(EXCERPT: Scene 3 into 4.)

MARRELLAS Keep fighting!! / Keep fighting!!

(Ad lib. The Marrella tribe fight loudly among themselves. Sad music.)

RELLA Stop! Stop! Oh! .... No one listens to me ...

(RELLA MARRELLA gives up, swims away. Then, quietly, to Audience.)

But ... now that I think of it, why should they listen?

I’m no better than them. I don’t know what to do.

I don’t know anything. (To Audience.) Do you?

(Looks east, towards Cathedral Escarpment WALL.)

... Hello, Wall. What about you?

(MUSIC. Rella swims to the imaginably high (100 m) WALL of Cathedral Escarpment; looks up. Huge murky SUNBEAMS shine down. Rella looks to Audience for support; then SINGS.)

IF I KNEW ONE SINGLE THING

IF I HAD A THING TO KNOW

I’D BE MORE THAN JUST A THING

I WOULD BE A THING THAT KNOWS

IF I WAS A THING THAT KNOWS

OH THE THINGS THAT I MIGHT DO!

DOING RIGHT, SHINING BRIGHT

IF I KNEW

IS THIS SEA SHELF MORE THAN THIS SEA SHELF SEEMS?

IS THERE SOMETHING MAKING THESE WATERS GLEAM?

DOES IT KNOW I’M HERE? ARE ITS CLOUDY BEAMS

GIFTS TO ME? MEANT FOR ME? MEANT TO BE?

I AM FAR TOO SMALL TO DREAM

I AM FAR TOO SMALL TO HOPE

BUT I’M NOT TOO SMALL TO TRY

SO I’LL TRY AND DREAM AND HOPE

IN MY LITTLE, LITTLE LIFE

LET ME FIND ONE THING TO KNOW

IN MY LITTLE RELLA LIFE

LET ME FIND—JUST ONE THING

ONE SMALL THING—TO KNOW

(Speaks.) Or Dream. Tell me anything at all, Wall.

(Suddenly — undersea TREMORS.)

Oooh NO! Not again! I’m doomed! I’m doomed!

(A GREAT SHOCKWAVE! —a CLOUD OF DEBRIS!—and AGAIN, AUDIENCE, RELLA and everything is swept away and we can’t see RELLA. TRANSITION as DEBRIS SETTLES and we can see a few things again. We’re in a different place. Many things are falling back onto the sea shelf ... One of these things is RELLA.)

(RELLA lands on top of a mess of debris, unharmed. She recovers, shakes off the muck, and looks around.)

Ohh, Ocean, why are you so mean to me? ... But I think I’m still alive.

(She SEES something, landing not far from herself.)

Hey!—What’s this? Or ... who?

(We see it. A very strange little creature, about Rella’s size: flat, soft-bodied, eel-like, with two head-tentacles & maybe a mouth, but no discernible head, but apparently a thin, wire-like flexible spine. This is KAIA.)

Hello? Are you another living thing? Is this Ocean mean to you too?

KAIA Mip. Mip. Mip. Kaia.

RELLA That was close! But you’re still alive too, yes?

KAIA Mip. Kaia.