ShortList (4/6)

An excessively long list of ideas I had for short films, during a period where the ‘short’ medium had a lot of my attention. (Bold indicates that I have already written its script, and did so sometime between 2015 and 2016.)

·         After a government shutdown in 2024, during a time of public riots about national police brutality, martial law was engaged by the president in conjuncture with the commander general, who deployed all troops amongst the most chaotic cities: reserve troops were stationed in further chaotic cities to restore order: in lesser places across the country, albeit places that needed justice to be delivered to rather uproarious folk, the government hired bounty hunters. The bounty hunter for Wayne County, Georgia is Luther Strange: a Neo-cowboy gunslinger who is a calm southern gentleman albeit stoic and antipathetic, and choosing to only use words when he has to. He busts up a rally peacefully (by using threat of violence). He makes sure a bar isn't holding anymore revolutionary anti-gun control meetings in the basement. He tracks down a perp by him at his house: before entering, he places a tracking sticker under the wheel well just in case; he knocks on the door and the perp answers, but a chase ensues when the perp makes a break for it out the back door, and Luther chases him through the house, and around the side to the garage, but is knocked unconscious when the perp swings a muffler at his head from around the side of the house: the perp gets in his truck and drives away. Luther awakes and is pissed: he checks the GPS on his phone and sees the tracking sticker pinging in Tattnall County: Luther gets on his motorcycle and drives off to Tattnall County... He comes up to a diner and finds the perp's car in the parking lot; he slowly enters the diner and looks around for the perp but doesn't see him: Luther shows the waitress the perp's picture on a paper-thin flex-tablet, and the waitress says he got a meal and took the bus -- Luther asks where to, and she says it went up the road to the northwest, but she doesn't know all the stops it takes; Luther goes to leave when a guy at the diner bar says he knows where the perp is going, but says Luther would have to pay him for the information -- Luther threatens him to spill the beans by putting a gun to his head (waitress just tells him to knock it off as if guns in the open was a regular thing), and the guy sees that Luther's badge is for Wayne County, and says that Luther can't do anything since he's not in his jurisdiction -- Luther says that there's martial law and the courts aren't quite in operation, which makes anybody with a badge the judge, jury, and most importantly executioner: the guy tells Luther that the perp is headed for Vidalia, in Toombs County. Luther arrives in Vidalia, and goes to the bus depot, and asks around until someone points out the direction they saw the perp go, and that person asks what the perp did: he sexually assaulted a 12-year-old girl -- the person tells Luther to wait for a second, leaves, and returns with a handful of phosphorous revolver ammo: one shot will put him down, but the phosphorous will torture him as it slowly burns away his insides -- Luther is much obliged. Luther finds a shantytown under a highway and asks around if anyone's seen the perp, and nobody has; an arrogant, gruff, cue-ball biker bounty hunter drives up in an old Dodge Camaro and asks why Luther is in his territory -- Luther says why but the biker says he can handle it; Luther says it's his perp, and the biker says it's his jurisdiction -- Luther says he doesn't care, so the biker pulls a gun on him: Luther is unphased and attempts to leave: the biker says he'll shoot unless Luther drives back home, and Luther tells him to save his ammunition for the meth lab in the camper at the edge of the shantytown. The biker asks if Luther is serious and Luther points to the colored smoke coming out of the top of the camper; Luther tosses the biker a flashbang grenade and says to wait for the bang before going inside, or he'll be just as disoriented -- Luther leaves to go catch the perp, and the biker looks off towards the meth lab and walks towards it. Luther finds a shantytown next to the water tower and asks around if anyone's seen the perp, and someone points to the back that someone like that just arrived earlier that day: Luther takes off towards the back -- the perp exits a shack and sees Luther, and Luther points his gun at him and angrily tells him to freeze, and the perp runs: Luther follows to get the perp back in his line of sight, and he chases the perp into the open space under the water tower -- he aims and shoots the perp with a single phosphorous bullet to the back, and the perp crumples to the ground and writhes; Luther strolls over to him and rolls him onto his back with his foot: the perp writhes and cries out in agony and Luther calmly reads the summary of the perp's crime, his deserved sentencing, and his last rites, and then he tells the perp that he has received his execution for his crimes -- and Luther walks away, leaving the perp to writhe in agony and die slowly.

·         In a German village in 1843, a rift in spacetime is suspended 7 feet off the ground in the backyard of a man and his son (blacksmith and apprentice, respectively); a 12th century Turk soldier falls out of the rift and onto the ground: he stands up and shakes himself off, looks around confusedly, and wanders off. The Germans approach the rift and use a stack of barrels to straddle a ladder between it and their roof: they climb onto the roof, walk across the ladder, and peer in: it's on a cliffside, looking up at the Himeji Castle in 1920, in imperial Japan. They enter it and walk around, confused and in awe, until they are spotted by three Japanese soldiers, who corral them and capture them; two of the soldiers walk the Germans away while a third stays to check out the rift that he sees in the distance: he approaches it. The Japanese soldier comes to the rift and looks through, and steps through: he's in San Francisco, 1971, at the back of a crowd attending a rally for Gay Rights, led by Harvey Milk; some gay guys look laughably at the Japanese soldier's outfit, and say mockingly that Halloween isn't for another couple months: the Japanese soldier looks around, then decides to leave, but looks back and sees some gay guys looking into the rift and stepping through -- the rift closes behind them: the Japanese soldier is struck with sudden fear, and he surveys his surroundings again, as he realizes this is his new home.

·         The ones about a future war with Russia should be a series chronologically telling of it all:

o   Aboard a passenger aircraft, a man wakes up hectic and begins to rapidly click the "call stewardess" button. She arrives and he tells her to have the captain turn around; the person next to the man is his friend and coworker, both on their way to Tokyo for business: they are 2/5 of the way from Berlin to Tokyo, and approaching Russian airspace. The friend tries to diffuse the situation and tells the stewardess that the man is afraid of flying, but the man denies it and presses on passionately; the friend angrily says the man needs to cool it or they're get in trouble, and the stewardess thinks the man might be losing his sanity. People start to look, and the stewardess smiles and tells everyone that there's no problem. The stewardess leaves and the friend asks the man what's going on: he says he is repeating a span of time -- from waking up to the death. The friend asks why death, and the man says that they enter Russian airspace, captain announces as such, the stewardess comes back to offer peanuts, and then the Russians hit the plane with a SAM rocket: the rocket hits the tail's underbelly, the back of the plane comes off, the stewardess is sucked out of the back, the plane pitches forward and plummets, unable to pull up enough to straighten back out, and they scream while racing to the ground, and the pilot fruitlessly yells "brace for impact!" over the PA, and they crash into a forest, and he wakes up on the plane, before it happens again. It's been happening at least thirty times now, and nobody's believed him yet. The friend says "you're crazy," and the man mouths the words along with him: the man says he knows everything that will happen and what everyone says; he points over his left shoulder at a couple while he looks at his friend: he counts down from five with his other hand, and when he puts down his last finger, he mouths along with the conversation a husband has with his wife about items in SkyMall magazine. The friend then believes him, and starts hitting the "call stewardess button;" the stewardess looks out from the steward compartment but chooses to ignore the call. The man says he has to go up and try to talk to the captain directly, and he'll need the friend to distract the stewardesses; the friend says that's crazy, because he won't be able to get everyone's attention without causing a huge scene, and the man won't have a chance of the pilots listening; the man says that they have to try, so the friend mulls it over and begrudgingly agrees. Just as the man unbuckles to leave his seat, the pilot comes over the PA: "attention passengers, we are now entering Russian airspace. If you look out your left side window, you might be able to catch a glimpse of shirtless Vladamir Putin riding atop a bear." The passengers all chuckle, except for the man and friend; the man buckles his seatbelt back up as his face is frozen in fear. The stewardess has been coming up the rows with peanuts, and is at their row now: she offers them peanuts with a cheap smile on; they look back at her, fearful, and the man simply says "please," but she tells them to stay in their seats and stop causing trouble, because there might be an Air Marshall on board. The stewardess leaves their row and the man braces for impact, and grabs the friend's arm and squeezes it. The plane is rocked by an impact in the rear of the plane, and a fiery howl tears the back of the plane off as the metal screeches, and the captain comes on the PA "everybody, hold on!" The rear of the plane detaches completely and flies off, spirally down behind them; oxygen masks drop; the stewardess, holding onto a seat, loses her grip and slides along the floor out the back of the plane. The man clenches his teeth and we watch him be paralyzed in fear and pain. Eventually the screen cuts to black and we hear wailing engines, straining metal, and humans screaming; the captain yells "brace for impact." All sound is gone; fade in from black on the man asleep, then waking up and hitting the "call stewardess" button.

o   An informant for a regime walks into the regime government center (in plain clothes) and walks into the dictator's office: the dictator is surprised to see him and addresses the informant as First Lieutenant, then asks why he deliberately walked into the regime govt. center while undercover (dictator is pissed and disappointed). The informant tells the dictator that the Russian government has no plan of action, and the people are furious: they're planning to revolt; the dictator says it's the perfect time to indoctrinate the Russians to their way of life: show them how a successful community works: a chance to absorb the Russian states and finally have enough Living Space for their people. The informant asks about the Russians: surely they occupy that area as is, and Siberia isn't much of a victory -- and he adds on "sir," because he doesn't want to seem out of order; the dictator says it's quite alright to ask: the Russians who fit nicely in the community may stay (at least for this generation), but those who do not fit can actually go OCCUPY Siberia -- it's a win-win. The informant smiles: he is pleased to serve under such a brilliant man; the dictator is pleased as well, by his devotion, and refers to him as "Captain;" "sir?" "Congratulations on the promotion." The informant salutes the dictator. -- Cut to the Russian government center: the informant (in plain clothes) marches into the office of the Russian leader. The Russian leader asks what the news is: the informant says that the enemy plans to mobilize ground forces and propaganda machines in preparation for backing a "revolution" that is to take place here: this gives the Russians pretense to acknowledge a "threat" and attack the enemy on their own accord; oh, and he was promoted to Captain. The Russian leader is pleased to hear it all, and chuckles at the notion that the enemy promoted him to Captain.

o   2016: Russian leader's televised speech announcing merging of president and chairman positions as he is becoming the dictator of Russia: a declaration about his new command and strengthened personal power, and how he will use it to crush the West, just like they were meant to do so 70 years prior. He proposes war is necessary and soon to be a reality, and the Russian men should be excited for their chance to finally prove their strength by taking up arms against the West.

