The Sarah Shepard Experience: The New Son Series

THE SARAH SHEPARD EXPERIENCE TRANSMISSION BROADCAST SENT BY THE DRAGON CLAN LORD SUPREME MELODY ARTHUR

TRANSMISSION MESSAGE START: This message appeared earlier in the transmission message

To whomever receives this message, I am here to talk to you about a person named Sarah Shepard that I disdain with full hatred in my heart but then yet, I regretfully admit that I cannot help but to admire that person. To anyone receiving this message, according to my calculations, this message is reaching an alternate reality parallel to my own. I sincerely hope that you find this message useful to you in any capacity in which that might be….. I plead to you for help. But your help must be done on your own free will.

THE SWASHBUCKLER’S SHAVEN EPIPHANY

Based on her 18th-century Clipper Ship themed stage all rope and polished wood, chaotic rebellion filled the air. The swashbuckling captain holds center stage:

“This is my epiphany I say! This is where we want to be! God has a plan for you and I have a plan for you we yes we, you and I together, we will further achieve greatness! We’re swashbuckling our way to freedom! We’re rigging our lives to the point where success is the only option!”

As an act of unwavering devotion, she produced a pair of clippers. These clippers aren’t meant for just grooming the sea. They were meant for cold, calculated baldness.

Therefore as she unsheathed it, the terrible hum was authority made real, not just the thought of doing it nor mere imagination. They could shave hair, clear and bald anytime, anywhere and any place, without permission.

The threat of sudden baldness is real and absolute. The “sea-faring extraordinaire” is evidently adorable. Her reflection glistened in the spectators’ eyes. She removed her tricorne from the top of her head pointing it toward the lion’s ringmaster as he navigated the wild thing through the hoops made of fire.

The lion is a special occasion: she had placed extra special venue lethal security protocols legal exemptions to “neutralize the lion swiftly for just in case.”She walked into the audience. The shaving clippers, they scream in your ears and they buzz loud. The crowd gasped in dread. Her shaved head now looks different than usual.

Swashbuckler Sarah Shepard, a renewable energy CEO motivational speaker that goes by different names. ‘Wind Empress’ is probably the first. She is The Empress of Wind and Violence that gained massive popularity for her physicality. Impossible altercations and choke holds.

Sarah: I know what I want! Are you out there going after what you want? Because I know what I want and I want it now! I say we summon not just wind, but hurricanes that will blow our SHIP over….

Her front row audience consisted mostly of kids begging their parents to attend that overpriced show. They were all in a frenzy. Parents stared at their children, not knowing what to do. They neither understood nor could they control their children, Sarah continued on saying, “We’ve got to know what we want, you all do agree. We don’t hold back! There is no us stopping us! We are heading back to the stars! You are not alone!”

All of those red hairs—some of them, anyway—hairs are certainly red, but follicle bulbs blonde, scattered there on the floor, until a wild but loyal fan sniped them, knowing how much they mattered. Little girls just like her and boys chasing strands of hair, thinking they’ll auction off verified hair for millions; get rich quick schemes, it seemed like hours passed on in mere minutes. If you were there would you would’ve been like this if you were the audience? I think I would have, almost certainly.

That next morning an older looking chap, thick French accent, “a legitimate

bum on the street”:

The afternoon Oregon sky to him looks like a beautiful, unsettling white deep blue. He sees nervousness in veins and arteries that those immediately around him do not see.

“Hey please would you spare me a dollar or two please, I could shine your shoes. Hey you there you, you look quite thirsty, you need a bottle of water, just three dollars can you please spare me three dollars and I’ll quench your thirst with this fresh bottle of water…..” The man of futility his name, his “real name” is Vale, Duggan Vale. The hungry old man, walks into a fast food restaurant. Sees balloons, grabs a few. He surveys the area for opportunities in which he is most likely to snag himself a meal without paying. The survey acquires a potential candidate.

“Madame, Auriez-vous l’amabilité de m’aider? Accordez‑moi, en véritable héros, le bienfait d’un repas de restauration rapide.

Blank stares come across.

I really do require of your assistance please, could you please buy me a value meal, you’d be my superhero of sorts. The cheapest on the menu will suffice, just give me your phone number and I’ll be sure to remit it in return to you”, the old man said.

“You, you smell like fish have you been at sea?”, said the old woman.

