The Stars Hollow Gazette- Updated!

You know, people who work on holidays are really performing a public service.

I like Thanksgiving because it’s time and a half and dead slow.  You’re sold out of milk anyway so you can basically just zone.

Black Friday is busy for the cashiers and more so for the floor sales people who have to answer all the questions.  Not so much in Stock where you were much more likely to get a call for boxes that were in short supply (and invariably stored in the big uncataloged pile behind the facade mirror with the unsorted hangers).

Your basic job is to deliver carts of merchandise between the loading dock and the sales floor storerooms.  You need to be able to read a routing card and sign off that the seal is unbroken and matches before the Department head accepts inventory control.  Someone has to do it.

The first place I worked, by the end of the season we were storing things on the roof and in two semi-trailers in the loading dock.  The second place the loading dock was in the basement of a ‘historic’ store.

The store was so historic in fact that I was practically the last one standing when they closed it, frantically doing inventory of some hideous green abstract floral sheets 100 years out of season we were looking to dump on a liquidator.

It all falls in the rounds.

Scene 5.VI.

The same.  Le Bret and Ragueneau.

LE BRET:  What madness!  Here?  I knew it well!

CYRANO:  (smiling and sitting up)  What now?

LE BRET:  He has brought his death by coming, Madame.

ROXANE:  God!  Ah, then! that faintness of a moment since. . .?

CYRANO:  Why, true!  It interrupted the ‘Gazette:’  . . . Saturday, twenty-sixth, at dinner-time,  Assassination of De Bergerac.

(He takes off his hat; they see his head bandaged.)

ROXANE:  What says he?  Cyrano!–His head all bound!  Ah, what has chanced?  How?–Who?  . . .

CYRANO:

‘To be struck down,

Pierced by sword i’ the heart, from a hero’s hand!’

That I had dreamed.  O mockery of Fate!

–Killed, I! of all men–in an ambuscade!

Struck from behind, and by a lackey’s hand!

‘Tis very well.  I am foiled, foiled in all,

Even in my death.

RAGUENEAU:  Ah, Monsieur!  . . .

CYRANO:  (holding out his hand to him)  Ragueneau, weep not so bitterly!  . . .  What do you now old comrade?

RAGUENEAU:  (amid his tears)  Trim the lights for Moliere’s stage.

CYRANO:  Moliere!

RAGUENEAU:  Yes; but I shall leave to-morrow.  I cannot bear it!  Yesterday, they played ‘Scapin’, I saw he’d thieved a scene from you!

LE BRET:  What! a whole scene?

RAGUENEAU:  Oh, yes, indeed, Monsieur.  The famous one, ‘Que Diable allait-il faire?’

LE BRET:  Moliere has stolen that?

CYRANO:  Tut!  He did well!

(to Ragueneau)

How went the scene?  It told–I think it told?

RAGUENEAU:  (sobbing)  Ah! how they laughed!

CYRANO:  Look you, it was my life to be the prompter every one forgets!

(To Roxane)

That night when ‘neath your window Christian spoke

–Under your balcony, you remember?  Well!

There was the allegory of my whole life:

I, in the shadow, at the ladder’s foot,

While others lightly mount to Love and Fame!

Just! very just!  Here on the threshold drear

Of death, I pay my tribute with the rest,

To Moliere’s genius,–Christian’s fair face!

(The chapel-bell chimes.  The nuns are seen passing down the alley at the back, to say their office)

Let them go pray, go pray, when the bell rings!

ROXANE:  (rising and calling)  Sister!  Sister!

CYRANO:  (holding her fast)  Call no one.  Leave me not.  When you come back, I should be gone for aye.

(The nuns have all entered the chapel.  The organ sounds)

I was somewhat fain for music–hark! ’tis come.

ROXANE:  Live, for I love you!

CYRANO:

No, In fairy tales

When to the ill-starred Prince the lady says

‘I love you!’ all his ugliness fades fast–

But I remain the same, up to the last!

ROXANE:  I have marred your life–I, I!

CYRANO:

You blessed my life!

Never on me had rested woman’s love.

My mother even could not find me fair:

I had no sister; and, when grown a man,

I feared the mistress who would mock at me.