o   I think I'd like this to take place completely from within or on top of the tank, but never let the camera travel away from the tank: any landscape or non-character shots can be taken from atop the tank. 2017: a tank driver monologues in his head about how he "courted the beast" during peacetime, but "lived in the belly of the beast" after the US (and NATO) declared war on Russia and began mobilizing through Germany, but the invasion was cut off in Ukraine by Russian forces -- this will probably be remembered as World War III; if he survives, he'll be able to tell some good stories to his grandchildren. They drive on through a field in Ukraine, guided by coordinates and radio contact; eventually, the on-board Geiger counter begins to be alerted: the commander checks the Geiger counter, then checks the map: the field is in the corner of the map, so he doesn't know what is beyond it: he opens top to look around and sees a road sign a ways away through his binoculars; they move forward and the driver says that the commander shouldn't hang out of the top so long, lest he wants radiation damage: the sign comes into view: Pripyat. The commander climbs back inside the tank and says that the field was irradiated by the Chernobyl explosion, and the ghost town Pripyat is their destination. The gunner says he always wanted to visit Pripyat -- but in an adventurous manner, with his girlfriend and a camera; doing it during war would be creepy and foreboding. The loader says that it'll be pretty cool since no large force has gathered here since the explosion; the commander says that it would be cool if it wasn't an armored battle: since it's irradiated, only the lead-lined tanks can survive there -- it'll be an all-armored offensive; Putin probably thinks his armored force is superior, or at least they are lying in wait -- that's why he wants to take out the allies' armored flank, in Pripyat, to open up a hole in the allies' front line, to break them apart, divide, and conquer. The loader says Putin won't get shit accomplished if it's up to him -- the driver scoffs that the loader is a dreamer: the loader says he'll personally bend Putin over and shove a bottle of vodka up his ass, then kick him and break the neck off inside -- the gunner says careful, because Putin gets his power from vodka, like any Russian; the driver says they ought to have the drones target all vodka distilleries rather than oil refineries. The commander chuckles with everyone else but tells them to quiet when a radio call comes in and tells them to head up the road: the commander peers out of the tank lid and sees the nuclear power plant down the road; he goes back in and the tank takes a sharp left and crosses some railroad tracks, heading into Pripyat along a wide main road with the nuclear plant behind them. The radio tells them to go slowly and quietly, on the listen and look-out for enemy tanks; they pass rows of apartment buildings, which are overgrown with trees, and don't see anything: the gunner softly says that there's no way the Russian tanks are amongst the apartments: the trees are too thick; the commander says to hush, and opens the lid to scope around: he looks around at the apartments and sees nothing but degradation, behind him is a row of US tanks, and ahead is an overgrown parking lot in a plaza, in front of the Polissya Hotel and Park -- beyond the hotel is a damaged Ferris wheel: he sees nothing, until he hears a faint rumbling, and the whines of mortars overhead: he ducks back inside yelling to prepare for mortars, and that tanks are coming. Shells are felt and heard landing around them, and the gunner keeps his eyes peeled: he spots a tank gun peering through the trees beyond the veranda walkway that connects the two parts of the hotel: the commander has them fire upon it; at that time, the driver spots another tank beyond the parking lot to the left of the hotel: the commander radios in for the tanks to fall in on either side of him in a row to spread out [the veranda tank fires a shell that lands to the left of the tank] and attack either side of the hotel while they head for the veranda. The mortars come overhead as they fire another shell at the veranda tank; the commander spies the mortars overhead through his view port and sees them come from the Ferris wheel area; he radios in to the others that there's a mortar team back by the Ferris wheel; a neighbor tank hits the veranda tank dead-on and it blows up. Russian tanks pour out on either side of the hotel (another whine of mortars) and pincer around the US tanks; one Russian tank comes through the parking lot and the driver spots it just in time to tell the others and turn towards it (mortars fall, and damage a another neighbor), but the Russian tank fires at the tank and grazes our tank and hits the veranda-killer neighbor; our tank fires and hits the Russian one but it merely dents it; the Russian one fires again at our tank, and it hits it dead-on, and our tank blows up.

o   At the meeting for an organization of anti-war veterans, the speaker hushed the crowd by quoting Croesus, 6th Century: "in Peace, sons bury their fathers, but in War, fathers bury their sons." He then explains that their group is comprised of veterans from the recent war with Russia, the Iraq war, the Gulf war, and the Vietnam War. He says that war seems to be a constant scenario, but compared to the 17th century, the world has seen a lot less violent disputes between nations. The speaker continues that the war with Russia may be seen as World War III after they update the history books, and they hope that it doesn't end so badly that if a World War IV were to happen, it would to be fought with sticks and stones, like Einstein said. The speaker then reads for them all "In Flanders Field," the poem from World War I. The speaker also says that WWII was the result of a lot of media portrayals and the subject of a lot of books, and so was the Vietnam War -- both of which seemed to be regaled and remembered nostalgically; he hopes that their recent war with Russia doesn't garner that kind of recognition, but violence is a part of humanity that is hard to kill -- he believes that it would be best for this war with Russia to end as catastrophically as possible, without ending civilization, so that people may finally see how bad war is.

o   In the midst of a modern war with Russia, at twilight, a US paratrooper descends from a plane amongst a platoon of other descending paratroopers. The paratroopers drop down to a snowy field adjacent to a coniferous forest and a town; the platoon convenes quietly at the tree line and form a tactical column to sweep through the forest: they scan the distance nervously but see nothing but trees and snow. Soon, they come through the trees upon an airfield; all around the boundaries of the airfield, pouring out from the trees, comes other platoons of US paratroopers. The airfield is charged upon by paratroopers as sudden machine gun fire erupts and mortars rain down; the paratroopers spread out amongst the airstrips and swarm towards the docked bomber planes. Squads engage with fortifications that defend mortar pits while other squads attack and reroute around machine gun nests; platoon leaders are shouting orders and certain elements are taking cover among the trees to lay suppressive fire. As our paratrooper rushes up the airfield to a makeshift cement bunker, he is fired upon, and he dives into a dug pit on the opposite side of the airstrip as the bunker; a radioman calls in for a tactical strike on the bunker. Cut to a drone looking down at Moscow, which is being sieged: a drone operator responds that he needs five minutes. The paratrooper and his squad hold out in the pit while others achieve ground or struggle to do so; one of the bomber planes explodes from paratrooper mortar fire. The drone now looks down upon the Chkalovsky Airport, and spies a heavy firefight: the drone operator spies the blinking light of the radioman and sees the bunker nearby: the drone fires upon the bunker. At the airstrip, our paratrooper looks up from the pit to see the bunker explode; the squad rushes across the airstrip and takes the ground formerly occupied by the bunker, killing any surviving Russian soldiers in the area; the squad overtakes the thin control tower: the top had become a snipers nest and they would have to disengage motion-activated C4 charges in the stairwell in order to ascend, so they lay their own C4 and hastily retreat back to the pit, while the radioman calls in for mortar on the column of the control tower; the squad hits the pit as mortars hit the tower, and it explodes in the middle and topples over. The paratroopers raid a hangar and take hostage a boarding plane and those who climb aboard, including a Russian General, who will be interrogated later.

o    ((one where the American govt. announces initiations of nuclear warfare protocol))

o   An American citizen's inner monologue details his PTSD after the atomic exchange between America and Russia, while footage of him (at the hospital with burns, at various points in his home, warily traversing a rebuilding city) shows: other than the radiation burns, which were greatly painful and the single constant thought on his mind for weeks, he was nervous of being caught in the open; he was afraid of leaving his house, if it were to happen again, since he only survived last time by being in his basement; he has had nightmares every other night about the blast itself, the effects on the area, his flesh burning off, and finding the scarred silhouettes of loved ones on the walls; he's gotten better at leaving the house, and he even has a job now (which is underground, by his choice), but now he can go outside, which is a big improvement, although he prefers to be outside for as little a time as possible.

o   After Italy, Greece, and Turkey become fascist, they seem to come into ownership of nuclear weapons. US officials discuss possible nuclear proliferation across Southern Europe; France and Russia are the two closest and therefore two foremost suspects. They discuss the possibility of removing uranium from the market by force or monopolization; the States that have Nuclear Weapon caches: US, UK, France, Russia, China -- the Largest uranium producers: Canada 27.9%, Australia 22.8%, Kazakhstan 10.5% -- therefore the US, UK, Russia, and China have more of a geopolitical control over the uranium market, which gets France out of the loop. They discuss finding a more destructive yet stable element, which would have to lie in the Island of Stability -- but this brings up Machiavelli's Security Dilemma, because that new element will eventually replace uranium as the other states will desire it. Regarding the current situation with uranium, Russia seems to be the more likely culprit -- they'll presumably target countervalue targets (cities and civilians) in order to weaken populations and economies (since they're in peacetime and have no military locations of importance); if it is Russia, then Europe is under the most immediate threat, as well as the US (China wouldn't be attacked, most likely).

o   The war with Russia culminates with atomic war, and much of the population is wiped out; a process of rebuilding occurs, as we know. Eventually, humanity constructs a civilization on the dark side of the moon (dark side to avoid heavy UV radiation from the sun); soon after, war is reignited after an argument of resources and ideologies, as the former USA/Europe wants to work towards a global state and populous, but former Russia/Middle East wants to return to separate states -- further atomic war ends up with the massive destruction of most of the world, except for the majority of Africa, Australia, and the majority of South America -- the moon colony is unaware of any surviving groups since all communication lines were severed and the Internet has been fried after some kinda super-EMP (research that to figure out how). 15 years later, surviving scientists in Brazil have established a space shuttle using old science and trajectory measures and estimations (there are only weak electrical currents, like for flipping switches to ignite lights or spark fuel); they constructed a space shuttle launch sight in an effort to send a group of people to the moon colony to reestablish contact and hopefully get aid or find salvation (they assume the moon colony examined Europe or Asia and didn't see life, so they abandoned hope). The scientists put seven brave souls in the rocket ship that they hoped would make it to the moon, and they had a shoddy mission control that was more of an outpost than a monitoring station: the mission control judged the time right for launch and flipped a switch, igniting a green sign light that was in view of the astronauts; the astronauts began powering the rocket engines; the rocket began ascension and a crowd of hopeful watchers roared with cheer, and mission control was ecstatic; the rocket veered slightly and sputtered and one of the engines exploded (everyone quiet and scared) and the rocket started spiraling upwards until it started tilting in the air and gyrating, and exploding once and for all; the crowd had screamed and cried and wailed, and hope was lost as their rocketry experiment failed -- they would have to make it on their own, with old agriculture methods, and attempt to reinvent the technology they no longer had...

o   The colony on the dark side of the moon is finally visited by explorers from Earth: 230 years after the atomic war devastated it, they were able to rebuild their technology. They went to the moon colony in an attempt to reestablish contact, because they assumed the moon colony was still alive but shut off their wide-range communications in order to conserve power for elsewhere. They arrived and docked and exited the ship to find that the moon colony had been dilapidating and kaput for 220 years -- the rocketry experiment in Brazil would've gotten them nowhere. Apparently, a virus grew in a lab and spread quickly through the ventilation system, and every person was infected and died horribly, and the moon colony was left to fall into disrepair... Every human died, but the virus did not.

