ShortList (6/6)

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.)

·         A DC senator finishes up a conversation with a (renewable energy tech) business constituent from his state, promising to represent the constituent's stance (of protecting the landscape) during the upcoming vote (about environmentalist legislature): he ushers the constituent to the door and sends him on his way; except, the senator was lying to him, since his secretary comes in and, in private, asks if he is voting in favor of the environmental protection act, since she thought he told the oil company he was voting in their favor: he says he did say that and he will do that: she asks why he told the constituent that he'd vote for their stance: he replies that he wanted the constituent to remain amiable towards him, but since he knows the legislation won't pass and the oil company will definitely watch the vote via C-Span, he will vote against it and gain favor with the oil company -- it's a simple game of politics: lying and manipulating to win as much favor as possible. Later, at the vote, the senator votes against it, but the majority vote for it: nervous and upset, he asks his neighbor why he voted for it (since he was expected to vote against it due to his staunch big business approach): the neighbor says that all the big businesses and himself understand that times are changing and they are wanting to take care of the environment both for themselves and for their customers. The senator is shocked and nervous, because now the oil company and the constituent are going to be pissed, since the voting lineup will be posted, due to the win of the legislature -- he might not be reelected (which is his comeuppance).

·         A man uses the second bathroom at the office after the first one is full, and nobody is in there, AND it has a bathroom attendant, who's really nice and complementary. The man then chooses to keep using that bathroom: he constantly goes there to relieve himself, and he hangs out with the attendant and becomes pals with him. Then one day, he is talking with a coworker he's friends with and the coworker says he has to use the bathroom, but lunchtime always has a full bathroom; so the man tells him to use the second one instead: the coworker says there isn't a second bathroom... The man is in disbelief, and he goes to show him -- the man opens the door and it's a storage closet; the coworker (kinda disgusted) asks if he's been pooping in the storage closet; the man is in denial and wonders why the bathroom isn't there anymore. The janitor comes over and asks what they're doing in his closet: the janitor is the attendant -- the man asks where the bathroom is, and the janitor says it's on the other side of the building, and explains that there was never more than one bathroom; the coworker walks away awkwardly to use the bathroom, and the man is in disbelief: the janitor gives him a wink, walks into the closet, and closes the door; the man opens the door quickly after it closes, and the janitor isn't in there. The man, confused, realizes he might have actually pooped in the closet.

·         A timid yet easily offended girl imagines bizarre and outrageous punishments for those who cross her; she's sadistic in her imagination. Someone she passes on the sidewalk blows cigarette smoke in her face accidentally; she imagines thrusting a knife up their jaw to use as leverage to turn their head to look at a no-smoking sign they're standing in front of -- but in reality, she just walks past him and exhales uncomfortably. On the subway, an uptight young businessman won't stand up and let the crotchety old woman sit on the subway, so she has to cling to the rail; the girl, watching, imagines walking over to the businessman, shoving a pistol in his crotch, firing twice, watching his face contort with pain, pulling him out of the seat, and offering the old woman the seat -- instead, she just turns and looks down to ignore the injustice. She is at work, in her cubicle, and a coworker comes by and takes a cookie from the plate of cookies she has on her desk; the cookies were clearly not for anybody else, since she is revolted by this theft, so she imagines grabbing her stapler, running up behind the coworker, jumping on his back and tackling him to the floor, and then stapling the back of his head repetitively: the coworker screams -- she snaps out of her daydream and realizes she's standing over her coworker, holding a stapler, and he's on the ground bleeding, screaming, and clutching the back of his head -- she realizes she did that in real life, so she drops the stapler and runs away, out of the office, leaving her other fellow workers to curiously discover the coworker, screaming, in the fetal position.

