Can’t you see it’s raining. Man, this guys really sharp.
Narrator And well considering his family he actually was. He is the third uncle twice removed, whatever that means, to the owner of C-byte and looking at the choices the company has made of late you could actually see the family resemblance and it would seem that wiping windows in the rain would be better than making kids clothes with implanted electronics.
SFX: (Sputter car noise with slight brake noise and car sputters off, car is stopping at destination)
Mark Hmm, This is it I guess. That puke green door upstairs must be the front door, it’s the only office with a light on.
SFX: Slow foot steps up the stairs
SFX: Gun shoots in background. police sirens
Mark Great neighborhood.
SFX: Rapid foot steps up the rest of the stairs
SFX: Knock and the door creaks open
Mark Hello…Dr. Ghetle?
