Mystic Baboon
A fictional tale inspired by the life of HP Blavatsky.
Set in the 1870’s, Blavatsky arrives in New York seeking fame and fortune but having immigrated from Russia she is now nearly penniless and must find a way to replenish her pocketbook.
A whiskey drinking, cigarette smoking wanna-be psychic, she weasels her way into the lives of a vulnerable well-to-do family performing phony séances. But practice makes perfect and over time genuine Spirits begin appearing during her “shows” helping to hone Blavatsky’s true skills as a medium.
Now with the power she always dreamed of, she helps to save the lives of the family she once swindled and betrayed.
SAMPLE SCENE
INT. – BLAVATSKY’S APARTMENT – LONDON, 1892
A warm, candle lit parlor filled with rich silks and velvets is littered with over-flowing ash trays and crumpled up papers spread across the floor. A collection of stuffed animals grace the room – a lion’s head over the door, monkeys peer from every cubby, birds perch above bookcases and a large stuffed baboon stands prominently in a corner dressed in full Victorian garb (winged collar, morning coat and tie) carrying under its arm a manuscript of a lecture on “The Origin of the Species” by Charles Darwin.
HELENA PETROVNA BLAVATSKY, a rubinesque crone of a Russian woman with blazing blue eyes,negroid hair and fingers littered with rings removes her dip pen from an inkwell and writes.
BLAVATSKY (V.O.)
When I first discover I have capacity to move objects at will, I was astonished.
INT. – BLAVATSKY FAMILY KITCHEN, RUSSIA, 1839
A simple room lit by one candle on a plain wooden table. An 8 year old Blavatsky sits at the dinner table, plate empty, staring at her father.
BLAVATSKY (V.O.)
(Fading to silence)
I asked seconds politely…
The following exchange is in Russian with English subtitles.
YOUNG BLAVATSKY
Please Sir, may I have more latkes?
Blavatsky’s father slurps his food. Her mother, temples
dripping with sweat, clears the table and leaves.
YOUNG BLAVATSKY
I said Father would you please pass
the latkes?
He continues his meal responding with an exaggerated belch.
YOUNG BLAVATSKY
Pass me serving bowl now.
Blavatsky stares intently, pointing her finger toward the
bowl. It rocks slightly back and forth then stops. She
squints in focused concentration.
YOUNG BLAVATSKY (CONT’D)
(a faint whisper)
Bowl to me, bowl to me, bowl to me.
The bowl once again comes alive and shoots across the table
banging into her plate. She helps herself to seconds.
Her mother returns and as she reaches to clear more plates,
they dodge her grasp magically floating through the room. Her
father backs out of his chair, falling to the ground.
Blavatsky sits calmly eating latkes.
INT. – BLAVATSKY’S APARTMENT, LONDON, 1892
Blavatsky reads her words pulling tobacco and papers from a
furry pouch made of a muskrat’s head. She rolls, lights, and
takes a satisfied first drag.
BLAVATSKY (V.O.)
(returning to English)
It was very beginning of my
spiritual training, a simple bowl
filled with potatoes.
An ashtray floats to Blavatsky. Without a single glance, she
takes hold of it, flicking ashes directly into its bowl.