Caravan

* Bandcamp Cover
* Original Cover

**Caravan** is the third and final album in *The Adams Arc* series. It was written and produced by Paul Shapera and released on August 7, 2018 as a part of the *Early Works* collection.

*Caravan* features David Adams after his transformation into a post-human, now called Raven, Lloyd Allen and Kate, the Narrator. It is set in the New Albion extended universe, more specifically Raven and Lloyd's Second Playhouse, and follows a performance called Caravan, created to flower other post-humans. They only managed to successfully flower two, Marjolein and Kate, who would later narrate *The Dolls of New Albion*.

## Plot

**Note:** Caravan is an incredibly vague show, thus a large part of it is up for interpretation. Make of this what you will.

Kate explains that she's still stuck in the performance. Every few weeks, another caravan rolls by, but it never seems to get anywhere. She doesn't know if she wants it to. Alex is stuck somewhere. A rift opened when he cracked under the pressure of the show, and he's been lost in there ever since.

Fade out and open up on the August Sky Playhouse preparations for Caravan. A pianist is warming up, as Lloyd Allen runs around, preparing for the show to start. Upon the lights down call from Lloyd, the show starts.

The MC is Raven, who welcomes the audience to the August Sky Playhouse, who briefly introduces Caravan and announces that he'll be taking two volunteers along for the ride. He calls upon two volunteers, Kate and Alex, and gives them an ominous warning, juxtaposed by his tone. (*Caravan Overture*)

In the next track, Kate and Alex are already on board the caravan. They're confused as to when they came to realize they were already on the journey, and describe the scenery around them, the sand and unending black sky. (*The Journey Begins*)

We hear flashbacks to Kate's childhood. A toy doll makes an appearance and talks to Kate. A desert illusion appears, confusing Kate and Alex. Children dressed in plain, ragged clothes move in a slow procession, a la the Pied Piper of Hamelin. (*Marionettes of Bone*)

The delirium of not knowing how much time has passed in the show is setting in. Thus, the process of flowering has begun. (*Timepiece/Passage Rites*)

Alex remembers a song someone sang to him in times long gone. The sand's glittering patterns remind him of clothes someone he knew wore. The songs he remembers are keeping him grounded through the trek, as he clings to good memories to keep him sane. (*Forgotten Songs*)

Citizens of the "palace" welcome Kate and Alex into the mirage. They are mesmerized by their surroundings. Alex notices the candelabras, while Kate is fixated on the mystical floor. An old man welcomes them, and tells them that he's glad they dropped by. Radio static accompanies the two volunteers, as they're separated in the mirage. The old man tells Kate about the swirling vortex at the center of the palace. People go into it, and their bodies turn back into sand. He then tells Kate to lay down. (*The Mirage Suite*)

Finally free from the mirage, Kate finds Alex in a daze, on the ground. While Kate managed to break free from the mirage, Alex did not. What happened to cause him to break is unknown. He's failed to flower, has given up on getting to the other side of the desert, has forgotten that he was once human and has become a part of the mirage. Kate tries to get his attention, getting increasingly upset and angry, but her attempts to do so are futile.(*Home*)

Fed up, Kate gives up on getting Alex's attention, tells him she's going to leave, and exits the palace, as she thinks it's going to disappear. The song starts with the spoken part to Alex, and ends with the door into the palace creaking open and closing.(*Disappearance*)

After breaking out of the mirage, and leaving Alex behind, Kate makes her way to... Nowhere. Referencing movie stereotypes, she thinks that an old man, filling the mentor trope, should give her advice in her darkest hour. To her, finding the caravan again is a useless endeavor, as she's hesitant to go back to her home narrative in the first place. As the song progresses, she feels more and more helpless. Kate wanted more out of life than to be trapped in an endless, repetitive story, this wasn't the tale she wanted to tell. She wanted a fairytale, but, despite this, she wasn't going to "break or fail", she'd keep going, no matter what happened. After venting her frustrations to nobody, Kate recounts how the clear sky is beautiful. Even though she hasn't got a plan on what to do, she'll keep walking forward. (*Soliloquy*)

We reach the end of the production of Caravan. The music fades into a thunderous applause, as Kate exits the desert, and enters onto the playhouse stage, as Raven closes the show out.

Kate and Alex repeat their lines from the start of the show, overlapping and speaking over each other, indicating their separation. Fade out.(*Underture*)

## Trivia

* The songs changed titles over the years, so the original script currently available is outdated.
	+ *Caravan Overture* and *The Journey Begins* are written together under *Overture* in the script.
	+ *Forgotten Songs* was originally named *Wind*
	+ *The Mirage Suite* was originally only named *Mirage*
	+ *Home* was originally named *Regards*
	+ *Disappearance* (originally *Lost*) and *Soliloquy* are written in as one track in the script. *Lost* starts with the spoken part from Kate to Alex, then instrumental for the rest of the track. *Soliloquy* is the actual song.
	+ *Underture* was originally named *Recursion*