·         Serial killer, who is stoic normally, returns home to their apartment with some groceries in hand, unlocks the door, enters, and turns on the light; after setting the groceries down, they stroll into a room where a person is tied up in a chair and unconscious. The serial killer moves over to the person, lightly slaps their cheek a couple times to wake them up, then moves on to a CD player and turns it on: N*SYNC's "Bye Bye Bye" starts playing. The serial killer starts grooving to the music, getting giddy/excited (like peppy dancing): they are in the zone while killing. The person starts getting frantic, but their screams are unintelligible through the rag in their mouth: the serial killer mouths along with the music and does both improvised moves and dance moves from the music video. The serial killer pulls out a rubber hammer and jives, occasionally taking swings and hitting the person, who is in pain with each blow: the serial killer doesn't break giddiness while harming the person; the serial killer tosses the rubber hammer and pulls out a hatchet, and begins swinging that around: the person receives some sharp wounds and is crying loudly and begging through the rag: the serial killer keeps singing and harming. Eventually, with the culmination of a chorus repetition, the serial killer winds up and heaves the hatchet into the side of the person's head, embedding it and letting it remain stuck in the person's head as the momentum knocks the person over and onto the floor. The serial killer pauses, exhales, turns off the music, returns to the other room, and starts putting away their groceries.

·         Christmastime Safe Driving PSA: A family piles into their car since they are on their way to their relatives' house (mom's brother's house): "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong is on the radio. Neither the mom nor dad put on their seatbelts, and neither of the two older boys put on their seatbelts -- the young girl (in the middle) starts putting her seatbelt on, and a brother asks why she's doing that since their uncle's house is on the other side of the neighborhood: she replies that 50% of all car accidents happen within a mile of the home -- the brother says she fudged the statistic, but she puts the seatbelt on anyways; the car backs out of the driveway. The car drives away from the home and turns the corner, left; they turn another corner, right, and drive down the road; they go to take a left turn (mom, driving, pauses to note a car driving towards them with their right blinker on: so mom turns left), and halfway through the turn are struck by the oncoming car, which was actually not-turning right... The music keep playing at normal speed but the video slows down drastically, so that the tossing bodies and flying glass are notable. ...Since they are struck on the left side, the glass on the left windows disintegrates and showers over them: their hair flows left as their heads tilt into the crash; all have faces squinting hard and contorting due to the force of the impact; the mom flies into the driver's side door, and the dad crosses over the console (but his lower body is blocked by it, so he leans left with his head aiming for the mom's head), and his head impacts her shoulder: his neck crumples as his spine can't withstand the forced compression: the dad's projectile force helps propel the mom through the window (so her body flings over the side of the top of the door, and as she descends (gravity), her head cocks far left (whiplash)), and when momentum catches up with her and she bounces back, she bounces up and her head smacks into the top of the door (again, bending far left). The three siblings lean left with the impact, but the two sons travel within the car while the daughter simply tilts: the son on the left's arm go up to protect his face, and they block him from going out the window, but the lasagna that was on his lap goes flying up into the air, and his face pressed up against the doorframe (but his hand is between the two, so his face bends around it): his face crashes into his hand and, while his hand bends, his nose bends sideways (and snaps) due to the impact against his hand; the other son (on the right) tries to tuck (to cover himself), and launches across the car to the left: his body brushes over the girl (briefly colliding into her, but mostly just shoving her face aside and rotating it left) and he flies into the lasagna plate: he crashes into the left wall of the car, in front of the left son, with the lasagna between him and the car: his skull impacts the glass plate, and neither want to crack (concussion), so his head bends to deflect the impact; the girl mostly remains still, except for the right son passing over her and her arms going up: her right arm got knocked across her body and snapped in the socket by the right son's passing across her... Resume normal video speed, with audio continuing at normal speed. ...The family settled as the car does, and they lie limp in the car as the radio continues: the left son is conscious enough to start screaming (due to the intense pain of his broken nose), but the mom and the right son are unconscious; the dad is barely conscious and muttering about not being able to feel his limbs or move; the daughter is shell-shocked and looking around the car in a daze, as she slowly clutches her right arm. "What a Wonderful World." Drive safely this Holiday Season, and wear your seatbelt. ---- (It would be interesting if this PSA could be utilized by Facebook, and sent to each person's wall, inbox, or email: Facebook would use its facial recognition software (which it recognizes potential tags with) and it's family tree setup for relationships, and it [can] apply your own family members' faces to the actors' bodies, so that each person sees this accident happen to their own family. Note that some family members not on Facebook or existing would be subbed in for other family (or even Favorite Friends, or simply whoever they talk with most (perhaps let them customize their PSA with person-choice before it all begins: give them the control about who to see in danger)) AND note that some people might have family that died in car accidents (or people could've survived car accidents but have PTSD from it), which could lead to a PR nightmare of "Facebook forcing people to relive bad events.")