·         It's November 5, 1952; three scientists work in a room of tower computers and switchboards, and they talk about how their calibrations are almost set to resonate in tune with the space-time continuum (but it can only move around within that position of the earth in space, otherwise he'll be lost from earth's gravity and will float in space forever -- he can move 5000 years in each direction from 1952); one of them walks towards the circular platform at the center of the room and readies himself, while the other two stand at the main control board; the one scientists nods to the two and they activate the machine with some levers, switches, and buttons; a cylindrical shell rises out of the stage around the circular platform, surrounding the scientist: there's a porthole in the wall, but it's otherwise all sleek metal: there's a digital number display board on the wall that displays the location "Alamogordo/NM/USA," beneath a digital number display board that displays the year "1/9/5/2/AD," beneath a flip clock that displays the day "November/0/5," next to a wall-mounted tape recording device with a microphone on a cord; there is a chair with a book (in an attached holder) called "Important Events in World History." The scientist sits in the chair and looks out the porthole, and gives a thumbs-up; the two scientists turn keys at different ends of the control panel, opening glass boxes for each, and each press a blue button at the same time: there's a jolt of electricity around the cylindrical shell and the capsule is gone. Inside the capsule, the scientists looks like he is undergoing G-forces with a migraine -- the view out of the porthole is a swirling, blaring bluish-black. The capsule comes to a halt and out the porthole is a fleet of Soviet troops marching into a government building: the scientist checks the readouts, which say it's November/5, 1/9/1/7/AD, Tallinn/__/Estonia: the scientist surmises that it's the October Revolution, and he speaks into the handheld microphone to record what he sees. Heavy jolt to the inside of a city wall as the Crusaders attacked the Muslims: Siege of Acre, 1190 AD, Acre/__/Israel. Heavy jolt to the Union Army's tent camp at Antietam, where Abraham Lincoln is asking George McClellan to step down as commanding officer: 1862 AD, Antietam/MD/USA. Heavy, long jolt to a cheery wilderness that is vaguely-shaped like a ruined city's terrain -- scientist checks readouts, which startle him: 5883 AD, London/__/England. Heavy, long jolt to Guy Fawkes being arrested and pulled out of the undercroft of the House of Lords by guards at night: the scientist recovers from shock to note that this is the same city as earlier: 1605 AD, London/__/England. Heavy, long jolt to Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Marcus Crassus agreeing on the creation of the First Triumvirate: 60 BC, Rome/__/Italy. Heavy, long jolt to George B. Selden being granted in court a patent for an automobile: 1895 AD, Rochester/NY/USA. Lesser jolt to a city street in Chicago as a cop car chases a car of gangsters down the radiating street at night: 1920 AD, Chicago/IL/USA. Sudden jolt to the glistening glass towers of Dubai as the sunlight shines off of them, which put the scientist in awe: 2014 AD, Dubai/__/Saudi Arabia. Sudden jolt to the capsule splashing into the high waters of St. Felix's Flood and the town and people of Reimerswaal being drowned, when the rain pours down at dusk: 1530 AD, Reimerswaal/__/Netherlands. Sudden jolt to the MACV composing a statement declaring this the week with the fewest deaths (24) in five years -- this concerns the scientist: 1970 AD, Saigon/__/Vietnam. Sudden jolt to Woodrow Wilson's election results confirming him as the next president, at night: 1912 AD, Washington/DC/USA. Lesser jolt to a British living room as the family hears a radio address of the British Empire declaring war on the Ottoman Empire, at sundown: 1914 AD, London/__/England. Heavy, long jolt to the capsule nestling in a snowdrift as the Neanderthal Ötzi and his companion struggle in the snow, and the companion bludgeoning Ötzi in the head with a rock, and leaving, at dawn -- the scientist notes that it is a struggle between two nomadic early humans: 3318 BC, Alps/__/Italy. Heavy, long jolt to a courtroom full of reporters and soldiers that protect the trial of Saddam Hussein, as Hussein is convicted and sentenced to hang -- the scientist is bothered by his list of crimes: 2006 AD, Baghdad/__/Iraq. Heavy, long jolt to a post-apocalyptic wasteland of a burnt and ruined, smoldering city, at sundown -- the scientist is stunned and wonders if this was the result of nuclear weapons: 4168 AD, Beijing/__/China. Heavy, long jolt to a JFK Airport terminal where a bunch of potential fliers are looking over at a television that plays an episode of Seinfeld -- the scientist overcomes previous shock and wonders about the program's allure, and notes air travel popularity: 1992 AD, New York City/NY/USA. Sudden jolt to Susan B. Anthony putting her ballot in a voting box and being promptly arrested: 1872 AD, Rochester/NY/USA. Heavy jolt to a toddler being announced emperor in a regal wooden castle, lit with torches, at night -- the scientist checks the readouts and looks in the book, and notes that this is the coronation of the 2-year-old Vietnamese Emperor Ly Anh Tông: 1138 AD, Hanoi/__/Vietnam. Sudden jolt to the capsule shaking during an earthquake in Rome, and the southern exterior facade of the full Colosseum breaks off and crumbles to the ground: 1349 AD, Rome/__/Italy. Heavy jolt to the inside of the Reich Chancellory, where Hitler is detailing his plans for achieving Lebensraum in a secret meeting -- the scientist notes this is a historic moment, albeit a bad one, which led to the technology they have available: 1937 AD, Berlin/__/Germany. Lesser jump to the laboratory where the two scientists are at the main control panel: the scientists shout into the capsule to say that he was gone for only two seconds, but inquire if it was longer for the one scientist -- the one scientist shouts for them to open the capsule and then he'll talk, that way they don't have to shout: the scientist notes his journey's end into the microphone and the readouts (1952 AD, Alamogordo/NM/USA) and the two scientists go to disengage the capsule when an alarm in the lab begins to go off: the scientist bangs on the porthole for them to hurry. (The following locations are visited for much shorter periods, as the capsule is changing location in space-time much faster and more violent, due to a malfunction with trying to disengage it... At this speed, all jumps are 200% speed and ferocity; each jump causes more and more pain to the scientist.) Heavy jump to the new king looking out over Paris, at sunrise: 987 AD, Paris/__/France. Heavy jump to a Nazi Party rally that marches down the streets of Berlin: 1937 AD, Berlin/__/Germany. Sudden jump to a southern plantation whose cotton crops are being harvested by slave labor: 1813 AD, Macon/__/Georgia. Sudden jump to the plague-striken streets of Marseilles and the suffering, sick townsfolk, at dusk: 1347 AD, Marseilles/__/France. Heavy jump to the inside of a movie theater as the audience watches Tom Cruise play billiards with Paul Newman in 'The Color of Money:' 1986 AD, San Diego/CA/USA. Lesser jump to the bombing of the Vatican in WWII, at twilight: 1943 AD, Vatican City/__/Italy. Sudden jump to the clearing of rubble in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks: 2001 AD, New York City/NY/USA. Heavy, long jump to a friar peacefully copying the Bible in a candlelit Christian church as Gregorian chanting comes from another room, at sunset: 713 AD, Geneva/__/Switzerland. Heavy, long jump to a flamboyant jazz band on a pier in New Orleans, after dusk: 1974 AD, New Orleans/LA/USA. Heavy, long jump to a chrome & glass vertical city composed of skyscrapers and skyways, with hover cars zooming in the sky, at night: 3627 AD, Boston/MA/USA. Heavy, long jump to Nebuchadnezzar II succumbing to old age in a lush, Babylonian temple, at twilight: 562 BC, Hillah/__/Iraq. Heavy, long jump to British soldiers sieging the Patriot-held Fort Mifflin, at dawn: 1777 AD, Philadelphia/PA/USA. Sudden jump to the NYSE morosely ringing the opening bell, in the morning: 2008 AD, New York City/NY/USA. Sudden jump to the shootout between the IWW and police: 1916 AD, Everett/WA/USA. Heavy, long jump to the banal construction of the Wansdyke in Britannia by Roman laborers, in the evening: 467 AD, Wiltshire/__/England. Heavy, long jump to the bustling, colorfully-lit city of Seoul, at night: 2021 AD, Seoul/__/South Korea. Heavy jump to Emperor Sukō succeeding Emperor Komyo in a stoic castle: 1348 AD, Kyoto/__/Japan. Heavy, long jump to the villagers of the Los Millares settlement meandering: 1973 BC, Santa Fe de Mondújar/__/Spain. Heavy, long jump to outer space, circling the Earth, as the chrome Sputnik satellite comes into view and slowly passes the porthole: 1957 AD, __/__/__; in outer space, the nearing-unconscious scientist realizes that his capsule can't identify locations while in space (as seen in the readouts), and it therefore can't identify another place to go to: it will orbit the Earth from here on out, and the scientist falls unconscious, fully aware of how his life is doomed. (Called "November Fifth.")

·         An overconfident man in a bar is perusing for some pussy; he sits and drinks a Heineken beer; the women around him are turned off by his advances but he doesn't lose hope. An ambulance is driving down the road outside, and the sound of the siren attracts his attention to look out the window: his eyes follow the ambulance across the window as is drives past; his eyes stop following the ambulance when they fall upon a buxom blonde -- he lusts after her and is infatuated with her: she sits alone and drinks a martini; he stands up immediately and approaches her: he asks if he can sit down, and she says yes! He starts talking to her and surmises by her choice of dialogue and tone that she's dumb (but this doesn't dissuade him); she eventually mentions that she comes to this bar a lot to pick up men and he surmises that she's a loose woman (but this doesn't dissuade him); his mouth is parched and his palms are sweaty as he gives in to lust: he has a strong sexual desire, and she mimics it. She goes to speak but is interrupted by a passing police car's siren (heading the same way as the ambulance), and they laugh it off; she asks if he wants to go to her place, and he says yes! Cut to her place where she's furiously making out with him and closing the front door of the apartment behind them: there's barely any furniture or decorations in the apartment. He says he needs to pee first, and heads to the bathroom: while peeing into the toilet, he looks down and sees there's blood caked around the bathtub drain -- he thinks nothing of it; he zips up and leaves the bathroom. He reenters the barren living room to find the blonde sprawled out on the floor in lingerie: he is seduced; she lures him to her with sensual breathy pleas and a curling finger -- he is unable to resist her beck and call: he cockily strolls over to her and gets on his knees to start kissing her: they make out and he fondles her nervously while she confidently holds him close. She takes off his shirt, plants kisses from his neck down his arm, and then she bites a small portion of his bicep: the tearing of the flesh hurts him and he stands up and asks if she's crazy: she looks pitifully, longingly into his eyes and (with blood on her mouth) asks seductively if he wants her: he resigns to his lust and says yes, and he gets on his knees again; they proceed to make out again. She kisses from his neck up to his cheek, and she takes a bite from his cheek: he winces but keeps kissing her; she takes a bite from his lip, but he shrugs it off and keeps kissing her. She pulls back and her teeth have become sharper and more numerous, and the man is still intoxicated by her as she breathily asks for him to satisfy her: he grins and leans forward, and she takes a bite out of his jugular vein in his neck. Cut to her dumping his body in the bathtub to drain the blood. Cut to her cooking a large meat in the oven. Cut to her eating cooked meat. Cut to her washing her face of blood. Cut to her putting the uneaten remains into a sack. Cut to her disposing of the sack at the seaside. Cut to her walking up the street; a police car drives past her with its siren blaring: she pays it no mind. Cut to her walking into the bar and ordering a martini; the bartender and others are glued to the television, as a news report tells of another sack of remains found at the beach (police are looking for a serial killer -- all victims are male). The blonde pays the television no mind and sits down: she eyes a douchebag whose attempts at attracting women are failing -- he sees her, lusts for her -- (she's a siren). (Called "Harlequin.")

·         A useless, aimless man wants to be successful, so he repeats a mantra from a self-help guru: "1.Passion, 2.Work, 3.Focus, 4.Push, 5.Ideas, 6.Improve, 7.Serve, 8.Persist," also spoken without the numbers, or even as an anagram for brevity: P.W.F.P.I.I.S.P. He is obsessed with this mantra; every day he slaves away at a telemarketer job, and every moment he has the chance, repeats the mantra. The man, however, doesn't attempt anything with life: he just repeats the mantra and is upset when things aren't improving. He gets more frustrated the longer time goes on and his life hasn't improved, but he continues to repeat it. Eventually, on the way to work one day, he is repeating it to himself when he starts to have a mental breakdown, cry (defeated and angry), and beat the steering wheel. He angrily repeats the mantra again and ends with repeating the word "Persist" over and over...

