TransAtlantic: A Spree with Advanced Technology

Scene 1:
A woman, let’s call her MEG, clicks on a power-strip and a desk lamp pops on, illuminating her in dramatic up-light. The whir of machines snapping to life begins as she prepares for her day on behalf of Habañero’s. We see she’s armed with a battery of contemporary telecommunication devices: headsets, Google glasses, handsets, computers, laptops, tablets, video-chat, phones. Seriously, it should feel as if she’s in full battle gear. Maybe her armor is made of sticky notes and she’s decorated in medals, one big enough to read: “Habañero’s Customer Service Super Agent 2014: Meg Chambers.” Lets kick this off in high style.

The hum from the irritated hive of human crankiness begins and it sounds militaristic and musical. Data bits fire like cannons and the pop-pop of incoming chats and texts provide continual artillery. Meg is in her element, in command of this battlefield. On the screen behind her, her first engagement time-stamp(s) burst into view.
VIDEO:
CONNECTING INCOMING CHAT
PRIORITY LEVEL: 5 CHILIS
TIME-STAMP: 8/5/2014: 10.02EST.

CONNECTING INCOMING EMAIL
PRIORITY LEVEL: 5 CHILIS
TIME-STAMP: 8/5/2014: 10.04EST

The time-stamp images build, flicker, and speed up, offering a mountain of time-stamps from over the day, week, months, years. Imagine we’re seeing a live feed off the Customer Service database: calls, chats, emails, whatever that Meg has handled over the years. Oh yeah, they’re all Priority 5.

Against this relentless torrent stands Meg. The sound of calm echoes through her as she works her magic on the machines.

MEG (as she responds)
Hi, this is Meg, how can I help you?
Hi, this is Meg, I’m sorry your having problems—
Hi, this is Meg, I understand you’re not satisfied—
Hi, this is Meg, I want to make you happy—
Hi, this is Meg—
Hola, mi nombre es Meg —
Bună, numele meu este Meg—
MEG— MEG— MEG— MEG— MEG— MEG— MEG— MEG— MEG—

As she efficiently continues, the images on the screen begin to morph to:

VIDEO:
DISCONNECTING
STATUS: RESOLVED
TIME-STAMP: 8/5/2014: 10.03EST

DISCONNECTING
STATUS: RESOLVED
TIME-STAMP: 8/5/2014: 10:06EST

Again, the images build and speed up. As Meg continues taking care of complaints, this message bounces like a happy puppy across the screen:

VIDEO:
STATUS: RESOLVED
STATUS: RESOLVED
STATUS: RESOLVED
RESOLVED. RESOLVED. RESOLVED.

The sound of disconnecting terminals swells heroically. The cranky customers of Habañero’s are satisfied for the day and the big world spins and spins. It gets incrementally quiet, and the images slow and fade, leaving Meg alone as she begins to power down her power-strips after another successful day.

BUT THEN.

(The inevitable: but then.)

Something crackles to life.

tap tap

It’s got a different sound, more basic, grounded. And with the sound there’s a shift in the world. Meg is no longer in armor, but a blouse with a well concealed coffee stain or two. The battlefield is revealed to be her little office in a lonely corner of a building surrounded by other similar buildings in a larger office park (an oxymoron?) off some odd numbered freeway.

Meg hears the call again:
tap tap
tap TAP tap tap

She looks around, no idea where it’s coming from. The time-stamp image appears. It’s more generic and stripped down than the others. Meg reads from her screen as the image floats weirdly across the larger screen.

MEG (reading on screen)
CONNECTING SOURCE UNKNOWN
PRIORITY LEVEL: NO INFORMATION
TIME-STAMP: August Fifth, 20.17GMT. Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-Seven?

Again, the strange:
tap tap
tap TAP tap tap | TAP TAP TAP | tap tap tap TAP | tap

Meg is oddly flustered. Gives the time honored “What The?” shrug as she reconnects. She speaks her basic Training Soliloquy as she types her response:

MEG
Hi, my name is Meg. Thank you for contacting Habañero’s Customer Service. Your satisfaction is my number one priority. I’m sorry, but I don’t seem to have any information on the nature of your problem. How may I help you today?

Again, with more urgency:
tap tap
tap TAP tap tap | TAP TAP TAP | tap tap tap TAP | tap
TAP tap TAP | TAP TAP TAP | tap tap TAP

MEG (over the tapping)
I apologize, I’m having problems understanding. The timestamp reads Eighteen Hundred Fifty-Seven, so clearly we’re having some technical issues! Maybe reconnect and we’ll—

The tapping cuts her off and strikes with more urgency; Meg knows the sound of someone in distress when she hears it—

MEG
I understand you’re upset, and trust me I want to help, but I can’t understand what you are saying, are you speaking English?

The tapping builds in urgency, volume, speed. In a flip or a swipe, Meg opens a branch conversation marked URGENT to someone named RAMESH. This is a video chat.

