Leafs Miserables

The latest Leafs' season started last night. In tribute, I offer the following (still under development) script:

Leafs Miserables

Scene: 1967. Jean Valjeanny Bower steals a cup to help feed his hungry city (despite the fact that at the time the city had plenty of cups). In fact, it is an executive in the local cup factory who is doing the stealing: a sinister character named Ballard (pronounced with emphasis on the second syllable).

Scene: 1970. After several escape attempts, Valjeanny finally officially ends his imprisonment under Ballard. He's now an old man of 45 and he disappears, assuming a false identity so he can start his life anew.  In fact, Valjeanny lurks in the shadows of the factory, secretly watching and grooming a young foreman - Dareau Sittleur.

Scene: 1976. Sittleur is in his prime, carrying the factory to recently unseen levels of production (though it's no longer producing cups). One day alone, Sittleur raises factory stock by 10 points. Valjeanny sees an opportunity to reclaim his life and takes a leadership position in the factory for two years.

Scene: 1978. The factory is showing signs of its former glory, putting a rival factory in Longue Isle to shame. But Ballard feels like he's losing control and begins to reassert himself in day-to-day factory operations, focusing obsessively on cutting costs and running everything with cruel incompetence. Valjeanny slips back into the shadows.

Scene: 1978-1981. Ballard rules the factory with an iron fist. A popular factory leader - Roget Neilseau-  is humiliated by Ballard, and told he can only come back to work if he wears a bag over his head. Neilseau returns anyways, sans bag, and this infuriates Ballard. Over the next few months, the talented factory staff is systematically dismantled. Sittleur, fights on though, trying to eke out a meaningful existence and save the factory. In 1981 he finally succumbs to Ballard's cruel machinations, and with his final breath begs Valjeanny to care for his young charge, Sundine, after he's gone.

Montage: Throughout the 80's, the factory has been in a downward spiral. Nothing of note is getting produced and nothing memorable happens. Valjeanny has carefully and distantly nurtured Sundine, finally introducing him to factory work in far-away Quebec in 1989. Ballard has remained the factory owner the entire decade, until his death in 1990.

Scene: 1993-1994. The winds of change have blown through the factory. Its most productive years have returned, and a new generation of workers (Clarque, Gilmeur, Coujeaux) - who never knew Ballard - are doing wonderful things under the leadership of a kindly man (an ex-arrow-maker nicknamed "Le Fletcher") and his sidekick Quinn. After an evil worker from a competing factory in Les Anges (a talented, but evil man known simply as "The Great One") dashes the hopes of our heroes once again, the leaders make an ambitious attempt to re-fit the factory so it can return to cup production. They bring in a young and talented worker...named Sundine.

Montage: One More Decade. In the next 10 years, the factory has its ups and downs under Sundine's calm leadership, but generally seems respectable once again. No cups are produced, but a general sense of well-being settles in. Everyone is optimistic, the future seems bright, perhaps we'll see a cup again in "One more day..."

Scene: 2004. Hopes are dashed when workers across the country rise up. Factories are shut down and workers man the barricades. When resolution is finally reached (after much bloodshed and carnage), a new order is put in place. Factories are limited in what they can do to gain advantage over their competitors. Cup production becomes harder than ever. Our local factory is particularly hard-hit because its leadership can't function in the new order. In fact, its leaders seem to have resigned themselves to profitable mediocrity (producing shirts instead of cups). Years pass.

Scene: Present Day. Another worker uprising caps another lost decade for the factory. Sundine's career is done and no new workers in the factory are ready to pick up the mantle of leadership. New owners have bought the factory and are re-building it once again. It's a new day, and life continues for the factory and its workers. The factory continues to produce shirts. People like shirts. Cups seem so far out of reach, the people don't even dream of them anymore.

In a ghostly closing scene, ex-factory leaders like Sittleur, Clarque, Gilmeur, Coujeaux and others - who spent their lives fruitlessly fighting for glory - welcome Sundine into their ranks of the unfulfilled.

Denouement: It is only people like Valjeanny - still lurking in the factory's shadows - who continue to remind the people that once upon a time, long, long ago, the factory produced cups; big shiny cups. Every now and then, a child hears the story and the dream is rekindled. Maybe this year...