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Directed by George
Pal, Starring Tony Randall and Barbara Eden
[Clint Stark] Good
evening, ladies and gentlemen, fellow citizens of Abalone. I know you're
all tired of waiting, so I'll cut the fancy talk and come right to the
point. Abalone is dying of thirst. Now, you all know we get our water from
a point 16 miles from here through an underground pipe. That pipe is worn
out. It's crumbling. According to the top engineers of this state, it has
maybe another six months left. Then it's finished. So looking at it
realistically, it seems you all have two choices: Either you repair the
pipe, or you let it rot. Now, if you repair the pipe, it'll cost you
$237,000! And what do you get for your money? I'll tell you that too.
Nothing. Because that's what Abalone is. Nothing. Is that what you want?
To spend the rest of your lives here as bored as you've always been?
[Ed Cunningham] You know,
folks, I haven't been here long. But it's home to me. And I believe in
fighting for your home when it's threatened. Now, Mr. Stark wants us to
sell our home, because it's gonna be an effort to keep it up. But if we
make the effort, he says that Abalone is nothing. It's zero. I say he's
wrong. I say any place where people live and work together is something.
Something very important.
[Dr. Lao] The Fall of the City.
The city's name was Woldercan. It existed beyond the edge of the
world some years before the beginning of history. There are no
records of Woldercan. No artifacts. No descendants of its
people. In fact, there is no proof that there was such a place.
Yet it was as real as pain. Citizens of Abalone, I give you
Woldercan:
[Dr. Lao] It was a small city.
A humble city. Its people had little in the way of worldly goods.
And this little made for themselves by themselves, or euchred from the
stubborn soil, or plucked from the cold and capricious heart of the sea.
Yet the Woldercanese were content, for in the goods of the spirit they
were rich. For them, it was enough to partake of creation, and to
give thanks unto their God. Enough, and more.
[Dr. Lao] Then one day, a
stranger appeared in Woldercan. And he said to the people:
"Not enough! You are poor when you could be rich. You eat of
humble fare when you could feast. You scratch at the ground, and the
ground mocks you. You pray to your God and He laughs at you.
Fools. Be gone from this blighted place. Fools." And
suddenly people were not content. They listened to the stranger, and
sold their souls for pieces of silver.
[Dr. Lao] Then a fearful thing
happened. The God of All Life looked down upon the people of
Woldercan and was displeased. And he said: "Treasures I had
given thee beyond compare, yet thou didst spurn them, and for a handful of
silver sold thy souls." And because He had been angered, God pointed
His finger and visited upon the city of Woldercan the greatest plague
of all:
Oblivion.
7 Faces of Dr. Lao
-- The Giant Serpent Vignette
7 Faces of Dr. Lao -- Little
Movies
7 Faces of Dr. Lao -- Screenplay
7 Faces of Dr. Lao --
Oblivion Vignette
The Vulcans Table of Contents
The Golden Ass, or Metamorphoses, by
Apuleius
Table of Contents:
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