It starts innocently enough; we are not all born the same. The world that greets us, however, is. It is one that has always fought to retain its shape. If you fail to fight your way into its established borders, it will, by design, edit you out.

The matter then becomes what to do about the scraps on the cutting room floor.

The story of every. drop. counts. involves itself, centrally, with two very different “scraps”. One, a young woman, a victim of violence, struggles to put one foot in front of the other. The other, a man of mature age, struggles to reconcile his success with his past.  Both find themselves displaced from their natural environment into one sustained by a population of similarly displaced that offers, in theory, a refuge. But it is one that they cannot accept. It might be said that they are “internally displaced”: refugees that cannot flee. It is not a survivable place to be for long.

Through means that appear supernatural, our main characters unite. Nature, come to find, known or unknown, in creating or editing mode, never takes a moment off. It is by its own design seeking to combine elements to generate energy, and it is that dark, volatile energy that fuels their relationship.

But something has to give. Our scraps must find their way back in or be swept away. And that is our real story. How they do it is the plot. And in every plot there are conflicts, only these conflicts come from within, like so many that go unseen around us. We find ourselves surprised when someone chooses to take their own life, as if living is our divine right. It is not. It is preciously and precariously balanced. How successfully we are able to negotiate that balance is often determined the moment we are born, before we’re even aware we’re in a fight.

There is an exploration of the displacement similarities between suicide and genocide woven into the fabric of the series. Both involve the strange, proto-Darwinian psychology of guilt gone awry, where one commits an act to survive that their conscience cannot accept. The resultant torment is exacerbated within a psychopathic social construct stuck in edit mode, characterized by an institutionalized primitivism where it becomes essential to destroy in order to thrive. And to thrive, we seek power. Often within this construct, what is perceived as an appropriation of power is simply an act of senseless violence, driven by a fundamental fear of powerlessness. In simple terms, in a society that institutionally promotes violence to survive, acts that involve bullying, sexual aggression, and on a larger scale, ethnic cleansing can be seen as natural. If every. drop. counts. is a horror story, it is within these parameters that it is.

September is National Suicide Prevention Month, and Episode 8 on Friday, September 26th, is dedicated to raising awareness about what we see as a horrible and senseless consequence to a flawed system of humanity. If you or anyone you know is suffering from depression – and we encourage you to learn about the symptoms – we ask that you reach out. Use whatever means you can to lend support or seek support for yourself. No soul should be a victim of violence, institutional or otherwise.

No soul should become a scrap on the floor.