Stump

Description

A girl wades into a forest threatened by logging companies. She is there to hunt. The forest is sparsely populated by previous executives and high ranking employees of big corporations - now inexplicably feral. They prowl the forest floor in corporate clothes, tattered and torn to shreds, living off roots, shrubs and grass. One of them is her father. STUMP is the story of a daughter looking to rescue her father. It is also an allegory for the absurdity of rabid capitalism: our enterprise to disregard and destroy the earth, and human wellbeing, in pursuit of the abstract dream of relentless growth.

Biblical Connection

The story is derived from that of Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel, chapter 4), who in his pride was humbled by God by being driven away from society and into the wild, where he lived 7 years like an ox. We live in a world where there are few emperors or kings; the most powerful, and arrogant among us are likely CEOs of tech companies, currently competing in an irrelevant space race. I am imagining a world where the condition of Nebuchadnezzar is something of an inexplicable phenomena endemic to the business community : but much like our disregard of environmental destruction despite overwhelming evidence, it has not humbled or discouraged (this particular) corporation(s) from proceeding with their dubious operations. The name STUMP comes from the prophetic dream Nebuchadnezzar sees preceding his madness, where angels declared: "Cut down the tree and trim its branches (...) but leave the stump." It is also a reference to Shel Silverstein's heartbreaking 'The Giving Tree', where the tree gave infinitely, but nothing would satisfy the human - ultimately, all that was left was the stump.