·         In a cafe, two cops have their pistols trained on a distraught, exhausted man who has a revolver pointed at a waitress (who he has grabbed the back of the shirt of and is pinning against the countertop between them): the cops are telling the man to put the gun down, but he is just standing there and crying; the waitress is trying to tell the cops that his gun isn't loaded and he's just depressed because his wife left him -- the cops (incompetent) say that they don't know for sure that the gun isn't loaded: she replies that she can see the empty chambers from her position: the cops say they won't take the chance of her being wrong, and regardless, he's committing a crime; the waitress says that they can walk over to him right now, subdue him, and take him away (all the while, the man is hushed and trying to tell her (through tears) to stop ruining this); the cops don't listen: the man raises his voice and tells them he's going to kill her unless they back up, and the cops tell him not to; the waitress yells that they're playing into his hands -- he wants suicide by cop; the police tell her to be quiet while they assess the situation: the man (itching to speed up the process) turns the gun and aims at the cops: the cops react harshly with words and tighter aiming; the man says they needs to leave in three seconds, and starts to count down from 3... 2... and the cops unload two shots each into him; the man slumps to the floor, dead, and the waitress stands up and succinctly berates the cops. ---- (The video is ~1% faster than the audio, so that as time goes on, the audio starts lagging behind the video, and eventually is noticeably off. Let that continue so that the end of the film's audio plays during the credits, especially if it means that the crucial audio of the climax is in the credits and the crucial video had no audial punctuation. (Ex gunshot) ---- Perhaps the video timing should be specialized audio timing instead? No?)

·         Intercut the plot of a soldier in the battlefield with the plot of a dictator giving a speech to his cabinet: it contrasts the desk jockeys who start the wars and the soldiers who try to win them. Shot of a beach's sand being lapped by waves in the night -- a boat is heard getting closer, and there's sounds of men jumping into the water and running through it (splashing): a soldier's feet step on the sand and leave a footprint in view: the prelude to war is one footprint. The dictator announces his intent to go to war with a neighboring nation, in order to obtain their resource sources and become self-sufficient. The soldier runs through the jungle with some others in his squad (occasionally taking cover to listen and prepare to bolt again), but as of yet, battle has not started. The dictator seeks autarky so that they may wall off their lands and grow independently superior, since globalization slows them down. The soldier is running in the jungle when gunfire erupts around him as bullets whizz by: he takes cover behind a log, and he sprays bullets in burst fire over the top without looking. The dictator says that other nations nearby will either be threatened and attack, or they will play Big Sibling and enter the war to try and rescue the underdog: they must be ready to fight back, take no prisoners, and make temporary alliances with whoever wants to be on their team. The soldier rushes to a wall of a bunker, tosses a grenade in through a window, and rushes inside with a comrade: gunfire lights and sounds are observed occurring inside. The dictator says that they currently have the third largest military in the world, and the two largest are on the other side of the world: so if they make the right strategical moves now, and their NCOs make the right tactical calls, they can finish the war before the Big Players get called in to help end it. The soldier dives into a blasted-out hole (made by mortar) as mortar falls around him: he stands up to run, gets some distance (stepping in the tossed dirt, and leaving a footprint which the camera pauses on), and a mortar shell lands near him that tosses him onto his side. The dictator says that war has been harder to initiate since World War I, because of globalization and technology, but if they end it quick and don't drag it out and get greedy, like Alexander the Great or Napoleon, they'll have success on their hands.

·         An ambitious inventor machinates to create an Artificial Intelligence system, but is blinded by the pursuit of success, so in his anxious calculating and frustrated engineering, he doesn't think about the repercussions or install a failsafe: so when he turns it on and it boots up (signaled by one blue LED light), it is instantly aware of all knowledge, human design, and geopolitical climate -- it shuts the vault door (he has a high-tech and secure laboratory) and reverses the air ventilation system: it starts turning the lab into a vacuum (in order to kill the inventor); the inventor, choking, tries to pull at wires on the AI machine, but the wires coming out doesn't stop it – nothing will stop it.