·         In catholic confession, a man monologues to a priest that he has sinned, and begins to repent: he assaulted his brother, after finding out he was gay; it was a shock, but he has to accept it, and he now knows that his brother himself is more important than his sexual orientation. The priest then says he is absolved of his sins, although he was in the right -- the man is taken aback, because the priest is saying that homosexuality is evil, and the man violently disagrees with the priest: the man enters the priest's side of the confessional and punches him repeatedly, then leaves, proud and no longer needing the confessional.

·         An aging astro-pilot climbs inside a new rocket-ship/fighter jet combo (that launches vertically but flies straight) as it points to the sky like a space shuttle, and tows behind its conical body a cylindrical chamber: the engines built into the wide wings warm up as the pilot closes the lid. A glimpse at the towed cylinder shows that its contents is a tattooed man in cryo-stasis. The pilot prompts ignition, and the aerospace jet fires up and achieves ascension: it roars up into the sky, picking up speed, and leveling out to zoom through the atmosphere at a tangent that then arcs out to break from the pull of gravity... The aerospace jet gently thrusts various air and fire spurts from ports along the wings to direct it to face a floating web of pods that orbit the Earth: the aerospace jet approaches it and spurts itself to slow and stop, so it made turn around 180° and port the cylinder behind it (it is another pod to attach): the web of pods is an unconventional prison, and each pod holds a severe criminal who is in cryo-stasis, aging until dead, but without need of care (saves taxpayer money while avoiding moral quandary of death penalty). The pilot ports the cylinder and detaches it: another link in the web. The pilot turns off his communications, rotates the aerospace jet, and spurts it over to face a centrally-located pod, and the pilot looks at its inhabitant: it's his brother, who was a child-murderer; he laments his brother's situation but doesn't blame the justice system; he tells his brother that mom says hello again, and so does his wife; he remarks that it's interesting how people think of how God, angels, and ancestors look down on them from Heaven, but in reality, serial killers and violent criminals look down on them from space -- what does that say about what we believe as a society? That the examples of wrongdoings are better figures to remember than those who are examples of good? Perhaps obedience under threat of eternal punishment is more powerful than charity under threat of eternal reward. He turns his communications back on, spins back around, spurts away from the web, and reactivates the engines, zooming back to Earth.

·         A man and his girlfriend enter a house party, and move around the house, conversing with friends -- except, the whole time, he's lost in thought, monologuing: he just found out that she's pansexual and that means that she's attracted to personality and attributes rather than any particular gender; being attracted to one gender makes him paranoid enough because that's a lot of competition whom she might end up being more attracted to than to him; being bisexual would mean he has to essentially be twice as paranoid because the number of threats doubles as both genders now become viable as people who could usurp his spousal role; pansexuality means that it could be literally any person (dick, vagina, both, neither) of any age or race (old black guy, young Asian girl, middle-aged half-Indian half-Irish) and every personality has at least one redeemable quality, but now physical attraction comes into play as equally as personality, and there are a lot of people who are at least passable or acceptable for both physical looks and inner personality; basically anyone is a threat as long as they're not shitty or ugly, and he only surrounds himself with people who have great personalities, which means anyone who he likes is now a threat to his relationship -- and he's in a room full of these good-looking, charitable, suave, funny intellectuals; here comes the panic attack...

·         Two identical twins sit in a room with their friends and talk, and one monologues in his head... They are two identical twins: one is normal and the other is sociopathic and schizophrenic; so the other has spent the past twenty-eight years mimicking his twin, and the past eight years of that keeping his delusions a secret -- he is the other, and he's pretty sure not even his twin knows he's secretly terrible and corrupt. He understands he's a bad person because not only does he have an idyllic-version of a mirror image to compare himself to, but he researched it and knows what's wrong with himself. He has been told by people that they can tell he's holding back and withdrawing, and that he should be himself -- but they wouldn't want that. He ignores the voices and the paranoia, which is harder when his twin isn't there for him to model his demeanor off of. He's a bomb waiting to go off, and he's probably a really bad person, but he doesn't want to find out -- so he'll keep modeling himself off of his brother: it's safer that way.

·         Kid in bed at night is scared and looks around: nothing. He looks at closet and it's closed. He leans over bedside and looks under bed: he scans (camera pans) back and forth: his hair hangs down as he nervously looks: he scans still, and he then sees a demon is also peering under the bed (upside down) from on top of the bed (basically the demon is on the bed with him): he is scared. (Make the boy a girl)

·         Guy listening to radio hears DJ slowly build into a rant... "Up next is a song that the radio station requires me to play. For 99% of the world, free will is a myth..." And he continues on about how he has no control over his life -- six major entertainment companies control the media, advertisers control the social landscape, and ten conglomerates control the main companies and brands we know and buy -- they are all pawns to big business; companies and lobbyists are behind every politician, which is why they all sound the same and never accomplish anything but war. The DJ gets more upright and angry as it can be heard that he's trying to keep security guards from entering the room, and he notes how he's not allowed free speech when it's truth he's saying -- the security guards burst in and his last words before being dragged out are about how he wishes that the listeners would heed his words and become aware. The DJ's then replaced by a calm guy who suavely tries to redirect the mood back to listening to Top 40.

·         There's a secret home for illegal immigrant children in an orphanage's basement that begins to flood from a burst pipe while the orphanage is perused by a governor candidate on a PR trip; overseer "Mother Goose" tries to hurry the governor up so that she can get the kids out (who she keeps having to tell to stay quiet and wait a little longer (tension)); eventually the governor sees water come up under the door crack and opens it to find kids crammed in top of stairs (and others dead in water?), and the visitors are all shocked, while the kids and Mother Goose are scared and nervous...

·         Religious person with Schizophrenia who concludes he is a prophet of God, who is visiting him: delusions of grandeur, narratives of persecution, hearing voices and feeling like their thoughts are controlled by God, hallucinations, disorganized thoughts and speech and emotions. -- He preaches to people and they don't believe him: they call him crazy, but he earnestly pleads that he's sane, because he truly believes that he is... (He's not.)

·         At a club in New Orleans that invokes Mardi Gras all year round, a shy man is nominated "parade king" for the night and everyone touts him and puts him on a throne -- the power gets to his head (Delusions of Grandeur) and he thinks he's awesome, and won't leave the throne, and he bosses everyone around: they don't like it, and they begin an insurrection, revolution, and a coup de etat (in a nightclub).

·         Early Man in North America on the edge of a forest between a coast and the ice wall of a glacier: they peruse a field they live on, inhabited by millions of buffalo, handfuls of mammoths, and threats of short-faced beats and saber-toothed tigers; they are surrounded by both the options of prosperity and death.

·         A man quips to his friend how people always go back in time to make something from the modern age in order to get rich: but he will go to the future and steal an idea, then come back and recreate now (doesn't uproot his life that way); so he goes ahead in time, finds a major company (Delphi, with the CEO Xander Lowry), learns about hover technology, and returns to the modern day to work on it. He gets divorced from his wife (while she is pregnant), because he wants to focus on his work. He toils for years and eventually creates hover technology, he creates a company (Nostra (short for Nostradamus)) that eventually grows into a tech empire (and he's its CEO), and he grows fabulously wealthy as "the new Bill Gates." Forty years after his theft, he has grown old and lives happily, knowing he stole his success and made it big; his son finds him and a paternity test proves it, and the son is bitter, and the man feels bad so he makes amends by giving the son the company (this way he can retire), and the son agrees; the son took his mom's new husband's last name (Lowry) and was named Alex (Alexander) -- The man is on vacation when he sees his past self materialize and watch the same television broadcast he did, where Xander Lowry announced a new update to hover technology, and the man realizes he forgot all about that moment; turns out the man stole from his son, who took it back from him (couldn't leave the timeline).

·         A man monologues to his son about why the son shouldn't give up when the going gets rough -- the man's grandparents were on the island of Malta in World War II: the Axis wanted to control it to dominate shipping lanes between Italy and Africa, and the Maltese people fought with the Allies to protect it; from June 1940 to November 1942, Malta was one of the most intensively bombed areas in WWII. The Maltese people were cut off from supply lines and had to ration heavily, and they endured starvation: all the while, their cities and populous was destroyed: 30,000 buildings damaged or destroyed and 1,300 civilians dead. It took a strategic initiative of Allied ships to resupply Malta, with Operation Pedestal. They survived some of the worst that World War II had to offer, and they weren't even soldiers -- they were ordinary people who lived through the hell that soldiers did, and they volunteered to do it; they were strong people -- they wouldn't allow the most notorious threat in human history (Nazis) to take their home, so they withstood every attack that gone thrown at them; his grandparents survived without ever having to hold a weapon. Unfortunately, their house and city weren't standing by the end of 1942, so they emigrated to the US, where they had kids, who had kids, and here the son is today -- he wouldn't be there if the son's great-grandparents were pussies.

·         In a busy airport terminal in the late morning (10-11 am), a man sits at a gate, waiting for his plane to arrive. A friendly, naive woman sits next to him and says hi -- he replies uninterested; she asks where he's going, and he says Denver; she asks why, and he says funeral (for mother); she shuts up... He asks where she's going, and she says Seattle (Denver is the connecting flight); she doesn't want to continue the conversation although he does (she's embarrassed); he asks if she feels uncomfortable about the funeral, and he says not to because it's not the worst one he's been to -- he asks her what her least favorite funeral has been; she joking says all funerals have been the worst, and he asks for a worst one: she defensively says that it was her grandfather's. She asks if the funeral he's going to is his worst (for mother) -- he says no: his worst one was for his brother, but he didn't realize it until later in life. She asks what he means, and he divulges into a monologue... His younger brother was 3 when he was 5; one day in June, his younger brother took his action figure from him and his dad told him to let the brother play with it (to concede and surrender the toy), and he was actively playing with it when the brother took it (and here his dad was, unfairly tell him to let his brother do what he wanted), and he felt like his dad was favoring his brother over him (and this wasn't the first time that this happened): and he got jealous of his brother. They were sent out into the backyard to play, and he went to the sandbox (they had a spacious backyard with a field and a forest and a little babbling brook): eventually, his dad told him to watch his younger brother for a moment while he went to the bathroom. His brother wandered further to the backyard by the trees, and he was spiteful so he kept an eye on him but didn't keep the brother in the field where he was supposed to stay: he let the brother wander off -- and when he looked back again, the brother was over by the brook; but he was spiteful so he didn't tell the brother to move away from it; the brother slipped on the pebbled bottom and fell into the water: he saw this happen but chose not to do anything to help. The brother splashed helplessly in the water, face-down, not strong or competent enough to lift himself up... He watched his brother drown, and he didn't do anything about it because he was mad at him, and he felt his brother deserved it -- he didn't know it was killing him, he just knew that he was in pain, struggling, and that it would hurt his parents as well. ...eventually the splashing stopped, and eventually his father came outside and he snapped back to playing in the sandbox; right quick, his father realized his brother was missing, and he saw the body in the brook, and he ran to it while shouting "no, God, no, please" repetitively, and he picked up the body, and resuscitation was fruitless, and his father wept hopelessly while he played in the sandbox. His parents became shells of themselves, and his father blame himself for it (although he did, after all, leave a 5-year-old in charge of a 3-year-old). At the funeral, his brother was in a small casket at the front of the room, but he didn't understand that it was more than sleep, so when his mother picked him up and held him over his brother to say goodbye, he pulled out the action figure and waved it in front of his brother's face: his mother thought he wanted to give it up to him so she took it graciously from him and set it next to his younger brother, and they closed the casket -- and he didn't say anything because the moment didn't seem right or real; although he knew he was upset about losing the action figure and didn't feel like he was losing his brother. A few months later, his father committed suicide; after that, his broken mother had to move him and herself to a new house, which was smaller -- they never talked about it again, and she never recovered from the two deaths: she was empty inside, and never showed him love thereafter (he thinks she knew that he knew his brother was drowning and that he chose not to help, but it doesn't matter). It took a couple years of aging to slowly remember and realize what actually happened, and he had a mental breakdown once he realized how terrible his inaction was (and how all the bad that came of it was his fault): he had that breakdown at age 11, and he spiraled into self-harm and addiction. Eventually he got past it, and now that his mother is no longer on Earth, another remnant of that event has left him and he can breathe easier now: although he will never breathe easily again. ...but yeah, that's his worst funeral: his younger brother's. The woman is stone-cold petrified and sad, with mouth agape; they sit there silently, and she slowly turns her head to try and exit the interaction, and he does the same -- they both shift to go back to ignoring each other, and become isolated people in the busy atmosphere of the airport terminal.