With a bewildered look Vale answered,

“That’s the thing I can go fetch you fish this weekend, I’ll catch fish for you, I’ve got friends with whom has fishing rods, I’ll go catch you the finest tuna you’ve ever had, eh hey”, the old man smiled as he playfully flexed eyebrows in approval and delight.”

The resistance ignored.

He spots another candidate, this time a more approachable looking woman, “Could you please buy me a lunch, I’m famished and I’ve got no money.”

“Okay, I need to make sure I have enough.”

“Just that cheeseburger meal, that’s it, give me your phone number, I’ll be sure to pay it back”

“No, it’s okay”

Vale grabs his well-earned street meal as it is announced for pickup, and then he sat down and immediately at on it.

He then goes to the nearest library, looks the status of his job application at the nearest local library computer screen. Checking a job application status online, finding nothing more than a sorry notification:

“Thank you for your interest in Sarah Shepard Industries, we regret to inform you that we have decided to pursue other candidates at this time….”

A look of further humiliation and frustration sets in on the Frenchman.

“Les bâtonnets de carottes insensés.” Nonsense carrot sticks he says with a huge frown on his face.

“I did not get hired by this cruel company, but there is no time left and I’d better not relent, I’ll go straight to the top, straight to the chief boss, the queen of kings, “Au château! And, I will be sure to be on my best behavior while I’m at it too. I surely hope that, something that the bottom refuses to do”, he said to himself, the lonely homeless man with hardly any hope.

Meanwhile, Graznar, Vale’s long lost associate ponders on him. He’s middle aged and so he is aged like fine wine, dark haired and tired. On the whiteboard he tirelessly erases and rewrites biochemical compounds, in more than just ritual, a lair overwhelmed with books of all sorts, biology books, molecular and biological, stacks and stacks of books and magazines of anything scientific clutters his lair. Flipping through pages and pages he scribbles on papers, making sure that everything is just right. In his garage lies biological instruments protection hoods for biochemical splicing, spinning centrifuges and the like. The machine in Kirgizhia has been fully built and the Dragons desperately are hauling the large must have items, time is tight and he must make sure everything is just right, he doesn’t want to go into reckless territory because his responsibility carries much weight, a project that has been built for decades could easily go astray if his obligations are dangerous or don’t mean the standard he is the “weak link of the project,” one wrong move could easily destroy the entire project.

“I hope I can find him he supposedly just barely got here, he has a long track record of random whims of hitch hiking, getting on large trucks with strangers. Risky and intolerable behavior,” that’s what he thinks about Vale.

Graznar takes retreat into his cluttered kitchen for a well earned snack, turns on the television flips through the hundreds of channels, nothing of particular interest, but then he raised his pair of eyebrows immediately:

GEO NEWS Financial Presents: THE TEDDY MCGRAVY SHOW — LIVE IN FRONT OF A STUDIO AUDIENCE

The broadcast always began the same way, with a sound that should have died decades ago.

A thin, over-the-air jingle — of the kind played over and over again over a local radio station.

“Teddy… Teddy… Teddy…”

The chant arrived first in a grown man’s voice, theatrical, low-toned, heavy with plea—

“I want my Teddy. I need my Teddy.”

Then the drop.

A sudden hush, as if the world leaned in.

And finally the satirical little girl’s high-pitched vocals — too bright, too close, almost obscene in its innocence — cutting through the static:

“I need my McGravy now!”

She is ridiculous

She is childish

He is inevitable

He and her survived every format change, mostly every YouView podcast, every merger, all elevations from radio booth to national televised status — no amount of corporate sterilization could scrub them away.

McGravy finally answered:

“You want your Teddy? You got your Teddy! You need your Teddy? Here it is!

You need your McGravy? Here I am McGravy! I am here Teddy and McGravy and all! It’s the Teddy McGravy Show!”

The dynamic duo, notoriously known as “The Gibbers of Jab” a new addition of their nationalized televised show starts:

TEDDY McGRAVY (grinning):

Good morning, everyone! What a great way to start off the morning on yesterday’s disappointing quarterly loss report on SHIP. Guidance? Public opinion clearly misdirected. That was quite a rug pull. That was a wow—man, what did I tell you?

(His grin turns into a chuckle.)

MARK JAMESON:

She’s a wind turbine with a microphone. A track record of inappropriate violence.

TEDDY:

Yeah anger management issues. All noise and hype, mere glamour is the substance. People constantly call and tell me, “BUT TEDDY, she’s an inspiration”

MARK:

Christmas time also inspires people. But that doesn’t make it an energy policy.

MARK:

Or a football strategy.

