Greta the Climate Goblin - Now, Before Anything Weird Happens...

 GRETA

Fairhaven, IL - an unincorporated town in Northern Illinois, April 1985

The girl on the bicycle pedaled along the two-lane highway cutting through seemingly endless miles of cornfields, her bright green hair catching the last rays of the sun as it set in the west, painting the sky with a dizzying arrays of reds and oranges. Her neon fishnets, mismatched lace gloves and combat boots would have fit in with the punk subculture expanding through Chicago, but here, in corn country, she stood out.

She pulled into a gravel parking lot where a plain, gray, cinderblock building stood next to a tall TV-antenna. Neon letters spelling out "KMEL13" blazed against the early evening sky. The corn stalks, just sprouts this early in the growing season shifted slightly although no real breeze stirred the air. The girl dismounted, leaning the bike against the side of the building and pulled a backpack out of the basket behind the seat.

She slung one strap over her shoulder and headed inside. Fluorescent lights flickered above the old, cracked floor tiles. The air smelled of burnt coffee left sitting out for far too long. She breezed past bulletin boards with listings for yard sales, town meetings, school sport schedules, and missing pets. Business cards belonging to the handful of sponsors supporting the channel were tacked in neat uniform rows and columns.

Ahead, an on-air sign flashed red. "Madame Celeste" was doing her Friday night card readings. A rail thin man with a patchy beard and small glasses stepped out of the lunch room. A faded denim vest covered was worn over a tie-dyed tee. The unmistakable odor of Marijuana clung to the man wearing it. He smiled, "Hey, Greta, big night! Break a leg out there!"

Greta smiled, "Thanks, Dusty. If things go badly, they may call you up early."

Dusty chuckled, a laugh as dry as his name. "Don't worry, kid. You'll be fine."

Greta smiled and nodded and wished she had even a fraction of the old ex-roadie, ex-hippie's confidence."Um, which studio am I in?"

"Studio D. Two down on the right. I helped Elloit carry in your fog machine earlier."

"Thanks again, Dusty."

"Hey, no problemo, Greta. Happy to help."

Greta opened the door to Studio B and stepped inside. Elliot nodded to her, "I just finished setting up the lighting rig. I put that weird recycling bin with the 'Feed Me' sign on stage by your table. I have to go check on Celeste's boom mic real quick but make yourself comfortable."

Greta set her backpack on the table and started pulling her props out: a can of hairspray and some homemade props - homemade fake blood, some slime, silver spray paint, a plastic lobster, and a battered notebook. She opened the notebook and began to read, her lips moving as she mouthed the words she spent all week writing and revising and started crossing out everything written on the page.

The hour passed far too quickly. Greta took her place on the set, a faux dungeon backdrop illuminated with the purple glow blacklights. The fog machine coughs out a half-hearted plume of smoke. She picked up a rubber skull, holding it in one hand, and took a deep breath. Her green hair, deliberately messy, fake pointed ears glued in place, neon fishnets peeking up from underneath her tattered black skirt. Elliot counted down. "3...2..." and pointed her way as the light on top of the camera clicked on.

Greta stared blankly at the camera for a second and cleared her throat. Elliot made a circular motion with one hand, indicating that the camera was rolling.

Greta glanced quickly at her notes and dropped her voice, trying to sound sultry and far more confident than she felt. "Good...evening, horror...humans? Uh, ghouls? Welcome to...uh..." she glanced down again, scanned the notebook and straightened. "Welcome to 'Goblins after Midnight'. I'm your hostess, Greta the Climate Goblin."

Greta managed a half-smile and tried to spin the skull on thr tip of one finger but it fell, crashing to the floor with a dull thud.

"Um...ok... let's just get jump right in! Tonight, we have a movie that feature...radioactive sludge. Which, fun fact, could probably happen if we keep ignoring pollution... so, yeah!"

Greta glanced to one side and then back to the camera. Her smile faltered as she tried to channel her inner Elvira, and then her voice cracked.

"So, grab your... compost buckets..., or, maybe some snacks and, uh... stay spooky?"

Those watching at home see the camera zoom in slightly as Greta mutters to herself, "Okay, Greta, you can do this... just be a goblin, be the goblin."

The screen fades to black, and the title card appears, "GOBLIN AFTER MIDNIGHT."

DUSTY AND CELESTINE

The set lights still smelled like burned dust. Greta finished packing her props into her backpack and flopped heavily onto her table, hands covering her face. Her mascara had smudged, leaving black streaks on her green facepaint.

One of her cardboard bats fell off of its fishing line and fluttered to the floor.

"Oh, God, what was I thinking?"

From behind the curtain of recycled blackout fabric, Celestine emerged—serene as moonlight through a stained-glass window. She moved with that unhurried grace that made the studio feel less like public access and more like a chapel to oddities.

“Greta,” she said softly, sitting beside her on the crypt. “You did not fail. You were… incandescently earnest.”

Greta groaned. “That’s worse.”

Dusty followed, his music show had been pre-empted for an advertisement of a new, high-tech blender.

He passed Greta a cup of hot cocoa.

“The fog machine coughed,” she muttered. “The tape jammed. I called the boom mic ‘the broom mic.’ Twice. And Mrs. Delaney phoned in to ask if I was ‘the Halloween weather.’"

Celestine brushed a piece of glitter from Greta’s cheek. "That's life. That's authenticity. You can't buy that. The broadcast world is drowning in polish. You were gloriously unvarnished. When the tape jammed, you ad-libbed a soliloquy about compost. And you invited Mrs. Delaney to the drive-in. That, Greta, is texture."

Dusty nodded. “Look, first shows are like pancakes. First one’s a mess. Pan’s too hot. You’re nervous. You flip too early. But you gotta make the first ugly pancake so the rest come out golden.”

Greta stared at him. “So I’m a pancake.”

“No, kid, you’re batter,” Dusty said gravely. “Full of potential. Needs heat.”

Celestine sighed "Perhaps a different metephor?"

Dusty shook his head, "Point is, tonight wasn’t bad. It was alive. The fog machine wheezed? Good. Now it’s a character. The boom mic dipped into frame? That’s a ghost with a union job. You don’t sand down the rough edges. You hang lanterns on ’em.”

Greta looked around the ramshackle set: the hand-painted tombstone with misspelled Latin, the thrifted candelabra, the single camera on its wobbly tripod.

“I just wanted it to be perfect.”

Dusty nodded solemnly. “Hey, you didn’t pass out. That’s huge.”

“I was not going to pass out!”

“You went a little gray when the intro music didn’t play.”

“That was dramatic lighting!”

Dusty raised his cup in surrender. “Ok, kid.”

Celestine tilted her head. “Perfection is sterile. You are cultivating spores.”

There was a small, reluctant smile tugging at Greta’s lips now.

Celestine slipped an arm around her shoulders. “Do you know what I saw tonight?”

“What?”

“A girl who loves strange cinema so fiercely she built a sanctuary for it out of cardboard and willpower. I saw someone who spoke to the lonely and the odd and the insomniac—and said, ‘Sit with me.’”

Dusty added, “And next week? Tighten the cue cards. Maybe tape the bat better. But keep the weird. The weird’s the point.”

Greta exhaled, long and shaky.

“Okay,” she said finally. “Next week we lean in. More fog. On purpose. And if the tape jams—”

“You blame the spirits,” Dusty said.

“You thank the spirits,” Celestine corrected gently.

Greta stood, wiping her cheeks, green paint streaking like war paint.

“Fine,” she declared. “Let it be messy. Let it be handmade. Let it be ours.”

Dusty grinned. “That’s the spirit.”