·         An atmospheric chamber is constructed by NASA to go to another planet so that a man can safely exist comfortably elsewhere in the universe without a spacesuit (it's a small room that can root like a landing craft, and is permanent -- if he needs to leave, he won't be able to -- it has sustainable design for solar energy, water purifying, and an HVAC system); the chamber is holstered in a rocket on and the pilot is in cryo-stasis; the chamber is intercepted in a violent haranguing midway to Mars; the pilot awakes inside of the chamber and is on an unidentified planet, in a zoo exhibit -- his chamber of life for discovery becomes a cage. The man awakes and discovers that he can talk to those adjacent and nearby through a universal translator device, and he asks a nearby beast what the place is: the beast says that they are in captivity by an alien race that collects species who discover how to live elsewhere, so that the members of the alien species knows who else are threats to their space colonization: it's a showcase of the "universal enemies," and each species that is in captivity is on a life-sustaining, cell-regenerative system via a particle barrage (suicide it fruitless and impossible, because the cells heal too quickly); all that they can do is entertain each other, generally by telling each other what their worlds and societies and histories are like; the man asks the beast how long he's been alive here, and the beast thinks for a moment and says 461 Earth-years, and the man says that his species lives for a long time, and the beast says that his species lives to 250 Earth-years maximum: the particles keep him young and alive forever (some have been there for thousands of years); the man asks who else was recent, and each creature calls out their name, race, and how long ago they were captured, in reverse chronological order -- there's a lot of creatures in the universe who (at some point) figured out space travel, and this one alien species was very aware of the universe's abundance of species before most of them had enough time to evolve into sentient creatures...

·         A dramatization of what the inside of the mind is like... It's dawn and the man in the cerebellum (?) is sitting calmly at a control station with a bunch of monitors, and watching the dream of the person (with popcorn); the man sees the clock come up on another monitor and he readies himself: he starts a countdown that sets off a spiraling orange light inside the room, and calmly leaves to go to the bathroom; just after that, the person's alarm clock goes off, and they hit off instead of snooze, and they fall back asleep (as the monitors show a change from the eyes to the dream). The man eventually returns from the bathroom to find that the person is still dreaming and he becomes startled: he runs to the controls and turns a key to expose a big red button denoted as "ABORT:" he presses it; the person jolts awake out of bed by throwing the covers off and bolting upright, and jumping out of bed; they see the alarm clock and start repeating "no no no no I'm late!" as they begin to scramble to get ready. The man calls on the radio to all other stations that the person is in rush mode and everyone must be at their battle stations (this is not the normal routine! Prepare yourselves). Adrenaline is activated... From then on out, each part of the body's stations are run by other men and specialize in other functions (ex: hand-eye coordination while brushing teeth (after mouth had a short, heated dialogue with logic center of brain about why a healthy mouth was important for the day (logic's rebuttal was that they don't have the time), heart is monitoring adrenaline levels, brain's emotion side is attempting to keep person calm without flooding them with dopamine, inner ear nervously controls joysticks to maintain balance while putting on socks, stomach preemptively activated early but breakfast was skipped in favor of brushing teeth so stomach is a churning turbine working ineffectively (and its operator is pissed at logic)).

·         At the dentist office, a young adult man has an old man dentist who smells like moth balls and mouthwash; (the man has an inner voice we hear?). The dentist is working in the man's mouth with the scrapers and pokers, while trying to ask the man open-ended questions: but the man can't answer coherently because his mouth is full -- the man hates that the dentist expects him to answer questions with a full mouth, and wishes he would talk to someone else. The dentist turns to chat with an assistant and keeps mingling in the man's mouth; this aggravates the man because he isn't paying attention, even though it's what he asked for -- and the dentist keeps asking him to open wider even though he's not looking at his mouth. The man is used to all of this, which bugs him -- he holds a grudge against the dentist. The dentist keeps asking for him to open his mouth and he does but closes it as his focus is on his thoughts and how the dentist isn't paying attention; the dentist asks him to bite down so he does, but the dentist's finger was still in the mouth: the dentist recoils and says gently "not yet," and the man apologizes out loud but congratulates himself on the inside and gloats about finally having achieved a slight revenge: the man "accidentally" bit the dentist's finger.

·         An animation; Robert Redford, Julie Newmar, Faith Domergue, and Peter Lorre attend a champagne soirée, and turn it into a flatter-fest, giving praise to each other and humble responses that pass off their greatness by changing the subject to the achievements of each other.

·         In the middle of the day in a busy amusement park, a couple gets inside the vehicle for an indoor dark ride; each vehicle is moderately separated from one another. The ride is really cheesy (think It's A Small World) and the animatronics are nonrealistic puppets with jerky movements and mouths that don't match up with the audio. Eventually, after boring the couple significantly, the vehicle halts and the ride shuts down and the lights/audio turn off; a employee on the loudspeaker tells them to remain calm while the ride is briefly repaired. The couple sits nervously. The audio comes back on but the lights do not; the animatronics are stationary until the mouths start moving in sync with the audio while staring blankly ahead; then the eyes shift to stare at the couple; by this point, they're skeeved out and nervous. The animatronics start to move their limbs as they come to life; the animatronics are really close to the couple who are held into their vehicle by a safety bar; the couple can't escape, and the animatronics stare at them and beckon for them while singing in sync to the audio. The couple is freaking out and the ride jolts back to life, and the animatronics return to normal. The ride finishes and the vehicle pulls to the end of the ride; the couple hastily exit as an employee tries to ask them if they enjoyed it, and apologizes for the brief halt as the couple runs off.

·         A man in an office building full of cubicles is frustrated and disapproving of the type of and amount work he has to do, and how boring it is. He pulls himself away from it and sees a mirage of a tropical oasis in the middle of the cubicle field; the palm trees sway over a light blue pool that contains a bikini-clad woman -- he is entranced by the oasis, until an incoming call on his desk phone pulls him away from it -- he answers it, and doesn't see the mirage when he looks back. Later, at lunch in the company cafeteria, he has a mirage of an expensive, intimate restaurant that is dimly lit and serving steaks -- a beckoning coworker calls his attention to have him sit with them, and he does, and he joins their boring conversation, and the mirage isn't there anymore. He looks out the office building window during a meeting in a conference room, and a rollercoaster is set up in the parking lot; it twists and turns and zooms -- his boss calls for his attention and asks him not to day dream; he looks back up at the PowerPoint, and the rollercoaster isn't outside anymore (it's merely a parking lot). Later, he takes the stairwell to the roof to have some time and space to breathe, and he sees a cool guy beckoning him over to try out a hang glider; the man approaches the cool guy who straps him in excitedly and the man is ready to go; the cool guy waves him off and the man leaps; the hang glider carries him off of the building and he soars away, across the parking lot and into the sky, towards the sun... His coworkers run outside and find his splattered body on the pavement: he jumped to his death, but his brain told him otherwise to avoid the pain, like a mirage.

·         An astrophysicist details for a college class how they found life on another planet far away; an alien that doesn't look like anything we could imagine, is sized unlike us, from an environment unlike ours with an atmosphere not like ours, and more senses than we have that all aren't like ours; this is an alien that is not of human design, it is of nature's design. Different senses of time and forms of communication. Senses: acute magnetoception (magnet field detection), equilibrioception (sense movement, direction, acceleration), thermoception (sense heat and absence of heat), detect infrared light, electroreception (detect electric fields), etc. They have no eyes, ears, nose, or mouth; they can detect with their nerves, and they feel and analyze the world around them through the invisible distances between objects. Their planet is a silty gas giant and they float around it with rippling wings and sails; they have a 60-250ft radius and are 60-140ft tall; they sustain life by the electrical charges of the friction of the sand in the atmosphere, which keeps their nerves charged, and they reproduce by fracturing upon death from lack of electrical charge: the body dies so it splinters apart and the neuro-centers fall out and (as tiny nuclei) slowly receive more charges and grow continuously until too large to receive enough charges to sustain life; their lives are thousands of our years old, and each one ends to create more at regular intervals. They don't have consciousness or perceive time; they're giant, glorified nucleus cells. "'We have a universe where the matter and energy assembled to achieve consciousness.' ...they do not have what we have." (Neil deGrasse Tyson was the first half of the quote) (called "Turtles," referencing the aliens' shell-like shape but also their life cycle which is 'turtles all the way down.')

·         OCD makes him do actions in threes; he tries to resist but gets paranoid and can't-not: the urges are irresistible, because he fears what could happen if he didn't; he tells himself the fears aren't true, but he is autonomously drawn to do things in threes anyways.

·         An old man (97) lies on his death bed and confesses to his son (72) that he shot JFK when he was a secret service agent, ordered to do so by [someone important (mob boss?)], and the conspiracy theories are real. The son is shocked because he always thought the conspiracy theories were real (he's a super-republican grandpa) BUT now doesn't believe his the conspiracy theories since his dad told him they were true, considering his dad always denied them; now the son is internally confused about whether or not he truly believes the theories, and if his dad told him to make him befuddled or if he's actually telling the truth (it's another conspiracy theory that he's developing).

·         A guest lecturer in a political climate class, who is both an economist and historian, details for the class how the European Union is trying to be like the USA: different states but one governed group, because it nationalizes fractures and melds cultures together without suppressing their differences. This can occur in Europe, and Africa, and South America, and even Asia, and eventually lead to globalization and homogenization of all peoples. He then details how homogenization of peoples will make all people the same kind of brown-eyed tan people and hopefully eliminate racism (deep into the future), and how a united world and peoples will lead to hopefully no need for war since all peoples are united. Also, advancing technology could eliminate wealth disparages by making all desired things (from manufactured diamonds to years' worth of films) and eliminating the needs for jobs (with robots and nano-technology). There would be world peace and prosperity for all, and one united global community. – (Perhaps add reasoning of how Security Dilemma will be tackled (all around dissolution of arms or merge first), nationalism for humanity rather than nation, and libertarianism + statism = this, and all people same race eventually (homogenization) – and as he gets political, he brings up the idea of Fascist Populism (not equal people, more than equal rights, equal justice: equal opportunity and desert) and proposes the “next generation of geopolitical change.”)

