(no subject)
This is the middle of a script i'm writing. I've actually edited it since this draft, but whatever.
SCENE ?: AIRPORT
SCENE STARTS WITH SEVERAL CLOSE-UPS OF TV SCREENS WITH NEWS. THE NEWS IS BAD NEWS, PUNDITS, AND OTHER RANDOM COMPLAINING. SHOW SHOTS OF PEOPLE WATCHING IT, STARING, ABSORBED BY IT. JESSE IS WALKING THROUGH THE AIRPORT, OBSERVING. CATCH GLIMPSES OF HIM IN THE CROWD SCENES, LOOKING AT PEOPLE. ONE PICTURE SHOWS A PRESIDENT SHAKING HANDS WITH A GRADUATING COLLEGE SENIOR. THIS INSTANTLY CASTS A SHADE UPON JESSE'S FACE. HE BEGINS WALKING TO THE SEATS NEAR A TERMINAL, WHERE TWO OLD LADIES SIT MINDING THEIR OWN BUSINESS. JESSE RESIGNEDLY FALLS INTO ONE OF THE CHAIRS BESIDE THEM.
JESSE
I don't know what I want, that's the problem. No matter how much I think I know, when I go for what I presumed I was searching for, I feel as though I'm betraying myself and questing for something I don't care about. The women slowly look at him, puzzled
CUTS TO TV IN CORNER
TV
And in poverty stricken Somalia, the battle for governmental supremacy still rages...
CUTS BACK TO JESSE, HE'S RECLINING TO THE BEST OF HIS ABILITY IN THE STRAIGHT BACKED, PLASTIC CHAIR
JESSE
(Making Shut Up gesture at TV)
You aren't helping....
He looks off into space
JESSE
I absolutely don't understand it. Do you realize how difficult it is to go on existing when no matter what you do, you always find it generally unpleasant?
He looks at the two women
JESSE
Do you?
LADY 1
(Recoils Slightly)
Ah... Umm... I’m sorry, young man. Are you speaking to me?
JESSE
(Rolling His Eyes and sounding annoyed)
No, I'm speaking to myself. God. Donald Duck for all I care. Of course I'm talking to you! Eye contact has a way of indicating that. Not that God would give a shit, he never has.
The ladies recoil at the cursing of God. Jesse Stands up
JESSE
Oh don't be so shocked, you know the truth of it, no matter if you've suppressed your realizations. I'm in a dead end life, and it's Mostly my fault. Granted, I haven't had a whole lot of help along the way, but I also can't find something to do with myself that I don't end up despising in the end. I have an education, I went to college, but even when I was there, I couldn't settle on a major. I didn't know what I wanted! Every time I started something, I got sick of it and found something else that I temporarily liked. I need change, and it's a suicidal addiction. I always need change in my life, a higher goal to shoot for and a higher purpose to attain.
He ponders this for a second, as if realizing something, but quickly goes back to ranting.
JESSE
And therein lies the paradox of me. Most people find change to be difficult, often reviling the idea. Yet... I require it. I'm an enigma of this little race we call humanity, the ugly duckling societally speaking.
(He flips off the sky. Ranting is getting to a fevered pitch)
And this is an unnatural difference. Why couldn't God have given me a normal life, a life where I could be happy to conform to what society holds true, and what seems comfortable? Every day I sit at that checkout line, swiping my arm back and forth over the scanner, hearing that beep every time as the computer tells me in a agonizingly friendly, warm voice “2.49!” And every day I loathe everything that goes on. That fucking beeping noise is driving itself into the very essence of my being and sounds like the laugh of God at my plight. I feel like a toy in his divine toy box that is being mutilated like a lego character whose arms and legs have been torn off and retrofitted with replacements from a pile of discombobulated junk until I'm a misshapen freak of random colors and shapes! Yet I must push on... only to subsist.
SHOW TV
TV
(Showing pictures of terrorists and a pundit talking)
And another suicide bombing in Baghdad today. Another fanatic wishing to bring his family and his name glory and renown. Don't these people understand that their name will only resound for a day or two before it's forgotten forever?...
