Unchained Melodee

The year is 2107. The dystopian New Deep South, where minorities and non-evangelicals are enslaved or killed. MELODEE, a clever, quadroon slave has just one dream: escape from her brutal master, PETERSON PECK, and free her enslaved mother, RUTH, and daughter, MARY. Or die trying. After Peck rapes her yet again, Melodee’s had enough. She burns Peck beyond recognition and runs. JAKE SLOCOM, the plantation’s cold-blooded overseer, gives chase. But Melodee eludes him. She forms bedsheets into a “parakite,” soars over a cliff, and disappears as Slocom watches from above. Melodee meets THE SPANIARD, the owner of a traveling circus comprised of misfits and runaways. They make a deal: She can “hide in plain sight,” masquerading as a White man, if she performs her parakite act. She agrees with one caveat: At the circus stop in New Orleans, she plans to locate and free her mother and in Baton Rouge, to free her daughter, too. When the circus stops in New Orleans, she rescues her mother from MITCH WARD’S SLAVE ‘DEALERSHIP.’ But Slocom, angry and determined, is closing in. Ruth becomes deadly ill. Before her death, she reveals that Ward has arranged to buy Mary. She urges Melodee to hurry and save Mary from that fate. A grieving Melodee, pregnant with Peck’s child, miscarries. She has reached her low point: the death of her mother, the miscarriage of her second child, and a dangerous, uncertain future for Mary and herself. She can’t wait any longer—she must free Mary. Melodee finds and frees Mary but is caught by BSR (Bureau of Slave Reclamation) Agent BRADLEY JOHNSON. While they’re held in a BSR holding cell, a fire breaks out and grows into an inferno. Suddenly, a thump and a gigantic hole appears in the wall. Her circus friends, helped by Melodee’s circus “partner,” a ten-ton African elephant named HARMONY JANE, help them escape to safety. As the circus train prepares to depart Baton Rouge, the Spaniard announces they are setting up permanently in California. Melodee and Mary see that Slocom has tracked them down. They hop on a departing train. Slocom jumps onto the train car just seconds behind them. A sign reads “SLAVES ONLY.” The passengers surround Slocom and moments later, his body is tossed off the train. Melodee and Mary jump off, reach the moving circus train and leap on. In California, the Spaniard reveals a large, sprawling valley. He’s decided to free the circus animals just as Melodee recommended. From now on, just like Cirque du Soleil, the Spaniard’s circus will feature only human performers. Melodee, Mary, the Spaniard, and the other circus members smile as they embrace their new home and watch the sun disappear over the Pacific.