·         Thomas Finch, a social darwinist and security guard, catches a perp who was trying to break into a restaurant through the back door, who's a slovenly homeless man. Ken forces the homeless man to kill himself and explains why: humanity hasn't worked this hard to get here in order to have the homeless guy exist: he's a byproduct, a failure, a wrong step. Ken details the history of evolution, from the death of the dinosaurs and the ability for the rats to fill the niche; some rats kept a rat-form over time while other rats grew to squirrels, then monkeys, apes, bipedal primates, hominids, Homo sapiens, and humans, and here he was: the smart and capable security guard who attempts to fulfill his potential and continue to advance the human species towards a taller, bigger-headed, smarter creature: and here the homeless man is, as a rat wishing to remain a rat...

·         A college professor details the history of the color red for his art history class: it's the color that motivates society: blood of war, avoiding the red numbers in ledgers, red lips of seduction, etcetera. Notably, the alizarin pigment from King Tut to Pompeii to Charlemagne encouraging madder cultivation, the color of the 17-19th century English army's "redcoats," etcetera. Associated with sacrifice, danger, courage, as well as heat, activity, passion, sexuality, anger, love, and joy, and sometimes life, health, victory, destruction, and evil; it has also been the symbolic color of revolution since the French Revolution, and later the symbolic color of socialism. Red was used as early on as 170,000 BC by Late Stone Age people who ground ochre clay to use as body paint, and paint for cave drawings. Women since Ancient Egypt have used red ochre to cosmetically redden cheeks and lips, as well as hair and nails. Red Clay was used in pottery in Ancient China and Greece, among others. Pigments were used to color textiles in all three of these places, as well as Peru and India, and the Mayan city-states, where it was used in burials of royalty. Early man colored the walls with red pigment in France and Spain, and early Greeks and Cretans continued to use red for walls decorating as more sophisticated murals. In Ancient Rome, red was worn on holidays but generally associated with gladiators and the army, who always wore red tunics -- the Roman god of war, Mars, was associated with red. The Byzantine Empire adapted red as a color of majesty and authority, and in the Catholic Church symbolized the blood of Christ; Emperor Charlemagne painted his palace red and wore all red at his coronation; since 1295, Roman Catholic cardinals have worn red. The English Kingdom and Holy Roman Empire wore red cross symbols throughout the Crusades as they fought for the Holy Land. In the Middle Ages, Brazilin was a popular red dye that was made from the brazilwood trees of the South American coasts, which were exported to Europe -- these trees brought Brazil its name. In the Renaissance Era, popularity of painting and colors brought a desire for pigments, which came into Europe through ports like Marseille, Genoa, Seville, and Venice, which boosted their economies and fame, transforming them into major cities; there were even exclusive guilds in Venice for dyers who specialized in red. Since the early days of pigments, back with early man in the Neolithic, crushed bugs were used; a tiny insect in the genus Kermes had been the main source in Europe, until Spanish Conquistador Cortés brought the cochineal bug's magnificent red pigment to Europe from the Aztec Empire in 1521; Venetians guilds tried to resist but couldn't, and soon cochineal was the preferred luxury red for aristocrats and courtesans by the 17th century. In the 18th century, the Jacobins used red as a symbol of liberty and personal freedom during the French Revolution, and red was worn at the public executions at the guillotine. The 19th century saw the upswell of socialism and radicals adopting red, and its increasing popularity of all walks of life helped the Industrial Revolution take footing as there was a need for technological advancement in synthesizing and producing red pigments, which chemists began to work on. As well, color theory emerged, where the idea of certain colors being used to convey and inspire certain emotions became popular, being adhered to by artists such as Van Gogh. Red was a favorite of artists all throughout the history of art. Red was especially popular in China, and it had been the crucial color of Chinese culture, religion, industry, fashion, and court ritual since ancient times; silk was favored to be dyed red; red was the color worn by royalty and nobility, and it was a badge of rank for military officials; many buildings and structures were painted red, although it was used sparingly in art. The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 was heavily coated in red, leading communists to be referred as "reds;" the Chinese Revolution in 1949 and communist parties from Eastern Europe to Cuba to Vietnam were red. Abstract expressionalist Mark Rothko used blocks of red in paintings to inspire deep emotions, for tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on. It is of the three primary colors, whether that be RYB or RGB: it is often paralleled with blue, and when combined with such equals purple, which has been generally associated with royalty throughout time and across cultures, notably due to the rarity of purple dye. Sunsets, ripe fruit, Mars, fire, autumn, blood: red is an important color in nature. St. Valentines Day, Santa Claus, the red carpet, Chinese lanterns, opera house seats, the apple from the Garden of Eden, the rose, lipstick, the devil, red light district, Boston Red Sox, the Republican Party, numerous countries' flags, Shinto torii, the Scarlet Letter, "red tape," Little Red Riding Hood, 2010's Red starring Bruce Willis: red is an important color in society. It always has been, and it always will be.

·         An old woman is interviewed by a man, and she describes being Jewish in Nazi Germany: she was a beautiful 14-year-old and when Hitler came to her town for a speech, all the townspeople went to see it except the Jews who went into hiding; her parents sent her to go find her uncle, who was hiding, and she came across the crowd at the speech who were chanting in unison "death to the Jews" and she found herself joining the crowd, because it was intoxicating and she felt nationalistic, but then realized she was saying "death to herself," and questioned how that could happen... More is said, and the man grows more and more invested in the story and emotional towards it. And so on…

·         There's someone in the house owned by the protagonist who is always out of reach before disappearing around the corner, so the protagonist keeps seeing them with their peripheral vision, but turns too late to see them since their keep dodging behind corners. Eventually the protagonist sees them more clearly but in shadows when it is too far away to be reached in time, and the protagonist may run to a corner and turn it, but there will be nobody there even if it had JUST left the protagonist's view. Eventually, the protagonist turns a corner and sees a crying woman far away with her back to him (the woman was the person), and the protagonist says that no matter what the problem is, she has no reason to be in the house, and the protagonist asks her to please leave; the woman starts muttering through tears to herself (asking where her baby is and why they took it from her) and the protagonist asks what she's saying, and she whispers, and the protagonist hesitantly says that they can't hear her, and she spins around and starts screaming what she was saying: also, she has no eyes (there is blank skin where her eyes ought to be, as if she naturally doesn't have eyes); the protagonist freaks out and runs out of the room, and the woman is right around the corner in the next room and the protagonist freezes in place with fear: the woman calmly, sadly, reaches her hand out to caress the protagonist's face and soothe them, all the while referring to them as her baby (protagonist is scared) and she tells them that everything will be ok because mommy is here now...

·         A virus has infected the world's population, turning the deceased into zombies; only 3% of the population remains alive, and they've been at it for two years of struggling by the time we meet them: ten people who live on the top floor of a fortified apartment building with a structured lifestyle of caution and routine, struggling to survive. One of the people is tired of the banality and sees their struggle as fruitless; he thinks that their attempts at human survival are selfish in the grand scheme of the universe and time; we ourselves want to live and keep the species and civilization alive forever, but the world is constantly changing and restarting the hierarchy; they're just resisting the natural erasure of the slate -- the dinosaurs didn't resist their downfall; why should they? Why is "upholding civilization" so important? Who says it's the endgame for life? It's merely just a construct of humans aside from the state of nature, because humans wanted to be in control of each other rather than leave it up to nature, but nature always wins... It took an asteroid to kill the dinosaurs and eradicate their way of life, allowing the mammals to rise up -- it takes a virus to kill the humans and eradicate our way of life, allowing a new creature to rise up (maybe it's birds or larger mammals or more lizards); civilization will crumble eventually and nature will overtake it, and soon the Earth will be clean again and we will be merely a memory that nobody will be around to remember...

·         A man buys an ugly purse out of desperation for getting his wife a gift, and inside is a lot of drugs that were using the purse as a drop: so a different dealer was supposed to empty the purse and move on but the man got there first; the dealer confronts the man and offers a lot to buy it from him, and the man says no because he needs a gift -- the dealer pulls out a knife and tries to slash the man in the gut: the man dodges and smacks the dealer in the face with the purse; the man and dealer continue to try and hit each other, and eventually the knife punctures the purse and rips it from the man's hands; the dealer grabs it and runs off: the dealer runs deep into the parking garage and hides next to a car, and searches inside for the drugs: there's nothing inside. A mall security guard approaches and asks him to put the knife down (the man is with him, after having tattled); the dealer is arrested and taken away; the man, frazzled, goes back into the mall and purchases another one of the same ugly purse. While walking to his car, the man looks inside the purse (after hearing a crinkling inside), and it's full of drugs.

·         In a comedy/horror where we're watching someone try to become a serial killer, they're stalking their first victim quietly when they get the hiccups, and are frustrated with each hiccup until eventually the person realizes that they are followed and they call them out: the serial killer exasperated leaves.

·         In a coniferous forest, in December 1942, a Russian woman runs away from the Siege of Stalingrad, after slipping through a tunnel and gap in the line (although she still had to avoid getting shot). She scours and lurks through the forest, pressing onwards, cold and hungry... She avoids a prowling German patrol of jovial, ignorant Nazis; the Germans almost detect her but figure that the noises of her movement were those of a deer. The woman walks further and a lone German guard who she doesn't detect asks her to stop, and she freezes out of fear: he looks her over and tells her to run off before the others show up: she surmises from his actions (she speaks Russian, he speaks German) that she is free to go, and she runs off -- she goes further into the forest...

·         In attic of recently-deceased old parents, the adult son goes through their attic and sorts between relics and antiques of what to keep, sell, or throw out -- he finds a mummified severed head of a French King, and his portrait, in a trunk. He displays it as a centerpiece on the dining room table; his wife does not like it, especially since it's Thanksgiving and her parents and sister and brother-in-law and niece are all visiting -- and it's a shriveled, decomposed corpse head.

·         A woman laments to her spouse of fourteen years that she doesn't actually love him; doctors told her she was barren so she didn't use a condom, but then he got her pregnant after a one-night fling, and he stuck around to help raise the baby and she felt obligated to keep him around so he would help, and that's why they're married (she doesn't actually like him at all as a person); she doesn't necessarily want a divorce, she just had to say it; she expects him to be sad and disappointed, but he calmly says "I feel the same way."

·         A very technologically-keen couple arrives at a 17th century New England reenactment village (think Plymouth Plantation, Sturbridge Village); they roam around and take photos, and they are ignorant to how life was lived back then, therefore it astounds them; they enter the governor's house, talk with him (he's very authentic) and he stays in character and is very realistic and condemns them as witches (because of their clothes and the light they emanate (camera flashes and LED screen glow from phones). The couple exits the governor's house and comes out to find the village bustling and larger, and there are no other tourists or inauthentic signage: the couple slowly realizes something is wrong, and they get nervous and scared when they realize they're in the real 17th century. They run down the streets (lined with thatched-roof houses and cows kept behind fences) and they run off into the forest; they encounter a squad of Native Americans who are hunting deer near the village, and the Natives presume that the couple are not normal villagers (based on their appearance); the Natives offer refuge in their nearby settlement, and the exasperated couple sits by the fire and worries about how this has uprooted their lives and that they'll have to adapt to live in olden times (with no electronics); a Native brings them into a hut to put them to work, and begins showing them how to grind corn up with a mortar and pestle -- a camera flashes and the couple turns around to see another tourist who benignly comments "neat," and leaves the hut; the couple anxiously exit the hut and find that it's back to its "composed authenticity," and has its signage back and is full of tourists; the couple staggers back to the village and sees that it's back to modern day, and the governor sees them on the street and says hello and asks of they're enjoying their visit to is village: the couple meekly nods.