MEG
Ramesh, are you there? Come on, stop obsessing over your program and pick-up for once, Ramesh! I see you there! Ramesh, hello?!

A separate light rises on RAMESH, a kid wearing headphones somewhere, maybe in a cave or a teenager’s bedroom, staring at some screens. The tapping becomes even more urgent. Meg refocuses on the trunk conversation.

MEG
Sir or madam, please calm down, I’m here to help you, but you need to slow down, can you slow down for me? Slow down!?

But the tapping picks up, blistering across time and echoing against history. There’s no denying it. Across the world, a light ghosts up on a man tap dancing the message. There’s joy in the space he’s in, everything is possible, whereas Meg just gets grimmer and grimmer, she side sends another branch message.

MEG
Ramesh, I need your help, pick-up or no more screen time!

The tapping continues with blinding speed until finally smoke begins to emanate from Meg’s screen. Ramesh scrambles, the small screen explodes and the big screen hostilely blinks:

VIDEO:
DISCONNECTING
STATUS: UNRESOLVED, UNRESOLVED, UNRESOLVED

The word stabs into Meg. She sits stunned. And that’s where we’ll leave her for now, because the tapping changes tone, takes center stage and joyfully continues.

tap tap
tap TAP tap tap | TAP TAP TAP | tap tap tap TAP | tap
TAP tap TAP | TAP TAP TAP | tap tap TAP

There’s a party in another time and place, and we want to be where the party is. The sound of an Irish fiddle and a concertina mixes in with the tapping.

Connect to:

Scene Two. August 5, 1857
The man dancing, let’s call him CONNOR, clicks his heals with a flourish and steps out of the dance. Sounds of cannons firing in celebration. He’s on the deck of an immense boat, the HMS Agamemnon. He calls to someone in the shadows.

CONNOR
Tessie, you going to stand at the rail all night?
(Conner reaches down, cut into the deck is a great cable that he reveals.)
Come, Tessie, grab hold of the cable, future’s waiting.

TESSIE
I’ve no use for such things, rather me a cod than a cable.

The Irish fiddle and concertina swells and then fades.

CONNOR
Tessie, there’s still time to catch one more set.

TESSIE
Not fair, Connor, you know I’m soft for the dance.

CONNOR
But ya hang on the ship’s rail the night long, looking as if you’d rather pitch yourself into Valencia Bay.
(Suddenly a burst of fireworks lights up the sky. Sound of cheers.)
Just look at it, Tessie, fire lighting up the sky, cable like lightening under water. Whole world knows it all at once and is dancing in step. The Transatlantic cable is laid, Tessie! The great cable is laid!
Fireworks die down. Sky returns dark.
Come, cut a buckle with me? I’m all elbows without me partner.

TESSIE
Go on, you’re the finest in all of Valencia, hundred girls would jump to have a dance with ya.

CONNOR
None as pretty as the one who hangs on the rail. Don’t let your worrying spoil the celebration. We’ll always be together, no matter how far I go.

TESSIE
Only God knows the future, Connor; you can’t make promises on what you don’t know.

CONNOR
I can, because I know this:

He taps, coyly.

tap tap
tap TAP tap tap | TAP TAP TAP—

TESSIE (cutting him off)
You been in the drink, forgot your Kerry steps?

CONNOR
It’s code, Tessie. Morse code. Have a true listen, why don’t ya?
(He taps and translates.)
tap tap (I)
tap TAP tap tap (L) | TAP TAP TAP (O) | tap tap tap TAP (V)| tap (E)
TAP tap TAP (Y) | TAP TAP TAP (O) | tap tap TAP (U)

I love you.

TESSIE
How come your love got to come in Morris’s code?

CONNOR
Morse code. And my love comes in all ways, Tessa, always will.

TESSIE
Then how can you be leaving me?

Tessie looks across a dark and angry ocean.

CONNOR
Not leaving you, Tess, I’m working, making an honest wage, building a future for us.

TESSIE
You saying you won’t be on this ship when she sets sail next Sunday?

CONNOR
Saying we got the cable, cable keep us connected. Think on it, Tess. This same cable from our island here, threading all the way ‘cross the ocean floor, knitting together the old world with the new. I’ll be sending you telegrams ‘cross the wide ocean faster than the time it takes the ferry to cross the bay to Portmagee.

TESSIE
No feat there, everyone knows the Devil’s in that ferry to Portmagee.

CONNOR
You get so many telegrams from me be like I’m in the next room, you’ll be in a mood from all my chattering on.

TESSIE (contemplating the ocean)
Here, but not here. ( . . . ) It don’t seem thinkable for words to cross that ocean—so far, dark.

CONNOR
Thanks to Mr. Field, it’s more than thinkable.

TESSIE
Mr. Cyrus Field, there’s a man I wish no ill-will toward, but why’d he have to pick Valencia to land his cable?