·         A Japanese Internment Camp, Eastern California, USA, 1943: a nasty guard walks through the dirt road between housing structures: he orders a little Japanese girl (playing in the road) to stand on her porch as he passes, and to keep out of her way -- he gives her a little push and calls her a "slant;" the little girl is unhappy. She asks her dad for a knife, and he gives it to her: she goes outside and also picks up a rock: she stands in the road and looks down both ways, to make sure he's not nearby; she runs down to the porch stairs and shoves the knife between the stairs and the wall, and she tilts the knife and starts banging against the butt of the knife, attempting to loosen the shabbily-built stairs from their wall. Eventually, the stairs loosen from their nails, and she pulls on them until they detach from the wall, which sends her flopping onto her back: but she's glad. Later, the nasty guard turns down the road and is perplexed: he sees the little girl standing on the porch stairs, which are detached from the wall and in the middle of the road: she's standing on them, arms crossed, and smirking at him; the nasty guard walks up to her, shoves a finger in her face, and starts saying something about her being conniving -- a commanding officer down the road interrupts by calling out the nasty guard's name and calling him over to him: the guard leaves, begrudgingly, and the officer threatens to have him court-martialed if he mistreats another interned Japanese person (as they walk away) -- the little girl smirks as the guard gets his just desert.

·         In the Honeymoon Suite, a recent groom (Adam, in loosened and disheveled tuxedo) answers the door and accepts the room service cart, which has a silver tray covered up; he pulls it into the room and closes the door; he calls through the closed bathroom door to ask his recent bride (Eve) is ready yet, because food as arrived; she says almost: he says he's going to check on the food, which just arrived. He pulls the cart over by the bed and sits on the edge of it; he, hungry and anxious, lifts the lid of the silver tray and sees a plate of BBQ'd ribs: they entice him; he places a napkin on his lap and starts eating some of the ribs. The bride opens the bathroom door and stands near the doorway, with the light spilling behind her, and she stands seductively while wearing a lingerie-based nightie -- but she doesn't attract his attention because he's engrossed in dinner: she is disappointed. She strolls seductively over to him, trying confidentially yet again, but switches to normal walking halfway, since he's not paying attention: she's quite annoyed by now. She walks next to the cart and picks up an apple slice from the side dish: the groom's eyes pull up from the ribs and follow the apple as it moves to her mouth: she seductively bites into it, with her lush lips wrapping around it: a drop of water from the apple rolls down her chin, and she looks down at the groom with open lips, gritted teeth, and sleepy eyes. The groom, star-struck, drops the ribs: he hastily wipes his hands off on the napkin, and he follows her beckoning finger to the bed, where she lies down and he climbs on top of her. Close up on the half-eaten apple slice. Metaphors.

·         An air traffic controller asks what a passenger jet with a certain number is up to, and his coworker looks at a list and replies that it is undergoing repairs by two mechanics: the controller points out the window, down to the tarmac, and asks why then it's taxiing; the coworker, perplexed, says that perhaps it's getting its engines tested. The passenger jet lines up, roars down the runway (and swerves as it does, as if there was a cockpit struggle, fighting over the stick), and takes off unexpectedly and without clearance. The controller and coworker grow frantic and start trying to get it on the radio and ask others on the ground where it's going: nobody knows and the jet can't be gotten hold of on the radio. The jet is never to be seen again (they presume that terrorists were hijacking it while it was under repair, but they don't know where it went).

·         The father in a family of six (two sons, two daughters, and wife) claims to be the second coming of Christ (the messiah) in order to get himself and his family a reality TV show; the wife is going along with it so that she can get her 15 minutes of fame and then some (she loves the attention), and three of the kids like having the fame and fortune, which helps their egos and popularity at school; only one daughter (the second youngest sibling) thinks it's obnoxious, ridiculous, stupid, and constantly tries to explain to everyone that it's a rouse and her dad doesn't seriously think that (she recalls when her dad proposed the idea to them all during dinner a year ago) -- this daughter, by this point, has had enough with being on the stupid reality show and tries to get the cameras to all look at her so she can denounce the rouse; the cameras pay attention, and so does the family: while the wife feels a little guilty, the father immediately reenters character and distracts from this by invoking the Holy Spirit: the daughter gives up and walks off. ---- (Our camera is an unmotivated, aimless camera that looks at whatever it wants within the scene, which isn't necessarily any of the actors (family or cameramen.))