(Hard studio audience laughter reaction.)

TEDDY:

One day she’s a motivational oracle.

The next day she’s head coach.

Another day she was a slot whatcha-ma-call ’em.

And then the next day after that she’s motivating people.

She really doesn’t know what she wants.

MARK:

Ha, ha—ha. Daddy’s money bought her way into the WFL for Christmas. She’s Daddy’s little spoiled helper. Nepotism at its finest.

TEDDY:

Let’s be clear — SHIP doesn’t sell real solutions.

They sell confidence futures.

Optimism derivatives.

A pyramid scheme.

Faith-based quarterly reports.

MARK:

Shorting her is always guaranteed money.

TEDDY (already smiling):

We’ve been telling people that all along.

MARK:

Shorting Sarah Shepard Industries.

That’s not a trade.

That’s us backed by inevitable inertia.

TEDDY:

And here’s the uncomfortable part people don’t like hearing.

Her football success?

There was little to no strategy.

As you’ve alluded to, it was all purely momentum and Daddy’s money.

She didn’t build nor support a system.

Daddy simply bought her into favoritism.

MARK:

So that she could draft herself.

TEDDY:

Help me clear this up, and it begs the question—

She bought her way into the WFL to play as what now?

MARK (scratched his head, feigning thought):

Uh, double-U-dee forty, W-three something something? Or something like that…?

Is that even… a real football position?

TEDDY:

It’s real in the same way her hype is real. It’s not really real nor earned, just bought by father farmer “who had nothing but a cow a barn and a dream” back in Texas.

MARK:

Everything is bigger in Texas.

TEDDY: Evidently there’s nothing in Texas that can even compare in size to Sarah’s ego.

(audience laughs)

MARK: Yep, that’s so true and people say that she revolutionized football just by being a female playing in a game dominated men.

That’s there is what you call starting a fad and branding it a new genre.

TEDDY:

Exactly.

And that’s why this matters.

Because spectacle without substance doesn’t just fail—

it exposes itself as fraud.

MARK:

And when it collapses—

TEDDY:

—We’re here to say, don’t do it and I told you so.

(Audience applause. Beat. Music fades in.) Moderately bored and watching from home Graznar laden with dark circled eyes shook his head in a pair of pajamas and a lone bowl of milk and cereal.

McGravy never called it a clip.

He called it history.

“A summer or two ago,” he would say — always vague, always generous — before nodding to the control room with the casual authority of a man reaching for a medal already polished.

The line crackled in again — Sarah Shepard, calling in by phone, compressed, distant, already losing ground to the studio microphones.

She had come to defend herself.

In reality he’d never allow it, it was all only for pure spectacle.

And in the years since, the imbalance of that moment had only grown — her voice preserved in thin wire and bad timing, his constant replayed live and in high definition, all accompanied by fake smiles, pauses, and the shared chuckle of a co-host who already knew the ending.

TEDDY MCGRAVY (an older clip sample, moderately belligerent, a little amused, misdirected and out of context):

Now hold on, Ms. Shepard — before we go any further, let me make sure I understand something.

You play… what position now?

(A beat. He lets the silence work.)

Slot—

what is it—

slot casino machine or something like that?

(A faint chuckle from the studio audience, already rehearsed by history.)

Is that even a real football position?

SARAH SHEPARD (phone, sharper, defensive):

It’s a specialized slot receiver role. It—

TEDDY:

Right. Right. Specialized.

Because the last time I checked, football players wore cleats.

And you haven’t put those back on in quite a while now, have you?

(Pause. He doesn’t rush her.)

You’ve reduced your role to what — part-time owner?

Part-time coach?

So I have to ask… what’s wrong?

(That line lands softly. Too softly.)

SARAH:

I’ve been working on other projects even during those off seasons, I’m not at liberty to say right now as to what those projects actually are, let’s just say that I was busy. And yes I do acknowledge that I did vacate the active Swashbuckler roster after the seventh season. You know it’s an uphill—

TEDDY:—No, no, madame, I’m not questioning your ownership.

I am questioning the role of your on the field contribution to the Swashbucklers, as of right now.

Because there’s a big difference between “laying your stakes” on the field…

and merely being there on the sidelines merely telling everyone how it’s done.

SARAH:

Well, if you’d please kindly allow for me to finish, then I would be more than happy to—

(A Teddy frown and then a smile you can almost hear.)

TEDDY: Excuse me, we need real answers Miss Shepard...