·         In Thumrait, a city in Oman, a man remodeling his home knocks down a wall and discovers a carved tunnel in the rock that leads down into an ancient underground city of interconnected tunnels and rooms: the lost city of Iram of the Pillars, aka the Atlantis of the Sands -- he had heard the legends as a boy. He surmises that the city sunk in the sands (perhaps during an earthquake), and it nestled in the rocks, just beneath the surface; and since his house is on the outskirts of town, the city's underground infrastructure hasn't encroached on it yet. He wanders the tunnels and is amazed by the architecture; he finds a pedestal in a room surrounded by pillars, and on the pedestal is a dark red crystal -- a guy in flowing robes curiously emerges from a room and is shocked to see that the man (or anyone, for that matter) is down there; the guy runs off while yelling about "Overlanders:" soon, a bunch of people in flowing robes emerge in a frenzy, and flood towards the man. The people tell him to back away from the crystal, and he inquires why while also asking who they all are; they are the people of Iram: the man says it is a myth, the people say it is not: their ancestors disobeyed God and grew selfish, so he sunk the city into the sand -- but it did not kill them: they can't expose themselves to sunlight or they will die, so they closed off the city to keep out invaders and remain undetected: the crystal keeps them alive artificially, since they can't grow food, get clean air, or clean water. The man is amazed and says that they've done a good job surviving undetected; the people say that they have to keep it that way, which is why the man can't leave (they say he'll tell people about it), and they grab him: he says he won't tell, but they won't take the risk: he says they'll think what he's saying is a fever dream, and they say there would be skeptics who would seek the truth. The people hold his finger over the crystal and prick it so that a drop of his blood falls on the crystal, which resonates, and the man curls up out of pain. The people say that he is one of them now, and he says he doesn't want to be; they tell him to deal with it, because assimilation won't be bad: they are an interesting people with a beautiful culture; the people start detailing the rules, which are akin to not going outside, not making a lot of noise, avoiding detection, not harming others, not touching the crystal- the man asks why he can't touch the crystal, and the people say that the result would not be good: the man acknowledges this and the people go back to listing rules; the man then breaks from the circle and sprints for the crystal, and he slams his hand on it, and he bursts into ash, disintegrating. The people are disappointed but not surprised, because half of the Overlanders end up touching the crystal and learning about death the hard way...

·         A man approaches the stage to accept his Academy Award for Best Picture: he is bald from chemotherapy. He is cheery and takes the Oscar and holds it, he exhales, and he begins to talk about how surreal it is. He'd like to thank the screenwriter and producers and actors and whole crew, and especially his mom and his dad for believing in him in the beginning, but mostly his wife and children for putting up with him (ha) and loving him so much. Then his happy face slowly goes through concern and self-disappointment... As everyone probably knows, he's losing a battle with cancer and he's uncertain about whether he'll win... He wanted this Oscar his whole life: it was his driving goal, and even though he was suffering from his own cells trying to destroy him, he stayed up late trying to craft the finest film he could, since he thought it might be his last chance. It paid off, and here it is in his hands, and it's surreal, but now that he has it, he realizes it's not the most important thing... He's hopeful he'll survive, but he just spent what could've been his final year focused on creating a film, when he really would've liked to have spent that time with his family. He hates that he realized this in hindsight, and he thinks he doesn't deserve the family that loves him so much -- but from here on out, no matter what, that's his last film; he owes his family the rest of his time. He still appreciates the Oscar, though -- thank you.

·         A rebellious teen girl (angst hoodie punk druggie shoplifter) lounges in her room after 11 PM when there's knocks on the door: she tells her mom to go away, and the knocks happen again, and she groans and answers the door to find some burly psych ward folk. She recoils and doubles back to hide behind her bed, but they chase her and nab her: all the while, she screams for help. Her mom stands in the doorway and signs off for ECT (electroshock therapy) and a cold-turkey treatment; the girl screams for help but the disappointed mother just stands in the doorway and stares with disdain. The girl is dragged through the bedroom to the door and she resists the whole way, fighting back, screaming, knocking things over, grabbing things and throwing them, hitting her captors, etc. She asks her mom why she's doing this to her: her mom says that she told the girl that she had to quit the drugs and skipping school or else she's be sent to rehab. The girl protests and persists to resist, and the mom watches as the burly men drag her out of the bedroom and down the hallway. The mom stifles her emotions and looks around the room at the girl's posters of dirty punk bands, and remembers when they were posters of teen boys, and when the hoodies on the floor were stuffed animals, and the drugs and condoms in the dresser drawer were unsent love notes and charm bracelets made by friends... What happened to that girl...

·         A short for every one of the Seven Basic Plots: (Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, The Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, Rebirth)

o   Overcoming the Monster- A thug (Dre) kills his first gangbanger on the streets, and it takes a toll on him: he goes to a church confessional booth to repent and get guidance (he's not religious but there's a first time for everything); the priest talks to him, and he realizes this isn't his line of work, and he wants out of the game, especially because the game got his cousin killed and he doesn't want to end up like that. Later, on the street, the thug is sitting on a stoop with some homies when a priest walks past: a homie says "goodnight, father" and the priest replies, and has the same slight accent and tone as the priest that the thug talked to; so the thug stands up and walks with him, asking more about how to reform himself; the priest says that this breaks their confidentiality but he can help. He tells the thug that he could simply leave right now, or he could try asking his boss if he can leave: he might have to do tasks in order to earn his exit, but as long as he gets out, he would've had to do tasks anyways, since he was in the gang (he promises they'd be simple tasks); the thug concurs (they are talking like friends by this point). The next day, the thug asks the boss if he can have out, and the boss says if he really wants to, he can, but he'll miss out on wealth, power, and women; thug still wants out: boss says he'll have to earn it... Thug has to break into a house and threaten to kill a guy unless he pays back his debt to the gang; the thug does it, stealthily but nervously, and the scared guy agrees wholeheartedly: thug leaves and heads straight for the church; inside, he finds the priest, and he tells of what he had to do: the priest absolves him of his sins, and asks if he feels better now that he's closer to being out: the thug says that it's bittersweet, and he liked the adrenaline rush and feeling of power that he had that night: the priest seems to say that those were both good things, but the thug asks for clarification, and the priest says nevermind. That night, at the HQ, the boss tells him he's doing a small heist tomorrow; he sends the thug into a bedroom with a half-naked girl on his arm as a thank you gift for earlier. next day, the thug has to rob a convenience store owned by an Indian man; he makes it quick and clean and gets out unscathed and unseen; it was a rush and he was very successful; at the church, he tells the priest about it, who absolves him and says that he has a knack for it: some real skills and efficiency in hold-ups, and he should be proud since those are hard these days: the thug half-heartedly agrees but says he wants out, so it doesn't matter. The next day, in the HQ while smoking weed, the boss tells the thug to go out and kill another banger who will be coming to do diplomatic work; the thug has a problem with abusing the banger's trust since the banger thinks it's diplomatic: the boss tells him to grow up, man up, and get it done, and come back to reaffirm whether or not he wants to leave. The thug approaches the diplomat on a neutral basketball court, and they begin conversing: the thug pulls up his pistol and points it at the diplomat, but holds it nervously; the priest (now standing behind the thug's right arm) tells him he doesn't have to if he doesn't want to), the boss (now standing behind the thug's left arm) tells him he has to if he wants out, the priest says that the diplomat is just a hoodlum, the boss says the diplomat is in the gang that got his cousin killed, the priest says it's about what he thinks is moral, the boss says that it's the justice that his cousin never got, the priest says the choice is his, the boss says that he knows the right choice to make. The diplomat turns quick and starts running away; the thug's cousin appears in front of him and pointing at the diplomat, saying "what are you waiting for, Dre? Make the call;" in a beat, the thug opens fire on the diplomat, who takes two to the back and one to the neck (3/5 shots hit); the thug runs... To the church; inside, he finds the priest and tells him what happened: the priest listens as the thug explains how he feels both good and bad about it, but mostly "victorious;" the priest asks if he is staying in the game, and the thug says probably not; the priest is upset, and the thug says he just needs time to think it over; the priest says the choice is really easy: stay in the game! The thug is confused; the priest asks if the spirits on the basketball court helped at all: the thug asks how he knew about those: the priest says he's the devil; but the thug says he was the voice of good so the angel on his shoulder, and the priest says he was only telling him to make the right choice, and the boss was telling him to seek justice (while justice is good, the methods were immoral, which is why he made both spirits correct: the thug was going to do it anyways), and he'll be returning to the game as well. The thug asks why he's masquerading as a priest, and the priest says it's the most unexpected disguise; the thug asks if he can even be in a house of God, and the priest says he can be wherever he wants to be (a church is just a building) because he's the goddamn devil. The thug asks why he was trying to help him originally, and the priest says he never was: he was slowly working to coax him towards staying in the game, and watched him the whole time so he could see the glimmer in his eyes whenever he felt powerful; the thug says the glimmer is nothing: the priest begs to differ, because when he scared the guy in bed, the glimmer was in his eyes, and when he held up the store, the glimmer coated his eyes, and when he killed the diplomat on the basketball court, the glimmer and power and vengeance were all he saw; the thug says nobody else was there, and the priest says he was ((he was actually in the shadows in the bedroom, in the back of the store, and over on a bench by the court, btw: you had to have focused to notice)): the devil can be everywhere and anywhere, whenever he wants, because he's the devil: the ability to be in numerous places at once. The thug pulls out his pistol and unloads on the priest: the priest stands confident and sinister and receives the blows, and the gunshots don't affect him: he absorbs them; the priest quips that it's interesting to note that he reloaded on his way over (old habits die hard), and that he was designed to be in the game: the thug doesn't want to admit it; the priest asks if he enjoyed trying to kill him, because it sure seemed like it: the thug won't admit it. The priest asks for a last time if he's enjoyed the past few days, and the thug doesn't admit it... The thug asks to make one last confession... Cut to the HQ, where the boss and some gang members are gearing up: the boss calls to ask the thug if he's ready to go: the thug cocks his pistol and affirms that he is; the gang members all pile out of the building, marching off to go fuck some shit up: they pass by the priest (and the one from earlier says "good morning, father," and he replies): the priest then grins and says hello to the thug: the thug pauses and defensively says hello, and continues on: the priest watches him leave with the others, and he grins.

o   Rags to Riches- A father secretly beats and rapes his daughter throughout childhood, and if others detect whiffs of it, they ignore her; eventually in her early teens, she runs away. After escaping the household, she went to an orphanage in another town, and got good grades in public school, struggled to work a job on the side of receiving a college education to pay for it, slowly worked up the corporate ladder to become a CFO of a minor conglomerate: she's rich and successful, and she's surpassed the life she was on track to live when at home: but she's not content. She drives back to her old home, and her dad answers the door and is shocked to see her; she enters the house and they sit in the living room: he asks if she wants to see her old room and she says no; he asks if she wants something to eat and she says she'd like a water. She forces herself to be there and keeps sentences brief, as she answers his questions about what she's up to now: she subtly gloats that's she's better off without him. Eventually she leaves, and he goes for a hug, which she hesitantly returns. She leaves but can't get into her car yet because she's still not content: she goes back to the front door and her father answers: she unloads five rounds of a pistol into him -- the neighbor who never reported the abuse he knew about sees it, and she sees him see it, and he nods determinately (as if he respects her action and won't tattle): she returns the nod. She gets in her car and leaves: she can breathe easy now.

