Scene: “The Garden of Empire”
Setting: A modest Roman-style courtyard behind Parliament Hill, reimagined in a near-future, famine-shadowed Canada. The air is cool and smells faintly of soil and rain. General Maximus, armor dulled by age and service, stands beside a small raised garden bed. Nelly Furtado—draped in a simple linen tunic—kneels in the dirt, planting seeds.
MAXIMUS:
Nelly Kim Furtado… Canada is not starving yet, but it is hungering.
Not for bread alone, but for truth—
for the taste of something real.
The food banks feed the stomach but not the spirit.
They hand out the farmer’s scraps, not the harvest of the soul.
NELLY:
You mean to say the food isn’t real?
MAXIMUS:
It fills the belly, yes, but it doesn’t nourish.
It’s shelf-stable, chemical-stiff,
the bottom of the farmer’s barrel dressed in charity.
A nation that cannot feed itself is a slave in waiting.
NELLY:
So what do we do, General?
We can’t fight hunger with swords.
MAXIMUS (smiling faintly):
No—
but we can fight it with seeds.
A kitchen garden is an act of rebellion.
You grow a tomato, you defy the empire of imports.
You teach the people to till again,
you remind them they are children of the earth, not of the supermarket.
NELLY:
And who will lead this new Canada, this green legion?
MAXIMUS:
We need courage. We need conscience.
We need another Kim Campbell—
someone who won’t bow to the old oligarchs or hide behind smiles.
A leader who plants before she preaches.
NELLY (looking up, dirt on her hands):
Maybe it doesn’t have to be a politician.
Maybe the new Kim Campbell is anyone willing to get their hands dirty.
MAXIMUS:
Then Canada’s salvation begins here—
with you, Nelly Kim.
He hands her a small wooden box of seeds—labeled “Hope.” The wind shifts, carrying the scent of basil and mint as dawn breaks over the Ottawa River.