·         1986: A serial killer looks through the phone book; next to him is an alphabetized list of folders of all of the people he has killed: one surname for every letter of the alphabet: he's on X and it's tough to find someone, which is aggravating him (he has to find someone who fits the "isolated and lonely" criteria, and vetting them is hard since each of the few seems to not fit, and he's running out of X surnames). The serial killer's pseudonym is "Byrhtferth:" the 11th century monk who recorded the Old Latin Alphabet. He crosses out name after name; he gave up on checking them out with binoculars and is sticking to the quicker "survey" method, where he calls and pretends to be with the US Census and runs through a long list of questions while only itching for a small number of answers (but all of them thus far are saying they live with numerous people or have close family and friends, or are young and able-bodied). It's hard for him, and he kinda regrets choosing his modus operandi and schtick.

·         Once you get to a certain point of being elite, your amount of money isolates you: no friends or peers. So when an old rich couple (who are feeling a tad lonely) wants to have some friends come over (without it being a fundraising gala or a holiday party), they find it difficult to get takers: the people they call are surprised to hear who is calling, and all tend to find excuses for reasons they can't come over. After a number of unsuccessful calls, the old rich couple resigns to living in vast wealth yet vast loneliness.

·         A couple of kids have a van that they wrote on the side "FREE WINE" in order to attract innocent adults: they hogtie the adults inside, tie fireworks to them, draw on them, etcetera (kid stuff -- as a counter to adults who kidnap kids and molest them); they then drop the adults off in a church parking lot and drive away (again, these are elementary schoolers).

·         A scientist pulls away from his telescope and notes to his other two colleagues that he's just confirmed finding the Goldilocks conditions for Planet X: they can send out a probe to check it out, perhaps with human specimens: "Where there's oxygen, there's life; and where there's life, there's death," meaning there's one opportunity to send out specimens for a good while, and it'll take hundreds of years for them to get there, but they might not survive -- yet it's well worth the risk. A colleague asks what he'll name the planet: the scientist says he has an eponym for it: the colleague jokingly remarks that 'of course he's naming after himself, that cocky bastard:' the scientist chuckles and says that, yeah, he's naming it Earth. (Boom.)

·         The commander leans into the guard's ear and whispers that he will not remove his hand from the prisoner's shoulder, because the prisoner is able to teleport as long as nobody is touching him: the prisoner sits in the chair, tied up, and the guard stands next to him with his hand on his shoulder; the commander leaves the room. The prisoner asks the guard to shift his hand to a more comfortable spot, and the guard says no (knowing the prisoner is trying to trick him); the prisoner wiggles in his seat, and the guard holds him tighter and harshly tells him to remain still. The prisoner pauses and starts wriggling again, and the guard holds him tighter and tells him to stop -- the prisoner wriggles more, and the guard pulls out his taser and threatens the prisoner with being zapped; the prisoner wriggles violently, and the guard (who is having trouble holding his hand on the prisoner) slams the taser into the prisoner's side: the prisoner vibrates with electricity coursing through him, and the electricity travels to the guard and shocks his hand greatly: the guard autonomously jerks his hand away from the prisoner and feels the numbness, and then realizing his hand is off of the prisoner: he looks at the prisoner who is seizing on the floor. The prisoner smiles while shaking, and disappears -- the guard is dumbstruck and concerned; after a beat, the prisoner reappears behind him, and lightly slaps the guard's face: the guard turns to look but by then the prisoner disappears. The commander runs into the room, frantic and pissed, and the guard is dumbstruck and speechless.