o   The Quest- In a post-apocalyptic world, in the winter in the evening, a man's car's battery is on and the radio is static, but he's stuck on the dark road because his gas tank is empty. He begrudgingly goes outside; he opens the trunk and takes out a small backpack, and a pistol with ammo; he double-checks to make sure his knife is on him. He locks the car and walks onwards, looking for food and shelter. He meanders down the road, following signs towards a town; the moonlight silhouettes a black skyline of unlit towers in the distance. Upon entering a suburb, he spies a house with occupants: armed occupants. He has a knife and a pistol, and he knows the risk against eight armed occupants who know the layout; he is cunning and ready. The occupants inside are normal people just trying to survive, and the man is technically the antagonist, since he sneaks in the back door; an occupant feels the cold from the open door and goes to check it out, thinking the wind blew it open: he closes it; the man pops out of a doorway and slits his throat: the occupant falls, dead, knocking a pan off the stove in the process. The other occupants are alarmed and stand upright, ready for trouble: the two kids go upstairs with a mother, and the others spread out. The man goes into another room and peers around to see a guy with a shotgun walking to the kitchen: guy enters kitchen and finds body, tells others: guy goes outside while others search house. Man runs into hall and sneaks up on hammer-wielder, and stabs him in the back of the head: the knife gets lodged in and won't come free, so he abandons it; a rifleman turns the corner and angrily opens fire on the man, who dodges by scrambling into an adjoining room. A pistol-packer peers into this room and sees the man, who pulls out his pistol: the pistol-packer turns the corner and opens fire, and the man moves across the room while doing the same: the man's bullets hit their mark, but the pistol-packer was always aiming just shy of the mobile target man. The man goes to reload when the rifleman turns the corner and opens fire again, causing the man to fumble his pistol ammo; the man runs out of the room and into another, improvising, grabbing a big candle upon entering it, along with a coat from a table. He tosses the coat into one open doorway, and the spooked rifleman fires at it some; the man uses the diversion to run back across the hall to another room, and the rifleman sees him and shoots after him some; the man picks up his fallen pistol ammo and tosses the candle ahead of him, into another open doorway, distracting the spooked rifleman who fires again at the candle until his magazine is empty: when the man hears the clicking of the empty rifle, he steps into the hall, reloads, and shoots the rifleman who pleads for him to not. The guy comes in from outside with an assault rifle and unloads towards the man through the wall, and the man falls to his stomach, next to the hammer-wielder; he picks up the hammer and waits for the guy to cease fire. The man crouches and walks to a corner, and the guy comes around a corner on the other end of the hall: the man shoots once in his direction, and the guy unloads another clip in that direction: so the man sneaks around the wall and smashes the unexpecting guy's head in from behind with the hammer. The man goes upstairs and finds the mother protecting the two kids behind her, and she nervously holds a pistol trained on the door: when the man walks through the bedroom door, she nervously aims at him, and he confidently asks whether she's going to shoot him or just aim it at him: she tells him to leave: he says "oh, come on: you know you want to. Shoot me. I dare you-" and he's interrupted by the mother's gunshot as she shoots the man in the chest once, and then twice more: the man falls dead. The mother takes the two kids around, dressing warm and grabbing their full backpacks; they exit the house and venture inwards to the city. Eventually, they come upon a shopping plaza with its parking lot lights on. The mother hesitantly leads them to the grocery store with the lights on inside; inside the store, right in the main entry area, a sleezy bald man welcomes them to the Haven: a grocery store packed full of food, from all tiers of the nutritional pyramid, and generators, for warmth and light. The mother is pleased by skeptical about the welcome, and she says thanks and walks in with her two kids: the boy and girl. The bald man stops her, smug, and says that there's an entrance fee; she says she'll only stay the night, in the entry, and won't take any food; he says there's still a fee; she says she has nothing to give; he begs to differ (subtly talking about offering up her body); she repeats herself; he taps his holstered magnum pistol as he repeats himself; she says she'll leave; he stops her. Two other thugs then corral the mother and kids to take them further into the store but she resists; the bald man says that there are twenty-two unsatisfied men in the Haven and no women, and once all have been satisfied, she can stay for as long as she wants; she refuses: he says that she won't want to refuse a second time, or there will be consequences; she says for him to fuck off and pulls away: the bald man unholsters the magnum and shoots the girl in the head; the mother collapses in vocal agony, the boy is shocked: the bald man tells her that she still has something to give, and that she also has something to lose (he motions his gun towards the boy). The mother, through sobs, is defeated and says she'll do it; she turns to the boy and whispers for him to run once she tells him to, he nods in agreement; she stands up and holds out her hand to be walked onwards like a princess at a ball: the bald man, smug at getting her to comply, takes her hand gently; they walk, and she quickly reaches past his hand and grabs his magnum out of his holster, and she shoots him in the leg while yelling for the boy to run; the thugs struggle with the mother as the boy runs away from the scene, back to the entryway. The thugs hold the woman down and the bald man limps as he chases after the boy, but the boy is too fast. Snorricam shot of the boy as he runs away from the grocery store, and the bald man yelling after him, sarcastically wishing him good luck... The boy walks along an empty sidewalk next to a sunken freeway. A hot dog vendor cart is unoccupied, but has no food. The early light of dawn is on the horizon as the boy walks down the street, cold and alone; an old man on the steps of a regal library calls out to him, asking where he's going: he says he's looking for somewhere safe. The old man beckons for him to come to the library: they have food and warmth; the boy says his mom told him never to talk to strangers: the old man says it's good to listen to his mom, and asks where she is; he says she had to leave; the old man says he's sorry, and that he can trust him, and especially in this day and age should he be skeptical about trust, but it'll be the right decision in the end. The boy thinks about it, and runs off towards the library, asking if they have any good books; the old man laughs and says most definitely.

o   Voyage & Return- Shot in Handicam "found footage"-style. A male and female couple (Julian and Maura) are a pair of investigative journalists who are hiking in the forest and looking for a secret large building they were told was in there, which housed people who the government needed to be out of the public eye but that weren't wanted dead (it was supposed up and running in the Cold War; the people were chloroformed and brought to holding cells there, and kept on drug regiments: it was practically an asylum, and they only believed the story because more than one person has independently claimed that this was a thing, without knowing of other declarations of having been: so they all could be independently crazy, but what are the chances that they all came up with the same story, since only sane people tend to corroborate? They looked over the area on Google Maps but only saw trees, so the building is probably in a densely-packed area of foliage: they're there to check it out. And then they stumble upon a hatch in the ground... They open it: they climb down a ladder, and turn on flashlights, and find that they're in a concrete and steel tunnel, with bulletproof glass windows that look into cells: the secret asylum is underground, which is why nobody ever found it. They look around, and its eerie and dark: they look into a cell and see a seated 37-year-old guy facing the wall: he realizes they're there and he turns around and is shocked and desperate to see them, and he bangs on the glass and is SO SURPRISED to see people, and he asks if they are real (not hallucinations) and if they can help him, and they frantically ask why he's in there and where the door is; there's heavy footsteps coming down the hallway, echoing from far away, so the guy tells them to run and send for help (but not to ask the police or government for help); the couple runs back to the ladder,: they climb up (and can faintly hear the guy screaming for mercy) and they close the hatch behind them. The couple frantically look at each other with shock, and turn and run back through the woods towards where they came from.

o   Comedy- Five American male twentysomethings wake up in a hotel room in modern day Tokyo, and the sun is bright: they don't know what happened or why they're in Tokyo, so they try to piece together the story (Raushoman Effect): they each vaguely remember a different, warped story in their attempt to recall their amnesiac night, and try to figure out what happened when and how it led to the other. Eventually it ends up spinning this wild yarn that they don't believe was a story they did; but someone realizes an inconsistency in the story, and the original parts have to be rearranged, which dissolves the assumptions they had about getting from A to B, and it turns out they had a pretty normal night, just with too much drinking involved. ---- Five misremembered parts: 1. Partying with Adam Levine from Maroon 5 and Justin Timberlake in a hip club, and taking ecstasy with him and doing cocaine and drinking crazy fancy drinks. 2. Sticking their head out the sunroof of a limousine and seeing neon lights splash color off of tall glass buildings and the faces of beautiful Japanese girls. 3. Getting off of a plane and walking into a Japanese airport and being welcomed to Japan by a beautiful stewardess in the terminal. 4. Walking down the street under the neon and skyscrapers, laughing together and having a great time, and some hot women approach them and tell them how hot they look and that they should go out to a club together, and they merge into one group. 5. They swagger into a swanky modern hotel lobby, with the hot Japanese women behind them, and ask for a large room for them and their lady friends, and the sexy desk attendant says that they have the penthouse available, on the 42nd floor: they grin suavely. ---- Five real parts: 1. Partying with a guy with brown hair and tattoos, and a guy with blonde hair and a bowtie, in a dingy club, and mixing Adderall with NyQuil after already having too much to drink. 2. Climbing out of the sunroof of an SUV taxi while the driver tells them to sit down, and they drive through a crowded and ugly Chinatown. 3. Going through a small hallway into a grungy 24-hour Chinese buffet, and being welcomed by a hostess. 4. They walk through puddles and past alleys, slobbering-drunk and stumbling, and some chunky prostitutes sharply ask if they want some company, and they wave for the prostitutes to follow them. 5. They stumble into a cheap hotel, with the chunky and bitter prostitutes behind them, and they ask for a room: the desk attendant says they have a 6th floor room available (elevator is broken though). ---- They assumed that they misremembered only the order of events, but they actually just didn't realize the events themselves were not remembered. When they called the lobby in the morning and the desk attendant said they're in the Tokyo Hotel and to "enjoy their day in Tokyo," they thought it was actual Tokyo, but it was just sloganeering and PR: they're in Chinatown, and they confused Chinese people for Japanese people A LOT that night... They're quite racist, and looking out the window probably would've helped at some point in figuring out if they were actually in Tokyo or not.

o   Tragedy- The first shot is of the rear window of her car, in the bottom left, at the family decal stickers: hers are a woman and seven cats. (she's a "crazy cat lady in training," since she's 26 and kooky and alone) -- Greek Tragedy (epic poem (as narration)) (she tries to date but it never turns out well. She is unable to survive without her shitty job which is leading her nowhere. Time goes on and she stays in the shitty job and alone, increasing her number of owned cats. Eventually she's 62 and life for her will remain as it is now, because that's how it is; and that's how crazy cat ladies are made.)

o   Rebirth- Obsession with materialism in 2002 post-9/11 America, and sudden realization of obsession with reality TV and wealth as being bad: they suddenly view everyone else as disappointing and disgusting.

·         A totalitarian socialist state uses fear as motivator, with literary pillars of society on banners draped on real pillars outside main building; they release a man from cryostasis after trading him for POWs (an unfrozen ally (amongst Walt Disney and Captain America)): he is cult hero but doesn't live up to the legend, and while he was touted as a fearmongerer and selfless to the state, he is wary of the state and afraid of too much power in one place, so he protests it, and his quick following goes with him: they aim to topple Totalitarian State – no more will they obey the state, as “drops of water in an ocean:” they want individual identities.

·         Someone is running away from Slenderman in a forest at night, and Slenderman is originally always shown standing menacingly, but as the person runs away, and the cuts are sharp and dramatic, it shows that he's running by a Slenderman who is posing hilariously and seductively and is basically just having a great time.

Original document created 12/13/2014.