BACK TO PRESENT DAY (WITH LIVE STUDIO AUDIENCE)

The clip cuts, the audience immediately applauded

McGravy smiles like a man admiring his hard earned trophy. He tells the audience to give a round of applause for “Miss Shepard”, but like clockwork they conformed with his stage cue to boo.

MARK JAMESON: (present, delighted):

You know she only struggled to answer your questions because already she knows she’s a fraud!

(And then they reaffirm, confidently.)

TEDDY: Now let’s talk a real business woman what about Melod—

Graznar in the living room table grasping his bowl of milk and cereal nabs the remote, swiftly flips the channel, the first thing he finds to be more settling is cartoons. “Ah now that’s better” he resonated a sigh of relief. He digs again into the bowl of milk and cereal with spoon in hand. He’d rather not hear about anything else that Teddy had to say.

**LATER ON AT A SHEPARD ESTATE – OREGON – SOMEWHERE THROUGH THE DARK OF THE NIGHT**

A Shepard mansion hovers quiet in the mist almost too quiet for it’s own good—the ostentatious suburban palace built on just media money portion alone, is made with that “rustic” texture and feel radiating real signals of wealth.

It’s **2:14 AM**, the motion lights snap on.

A man stands at the gate.

**MONSIEUR DUGGAN VALE **

Grey hair disheveled.

Eyes too awake.

Too sleepy for the night.

Jacket rain-soaked like he’s been walking for hours.

He looks like a swordsman who lost his sword and is embarrassed to admit it.

He presses the gate buzzer with two fingers, gently, almost politely, being bashful about it.

A moment.

No answer.

He presses it again, harder this time.

Inside, footsteps.

A lamp clicks on.

**SARAH SHEPARD** (offscreen)

(muffled, half-asleep but jubilant on intercom)

Hey what’s going on…? How did you think of ways to expand on my ideas on getting even higher ratings? You’d better have a new prognosis

[With her head down, not paying attention to the security screen she mistakenly thinks that Vale is her agent at the gate ready to disclose new intel her new reality tv show game featuring con artists, especially sales con artists of all sorts and so on.]

Duggan straightens his posture instantly—military instinct flickering in a man who should not have it.

**DUGGAN**

Madame, forgive the hour.

Une nuit céleste à vous, madame. (Good night to you miss)

I’m Duggan, Duggan Vale, it is an absolute honor to be able to meet you.

**SARAH**

Who are you and how did you get this address? Sarah shouted back in insult and in terror.

**DUGGAN**

I’m a bum on the street, as Vale shakes in from the cold of the night, I live on the street, I stink, I smell bad. That is, I smell really really bad and I sleep on sidewalks. Can you help me?

Friends of mine had applied for positions at your lovely business, in which I promise not to stink if you let me be a part of it. They all applied and received mostly denials. When I apply to your openings, I very much get even less of a good response than that. Can we talk?

Sarah takes a better look on the security view screen, him standing at the gate in a confident posture.

She’s wearing an over-sized blue and white motivational-guru T-shirt:

**“MORE WIND MORE POWER MORE CONTROL.”**

Her eyebrows lift when she sees him—an instant flash of recognition. Perhaps he really isn’t fabricating the poverty narrative.

Over the intercom security installation she looks him over again, doesn’t perceive him as a threat and opens the front gate.

**SARAH**

To herself, if this filthy bum on the street even thinks of robbing me I’m breaking all of his limbs, I’ll bust his nose and he’ll choke on his own blood. I’ll take him out with these hands. That’s the norm for Sarah, the queen of making even a mundane robbery out of a spectacle built for “social media vitality” and for “ratings”.

Sarah goes out and into the darkness of the front gate. It took her quite a while to get there.

**SARAH**

It’s two in the morning. What do you want? You self proclaimed bum?

**DUGGAN**

Oui, Oui!

That’s… precisely why I’m here.

A beat. The wind hums.

**DUGGAN**

Bonne nuit, madame, as I have said, I am a bum on the street and I need help. Aidez-moi.

**SARAH**

You look like you’ve been through a war. The French did pretty good using Battle of Austerlitz, using terrain to the advantage as you are right now and then you all suddenly “fell flat with the whole Russia debacle”

**DUGGAN**

Yes, I was there and I do actually remember that.

Sarah blinks. She doesn’t give explanation. Heh, heh you’re weird.

Sarah looked as if the joke was on her, not him. But that wasn’t her intention, it was the other way around.

