INT. GARAGE MACHINE SHOP. DAY
Above the entry of a 100′ x 100′ garage sits a neon sign “Norman Normamother’s Miracle Garage.” Just beneath it in chalk runs the words “Proprietor Clarage B. Ni. Ce.”
From the other 3 walls, pegboard buckles with tools and shelves sag with 3D printers, lathes, high-speed capacitators, and other equipment to mold and materialize any machine part known to alien, android, or life force.
In the machine shop works a woman–monocled, mohawked, vape in her mouth. On her shoulder, a parrot perches but flits away as it fades into a hologram that lands on a branch on tree in the corner if the woman CLARAGE moves fast, but it returns there quickly. A jean jacket halts belly short to expose a skin roll above holey black tights, and rubbery thongs don her feet. She works at a table beside shelving.
CLARAGE (singing) Lemon tree, very pretty, and the lemon flower is sweet. But the fruit–
In through the roof’s cargo hatch descends a space vehicle resembling a two-story high, claw-footed bathtub from the 18th century. From its sides extend two arm-like wings. Landing, the hull rocks like a vessel on a wave.
Out strides a man, who, though not a hulk of a man, believes himself so. He walks big. He wears big. His hair stands big. His gun he can hardly carry, but does. And his mouth is big.
DERF: I am Derf! Get! I need a good man!
CLARAGE (looking eye to eye with the bird on her shoulder) Don’t we all?
CLARAGE (working, singing) Lemon tree, very pretty–
DERF: I said, I need a good man! Asap!
CLARAGE (turns her head eye to eye with the bird) Man, so sick of this same ole, same ole, right?
Clarage puts her head back down, working on her project, sparks flying, singing again.
CLARAGE: And the lemon flower is sweet.
Derf rushes towards her. Android bees and bugs buzz around his head.
The bird goes to the tree, changing color to black, then to camouflage; some of the bees and bugs join the bird on the tree. Now all these three look like leaves.
Derf stops just short of the welding rod Clarage is working with, almost puncturing Derf’s rusty dusty armor.
DERF: Hey! You! You ugly monkey-wrench witch! I’m talking!
CLARAGE: Yeah, I heard you, you asked for a good man, there’s no man here. I’m here. What do you want? I can only give you what I have. Here, it’s me or no one. I can give you only me and lemons. No man. (singing) But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.
DERF: All right! All right! I’m on the last leg of a race. It’s mine to win. Life and death ride in the balance. The landing gear footpads jammed after Alpha Centauri deployment, along with the loosening of a hundred thermal tiles. To win, I must be able to re-enter Cygnus Quadrant ISS with my vessel’s landing capabilities in tact. This travel bucket needs fruit juice to oil its gears, so says the onboard instruction manual instructions. Fix it. Now. Whatever credits it takes.
CLARAGE: What do you win?
DERF: An electromagnetic force field to employ wherever the winner so designates, a death ray, and a spaceship to command the heavens.
CLARAGE: Where’d you get this gift of a craft?
DERF: Gift? What a joke. A stinkin’ bag of bolts. Hunh. She was a joke. She thought she was giving it to me, but I take what I want. Hunh. Bag of bones.
CLARAGE: My mother always said, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
DERF: Woman gave me it said the same thing. Used to, that is. Hunh. Enough chit chat! As I said, it’s life and death.
CLARAGE: Tell you what, I’ll see what me and my bird can do.
As Clarage and her bee, bug, and bird workers assess the engine from a drop-down drawer outside its hull, she sings.
CLARAGE: (singing) Lemon’s tree, very pretty, and the Lemon’s power is sweet, but the juice of a poor Lemon Is impossible to eat.
(eye to eye to the bird) Tell me, Bird, can you fix this engine for Derf? (to Derf) She says she can’t give you the juice you need.
Clarage goes on tinkering and humming “Lemon Tree.”
DERF: What do you mean, She can’t give me the juice I need? And quit singing that song wrong!
CLARAGE: Look, the truth of the matter is, only my bird could possibly fix this spaceship, and she says she can’t.
Derf rushes Clarage and the bird, catches it, and begins strangling it.
DERF: I’ll eat this bird and you and use your guts as glue for my thermal tiles!
The parrot turns to black and then to gold and then to an unmoving hunk of gold stone in Derf’s hand. With his other hand, Derf clutches his throat. He drops the bird statue. His knees buckle to the floor.
DERF: What have you done to me?
CLARAGE: Me? No. You did it all. A matter of life and death. First, starting with my mother. Norma. (Nods to hull-like tub) Her ship. Not yours to touch, take. (Clarage picks up the statue.) Second, grabbing the bird. Not yours to touch, take. You needed the bird to be alive, for it to give its juice coursing through its body into the engine of the hull of the ship. You squeezed the juice out of it. Hence, no fix for you!
Derf falls to the floor, dead. The gold bird statue vaporizes, its steam trailing as a mist to the tree. There, the hologram that it is materializes, and with the bees and bugs, the transparent gold bird reappears in the tree, now as translucent, then black, then as a multi-colored parrot.
The neon sign rearranges itself from “Miracle Garage” to “Clarage Mirage.”
CLARAGE: Man, I could use a spaceship to command the heavens, and a death ray, and an electromagnetic force field to protect my garage and home. Tell me, Bird, can you fix this engine for me, for Clarage? Please, some fruit juice for Clarage B. Ni. Ce.?
As the bird soars to the engine in the open drawer in the hull, it transforms into a firey, all-powerful red fire phoenix and charges the ship’s engine.
The ship rocks itself steady, a solid silver sheen emitted from the hull before the bird perches back on Clarage’s shoulder.
Clarage looks in the bird’s eyes. The bird changes to yellow.
CLARAGE: I’m so grateful to you, my friend, Lemon. For all you do. Thank you, again.
Clarage turns to look at dead Derf as the bees and bugs envelop him, cover him, and devour him until nothing is left.
CLARAGE: My mother and I often didn’t see eye to eye. Smart, my mother was. Taught me about birds. And bees. And engines. Let’s go win us a contest. Oh, I almost forgot. Lemon, please grab my bottle of fruit juice off my work table for the trip. See it? (singing as going to space vehicle) Lemon’s tree, very pretty, and the Lemon’s power is sweet. but the fruit of a poor Lemon is impossible to eat.
Clarage enters the vehicle. Lemon with the fruit juice follows as door closes. Bugs and bees attach themselves on hull as it ascends through Clarage’s Garage cargo hatch.