BACK TO JESSE, WHERE THE TWO LADIES ARE MORE VISIBLY RECOILING
JESSE
(In a rant)
I'm just out of college, but I feel like I've been alive for the past century with the psychological torment I've had to endure at my own hands. My won hands forced by the erector set of my brain that was constructed without using the directions, or perhaps intentionally ignoring the guidelines in favor of building more creatively, but not taking the proper steps to ensure that the steel mesh work of the toy is properly supported and not likely to collapse under the strain wrought by the reckless abandon had
with the screwdriver!
ONE OF THE WOMEN BEGINS DIGGING AROUND IN HER PURSE
JESSE
Spare me your biblical verses, lady. You're the unwilling dumpster where I can dump my waste thoughts and emotions into. If you hadn't noticed in the past, complaining makes you feel better.
HE POINTS AT THE TV SCREEN, WHERE PEOPLE ARE RANTING RIGHT ALONG WITH HIM, AND CHILD CRYING BELOW IT, THE MOTHER STARING AT JESSE
JESSE
Case in point. Not that they're complaining has any real substance anyways.
The lady digging around in her purse pulls out a small whistle, and blows it
JESSE
(Laughing)
Oh, wonderful...
GUARDS NOTICE, AND START WALKING TOWARDS HIM. HE STARTS TO RUN, BUT IS TRIPPED UP BY A POWER CORD RUNNING TO A TV, AND HE HITS HIS HEAD ON A CHAIR LEG, AND FALLS UNCONSCIOUS. FADES TO WHITE WITH JUST HIS BODY LYING THERE. IT SPINS AROUND, FADES IN AND OUT. A VISION OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS.
JESSE (V.O.)
That was the first fulfilling sleep I'd had in a long time. It's not a problem so much of dreams as fitful sleep. As a matter of fact, I don't dream. Well... at least it would seem so. It's the classic paradox of the tree falling in the forest. If no one hears it, does it really make a sound? I know that I dream, for I have vague recollections of the act of having a dream, but I cannot remember the fantastical voyage across the folds of my brain for what they are, only that they happened. Once in a great while I will be awakened suddenly in the night, severing a dream in two, and I remember. However, come morning, the dream is gone forever. That is why it would seem the only dreams I might remember are the nightmares. They stick with me. But even those fade eventually
SCENE ?: AIRPORT
SCENE STARTS WITH SEVERAL CLOSE-UPS OF TV SCREENS WITH NEWS. THE NEWS IS BAD NEWS, PUNDITS, AND OTHER RANDOM COMPLAINING. SHOW SHOTS OF PEOPLE WATCHING IT, STARING, ABSORBED BY IT. JESSE IS WALKING THROUGH THE AIRPORT, OBSERVING. CATCH GLIMPSES OF HIM IN THE CROWD SCENES, LOOKING AT PEOPLE. ONE PICTURE SHOWS A PRESIDENT SHAKING HANDS WITH A GRADUATING COLLEGE SENIOR. THIS INSTANTLY CASTS A SHADE UPON JESSE'S FACE. HE BEGINS WALKING TO THE SEATS NEAR A TERMINAL, WHERE TWO OLD LADIES SIT MINDING THEIR OWN BUSINESS. JESSE RESIGNEDLY FALLS INTO ONE OF THE CHAIRS BESIDE THEM.
JESSE
I don't know what I want, that's the problem. No matter how much I think I know, when I go for what I presumed I was searching for, I feel as though I'm betraying myself and questing for something I don't care about. The women slowly look at him, puzzled
CUTS TO TV IN CORNER
TV
And in poverty stricken Somalia, the battle for governmental supremacy still rages...
CUTS BACK TO JESSE, HE'S RECLINING TO THE BEST OF HIS ABILITY IN THE STRAIGHT BACKED, PLASTIC CHAIR
JESSE
(Making Shut Up gesture at TV)
You aren't helping....
He looks off into space
JESSE
I absolutely don't understand it. Do you realize how difficult it is to go on existing when no matter what you do, you always find it generally unpleasant?
He looks at the two women
JESSE
Do you?
LADY 1
(Recoils Slightly)
Ah... Umm... I’m sorry, young man. Are you speaking to me?
JESSE
(Rolling His Eyes and sounding annoyed)
No, I'm speaking to myself. God. Donald Duck for all I care. Of course I'm talking to you! Eye contact has a way of indicating that. Not that God would give a shit, he never has.