But I have had your friendship–grace to you

A woman’s charm has passed across my path.

LE BRET:  (pointing to the moon, which is seen between the trees)  Your other lady-love is come.

CYRANO:  (smiling)  I see.

ROXANE:  I loved but once, yet twice I lose my love!

CYRANO:  Hark you, Le Bret!  I soon shall reach the moon.  To-night, alone, with no projectile’s aid!  . . .

LE BRET:  What are you saying?

CYRANO:  I tell you, it is there, there, that they send me for my Paradise.  There I shall find at last the souls I love in exile- Galileo, Socrates!

LE BRET:  (rebelliously)  No, no!  It is too clumsy, too unjust!  So great a heart!  So great a poet!  Die like this?  What, die?  . . .

CYRANO:  Hark to Le Bret, who scolds!

LE BRET:  (weeping)  Dear friend  . . .

CYRANO:   (starting up, his eyes wild)  What ho!  Cadets of Gascony!  The elemental mass–ah yes!  The hic. . .

LE BRET:  His science still–he raves!

CYRANO:  Copernicus  Said  . . .

ROXANE:  Oh!

CYRANO:

Mais que diable allait-il faire,

Mais que diable allait-il faire dans cette galere?. . .

Philosopher, metaphysician,

Rhymer, brawler, and musician,

Famed for his lunar expedition,

And the unnumbered duels he fought,–

And lover also,–by interposition!–

Here lies Hercule Savinien

De Cyrano de Bergerac,

Who was everything, yet was naught.

I cry you pardon, but I may not stay;

See, the moon-ray that comes to call me hence!

(He has fallen back in his chair; the sobs of Roxane recall him to reality; he looks long at her, and, touching her veil)

I would not bid you mourn less faithfully

That good, brave Christian: I would only ask

That when my body shall be cold in clay

You wear those sable mourning weeds for two,

And mourn awhile for me, in mourning him.

ROXANE:  I swear it you!  . . .

CYRANO:  (shivering violently, then suddenly rising)  Not there! what, seated?–no!

(They spring toward him)

Let no one hold me up–

(He props himself against the tree)

Only the tree!

(Silence)

It comes.  E’en now my feet have turned to stone, my hands are gloved with lead!

(He stands erect)

But since Death comes, I meet him still afoot,

(He draws his sword)

And sword in hand!

LE BRET:  Cyrano!

ROXANE:  (half fainting)  Cyrano!

(All shrink back in terror.)

CYRANO:  Why, I well believe, he dares to mock my nose?  Ho!  Insolent!

(He raises his sword)

What say you?  It is useless?  Ay, I know

But who fights ever hoping for success?

I fought for lost cause, and for fruitless quest!

You there, who are you!–You are thousands!

Ah!

I know you now, old enemies of mine!

Falsehood!

(He strikes in air with his sword)

Have at you!  Ha! and Compromise!

Prejudice, Treachery!  . . .

(He strikes)

Surrender, I?

Parley?  No, never!  You too, Folly,–you?

I know that you will lay me low at last;

Let be!  Yet I fall fighting, fighting still!

(He makes passes in the air, and stops, breathless)

You strip from me the laurel and the rose!

Take all!  Despite you there is yet one thing

I hold against you all, and when, to-night,

I enter Christ’s fair courts, and, lowly bowed,

Sweep with doffed casque the heavens’ threshold blue,

One thing is left, that, void of stain or smutch,

I bear away despite you.

(He springs forward, his sword raised.  It falls from his hand.  He staggers, falls back into the arms of Le Bret and Ragueneau.)

ROXANE:  (bending and kissing his forehead)  ‘Tis?  . . .

CYRANO:  (opening his eyes, recognizing her, and smiling)  My white plume.

13 comments

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  1. Fun working in retail.

  2. was as a video store manager. I worked 60 hours a week, got paid crappy wages, and had to listen to customers scream at me because they were mad about late fees.

    I was hoping for more poetry or sonnets tonight.

    • RiaD on November 23, 2007 at 07:21

    I was a cashier at the only grocery open on t-day & eksmas… it was very busy & everyone always called in sick 🙁

  3. Had no idea you’d done retail. Anything you haven’t done?

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