CONNOR
Valencia’s the furthest spit of land West, nearest point between old and new.

TESSIE
And the cable just lays on the bottom of the ocean letting words pass through it like a drunken bloke?

CONNOR
Signals. Pulses of electricity traveling on copper wire to make up the code that represent words. Words like: I love ya.

TESSIE
Words aren’t made to travel that far. It’s not natural. Bound to snap, nothing can hold two worlds together.

CONNOR
We can, Tessie. We’re like this cable. Strong. Seven coils of copper all braided together, laid out on the ocean bed, connecting us across the world.
(A new song starts, a Kerry set is being played.)
Tessie, they’re calling last set, how ‘bout it?

TESSIE (again, considering the ocean, imagining the distance)
Newfoundland. What is it?

CONNOR
Where I’ll be working for a spell. The other side.

TESSIE
Sounds lonely. Like an orphaned child—Newfoundland.

CONNOR
No cable house is lonely. Always chatter, day and night, needle’s always bouncing.

TESSIE
So stay in the cable house here!

CONNOR
They need good ‘graphers, people who can train others, like I did with Latimer Clark here. Mr. Field appointed me: adjunct-manager.

TESSIE
Cause you’re the best?

CONNOR
Cause I’m quick with tapping out the code.

TESSIE
Fastest, “telegraphs like he steps,” is what they say. Once Mr. Field sees how fast you are, he’ll promote you to New York, a city that can keep step with you. Half the county’s dead, other half starved and fled to America during the Famine to find a crust. What lure does Ireland hold to hook you home?

CONNOR
You, Tessie.

TESSIE
Hundred Tessie’s in New York is what I reckon.

CONNOR
But none as pretty as my Tessie, and the future I dream with her. Cable brings stable work, new opportunity. Mr. Field is planning a whole town on the bay to support the enterprise.

TESSIE
Me Da says it’s a load of bollocks. Says we’ll all come to our senses soon as it fails.

CONNOR
It won’t fail, laying the cable was the great task. When he sees how the operation changes life for everyone, he’ll come ‘round.

TESSIE
Took him years of self-study learning to read and write, won’t drop all that to learn your fancy new code.

CONNOR
He don’t need to drop his learning. Just give his message to the ‘grapher to code.

TESSIE
He don’t trust the code. Calls ya a bunch of strutting peacocks.

CONNOR
You’ll see, by the time I come back, I bet your Da himself will be sending telegrams.

TESSIE
Wouldn’t wager on that, I been two long years on him just trying to let me mash his potatoes with milk and leeks ‘stead of boiling them to death! Two years, Connor, how can ya leave me here for two years?

CONNOR
Seems a lifetime, I know, but two years go by in a blink.
(Tessie quivers at the thought of it.)
Specially, if you do me the honor of consenting to be me wife.

TESSIE
What you doing down there on bended knee, Connor O’Shee?

CONNOR
Tessie, I love ya and you know how I tell you they didn’t have a boat big enough to hold the whole payload of cable?

TESSIE
And that’s got you down on bended knee?

CONNOR
So what Mr. Field did is he split the cable in two. And this boat we’re on here sailed half way out into the ocean, carrying half the cable. Another boat did the same from Newfoundland, and in the middle of the dark ocean they met—

TESSIE
How they meet? Just find each other out in the big empty ocean?

CONNOR
Just like we done, Tessie, found each other out in the middle nothing. And when the boats met, we took the two halves of the great cable, and spliced ‘em, joined ‘em. The two became one—stronger and complete. And that’s the same cable we pulled ashore this morning, the cable that’s going change the world, like you changed my world, Tessie. Join with me, why wait till I return, when we know our hearts true?

TESSIE
Ya shipping out on Sunday! No time for a wedding!

CONNOR
We do it Saturday—

TESSIE
Saturday’s me Da’s champion hurling match against Portmagee! He never give that up—

CONNOR
I’ll take care of your Da, Tessie, I’ll take care of you, take care of it all. I love, ya, Tessie. What do you say about that?

A moment, the music catches the breeze.

TESSIE
I say to you Connor O’Shee—
She assuredly dances:
tap tap
tap TAP tap tap | TAP TAP TAP | tap tap tap TAP | tap
TAP tap TAP | TAP TAP TAP | tap tap TAP

CONNOR
Oh, so you were listening?

TESSIE
I’m a quick study. Maybe I should be the ‘grapher, eh?

She taps it again, faster this time.

CONNOR
You think you can, can ya?

Now he taps the phrase, faster this time.

TESSIE
That all the kick you got in you, Connor O’Shee?

She taps it again, faster, they trade exchanges until finally they are tapping in thunderous, exuberant unison: I love you! I love you!

tap tap
tap TAP tap tap | TAP TAP TAP | tap tap tap TAP | tap
TAP tap TAP | TAP TAP TAP | tap tap TAP!

Play continues....