Todd Mavette has just had some very disturbing news. His doctor has just informed him that he's not going to die. A medical condition he'd been diagnosed with five years before has resolved. He'd been told then that it would kill him. Now he's been told it's gone.
Todd's doctor is a very peculiar one, of doubtful background and qualification. Todd, nevertheless, takes him very seriously and has a childlike dependence upon him.
Five years earlier, following the doctor's diagnosis, Todd withdrew from his legal practice and devoted himself to a literary vocation. So far, his only published work is a column on The Law and You in a local Pennysaver. He takes drama courses at a community college.
His dream work is a stage adaptation of John Barth's 1954 novel, The Floating Opera - a first-person narrative in the voice of a 1930's Maryland lawyer named Todd Andrews, who decides one day to kill himself, but changes his mind.
Next, in Part Two: Todd, his death rescheduled to a date to be determined, reconsiders his financial and artistic plans. Jane and Daniel are introduced.