The ladies recoil at the cursing of God. Jesse Stands up
JESSE
Oh don't be so shocked, you know the truth of it, no matter if you've suppressed your realizations. I'm in a dead end life, and it's Mostly my fault. Granted, I haven't had a whole lot of help along the way, but I also can't find something to do with myself that I don't end up despising in the end. I have an education, I went to college, but even when I was there, I couldn't settle on a major. I didn't know what I wanted! Every time I started something, I got sick of it and found something else that I temporarily liked. I need change, and it's a suicidal addiction. I always need change in my life, a higher goal to shoot for and a higher purpose to attain.
He ponders this for a second, as if realizing something, but quickly goes back to ranting.
JESSE
And therein lies the paradox of me. Most people find change to be difficult, often reviling the idea. Yet... I require it. I'm an enigma of this little race we call humanity, the ugly duckling societally speaking.
(He flips off the sky. Ranting is getting to a fevered pitch)
And this is an unnatural difference. Why couldn't God have given me a normal life, a life where I could be happy to conform to what society holds true, and what seems comfortable? Every day I sit at that checkout line, swiping my arm back and forth over the scanner, hearing that beep every time as the computer tells me in a agonizingly friendly, warm voice “2.49!” And every day I loathe everything that goes on. That fucking beeping noise is driving itself into the very essence of my being and sounds like the laugh of God at my plight. I feel like a toy in his divine toy box that is being mutilated like a lego character whose arms and legs have been torn off and retrofitted with replacements from a pile of discombobulated junk until I'm a misshapen freak of random colors and shapes! Yet I must push on... only to subsist.
SHOW TV
TV
(Showing pictures of terrorists and a pundit talking)
And another suicide bombing in Baghdad today. Another fanatic wishing to bring his family and his name glory and renown. Don't these people understand that their name will only resound for a day or two before it's forgotten forever?...
BACK TO JESSE, WHERE THE TWO LADIES ARE MORE VISIBLY RECOILING
JESSE
(In a rant)
I'm just out of college, but I feel like I've been alive for the past century with the psychological torment I've had to endure at my own hands. My won hands forced by the erector set of my brain that was constructed without using the directions, or perhaps intentionally ignoring the guidelines in favor of building more creatively, but not taking the proper steps to ensure that the steel mesh work of the toy is properly supported and not likely to collapse under the strain wrought by the reckless abandon had
with the screwdriver!
ONE OF THE WOMEN BEGINS DIGGING AROUND IN HER PURSE
JESSE
Spare me your biblical verses, lady. You're the unwilling dumpster where I can dump my waste thoughts and emotions into. If you hadn't noticed in the past, complaining makes you feel better.
HE POINTS AT THE TV SCREEN, WHERE PEOPLE ARE RANTING RIGHT ALONG WITH HIM, AND CHILD CRYING BELOW IT, THE MOTHER STARING AT JESSE
JESSE
Case in point. Not that they're complaining has any real substance anyways.
The lady digging around in her purse pulls out a small whistle, and blows it
JESSE
(Laughing)
Oh, wonderful...
GUARDS NOTICE, AND START WALKING TOWARDS HIM. HE STARTS TO RUN, BUT IS TRIPPED UP BY A POWER CORD RUNNING TO A TV, AND HE HITS HIS HEAD ON A CHAIR LEG, AND FALLS UNCONSCIOUS. FADES TO WHITE WITH JUST HIS BODY LYING THERE. IT SPINS AROUND, FADES IN AND OUT. A VISION OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS.
JESSE (V.O.)
That was the first fulfilling sleep I'd had in a long time. It's not a problem so much of dreams as fitful sleep. As a matter of fact, I don't dream. Well... at least it would seem so. It's the classic paradox of the tree falling in the forest. If no one hears it, does it really make a sound? I know that I dream, for I have vague recollections of the act of having a dream, but I cannot remember the fantastical voyage across the folds of my brain for what they are, only that they happened. Once in a great while I will be awakened suddenly in the night, severing a dream in two, and I remember. However, come morning, the dream is gone forever. That is why it would seem the only dreams I might remember are the nightmares. They stick with me. But even those fade eventually