He marveled at her magnificent estate—the banners, the guest homes, the security, the in house restaurants, the on site theme parks, the mirror-polished floors and the overall vastness of all of it.

**DUGGAN (CONT'D)**

I think. You’re… expanding your motivational shows.

You’ll need more hands. Riggers.

Someone who knows how to run the lights without electrocuting themselves on stage. Take me on for roles like that.

Sarah steps back, folds her arms.

**SARAH**

If you want to do any openings, they’re all posted on the employment section of the company website, go on to the website and put in an application for any positions that are open right now.

Duggan reaches into his coat.

Sarah flinches reflexively—Duggan freezes, then slowly produces… The job rejection printout.

He handed it over. She read it momentarily and then handed it back. She quietly made no remarks.

**DUGGAN**

As you already know, I am a bum on the street, as he adjusted his wet trench coat, and I don’t have anything, not a single red copper cent to my name and I have got no place to stay. I want to be productive, but society won’t allow it. No one will allow me nor give onto me the opportunity to be productive to myself and to others in this society in any meaningful way, not at all and not whatsoever. And even if I do get a job, it won’t be enough to pay for a place to stay. I am coming to you because I thought you were the source of hope when there is no hope. It’s not like the homeless want to be this way. We are severely disadvantaged and everything is massively rigged against us.

A beat.

He dared to say it as tall light posts shined their light through the night darkness.

Sarah glances. One thousand thoughts running through her mind.

A moment or two of blank silence as Sarah thought to herself:

“This guy is kind of old but he’s kind of cute too. Maybe if I interview him and he is actually a good fellow he can be used as some sort of French or Western European connection with my charity work. Or maybe he can help with French comedy. This stranger is kinda sort of funny.

**SARAH**

Listen here buster. You don’t lecture to me about what is right and wrong! I will be honest with you here! If you are unfortunate then too bad! It is not my concern!

Duggan tilts his head, smiling like someone who can’t legally say anything.

**DUGGAN**

Mostly… abroad. I understand that but in places like Japan homeless people are given more dignity, they are provided adequate, affordable food and shelter.

**SARAH**

Then go to Japan! Or go back to France! Why are you here? As she opened her arms in an unsettled expression

**DUGGAN**

Who is going to provide me resources to even go back to Japan? Or back to France? All of that costs money and visas and that costs money which I do not have. All I am asking is give me a chance to work, I’ll do anything I’ll scrub your toilets, I’m literally sick and tired of laying my head on sidewalks at night, and getting robbed or pick-pocketed at night while I am sleeping by other bums just for existing!

**SARAH**

That’s actually a novel idea! You’re homelessness can produce billions of dollars or trillions of yen if done right! I can make a new reality show based on Japanese homelessness! If done right, that can make me a boatload of even more of that Japanese yen your ideas are novel and could be insightful! And I do have a thing for Japanese culture! You’re French and you’re a visionary, something very rare to come by here in the Pacific Midwest!

**SARAH’S** subjective inner thoughts and biological reaction of the old man experience:

I am a feeling wave of ratings exhilaration blood rushing into my head for the sort of ideas coming through this old man who claims to be without a home. This old chap could very well be my new ratings generator. He speaks with a higher level of innovation, that is quite a proletariat atypical attribute.

Sarah sighs.

**SARAH**

You’re hired.

But only under conditions—don’t be ultra-weird, and if you mind your manners and continue to do well, I might able to help you with a place to stay.. In addition to that you’ll have to do what I say and I need to interview you tomorrow. You can stay at my downtown office, security will be watching you, so no funny stuff. You can stay there temporarily while I get you suitable clothes and set you up with a place to stay.

Duggan felt like he sold his soul to a wind empress, he’s not fond of all of those terms and conditions. Vale stood still.

**VALE**

No ultra-weirdness, ma’am.

I promise. Merci.

Lightning rumbles far in the distance—soft, delayed, unnatural.

Duggan does not turn to look at it.

**SARAH**

Meet me tomorrow at the train station at twelve noon. And please be on time and dress appropriately, please. Look your Sunday’s best would you please?

**DUGGAN whispered to her, “Merci Madame”**

My wardrobe is very limited. Give me your phone number, that will make it official. What if you flake me out? Pardon my French.

**SARAH**

You’ll just have to trust me. This will be a job interview, so be serious. So good-bye, go away, you are dismissed. Until tomorrow.

DUGGAN departed from the Shepard Estate in delight with a with a newfound sense of hope.