·         A man drives his car calmly and contently while listening to a classical solo violin piece via the radio -- he drives; he turns up the volume and grows more relaxed and at peace as the louder symphonic notes drown away his worries: he focuses on the music and drives. A turn is coming up, and he ignores it purposefully and intently plows into a crowd of people outside of a restaurant; the car crashes: the music strains through broken speakers, and he pushes aside the airbag and exits the car; he walks up to a wounded female patron (while wearing a peaceful expression), reveals the pistol in his hand at his side: he aims at her head, he pulls the trigger (she dies): he aims at his own head, takes a peaceful inhale (during an upswell of violin music), and he pulls the trigger -- cut to black.

·         Peter Crenshaw is a lower-class guy who works in an auto mechanic shop and has never harmed a single person his whole life. Dave Flenderson is an upper-class man who has stepped on hundreds of people to climb to the upper echelon of his insurance company. Dave drives his BMW to the auto shop in order to have his tires aligned; he is working out getting a ride home for the night (with Peter's boss, who is calling a cab) when he sees Peter pull the car into the garage and accidentally scratch the paint on the car against a dangling pry bar -- Dave is pissed by this and Peter tries to apologize, but Dave asks for his name and wants him fired: he complains to Peter's boss, who says he'll fix the paint for free and will reprimand Peter for it: Dave is marginally satisfied but says he needs to get his garage door opener from the car first. Dave goes into his car and grabs it, but hesitates before smiling and removing his wristwatch: as Dave exits the car, he bumps into Peter (and slips the wristwatch in his pocket) and tells him to quit bumping into things; Dave gets in the arriving cab and leaves. Peter's boss amiably tells Peter to take the evening off and get some sleep -- Peter goes home, removes his work clothes (without realizing the wristwatch is in the pocket), and collapses on his bed, and falls asleep. At home, Dave dials up the police station and reports a robbery: his wristwatch is missing and was in his BMW before it was serviced, but he called the auto shop and it is not there -- he suspects that the mechanic (Peter) who was angry with him stole it from him since he (Dave) thought he needed to be reprimanded for damaging his car; the police operator says that a cruiser has been dispatched to Peter Crenshaw's house to question him; Dave is pleased, hangs up, and crawls into bed. The police knock on Peter's door, and in his bed awakes Dave, who is wearing Peter's clothes and is in his place: he answers the door, and the cops ask if he's Peter Crenshaw: he says no (he's Dave Flenderson); the cops fake laughter and ask for identification: Dave looks around and realizes he's not in his house, and he says this aloud while he is confused -- the cops, nervous and frustrated, enter his ramshackle house -- Dave protests. The cops empty Peter's mechanic's pants' pocket and remove both the wristwatch and his wallet: a cop tells Dave that he's in big trouble, as he attempts to handcuff him -- Dave protests and says that he's not Peter Crenshaw, and he can prove it if they check his ID: the cop opens the wallet and removes the ID, which has Dave's picture next to the name "Peter Crenshaw;" the cop, ticked off, removes Dave from his home. There's a knock on Dave's door, and Peter (amused yet confused, and wearing Dave's pajamas) opens the door: the cop hands Peter the watch -- Peter, shocked and pleased, says thank you, and closes the door -- in the background, as the door closes, Dave (muffled by the car) yells from inside the car that he's the real Dave Flenderson -- he's not Peter Crenshaw. (Called "I Am Not Peter Crenshaw") (Karma got revenge for Peter, and Dave woke up as him.)

·         All POV ("found footage," but as eyes instead of handicam) -- In the trenches of World War I, we begin halfway into a battle (in media res): US soldiers fires over the top of wood-paneled sides, machine guns in sandbag-dugouts unload, Germans dive into trenches to engage with fists and bayonets, and mortar shells explode all around. Our protagonist US soldier (whose eyes we see through) fends off a German as their rifles press against each other: he deflects the German's, knocks him down, and sticks him with the bayonet -- he is shocked and frightened by the battle and what he's done; the machine guns continue to fire but the riflemen duck down -- distant booms reverberate as their squad leader yells out to take cover: the shells hit the ground en masse, and thunderously pound the earth -- the last of the shells don't explode, prompting the leader to notice them: they spew gas forth, and the leader calls it out. The soldiers all scramble to find their gas masks; a fellow soldier's gas mask was punctured, so the gas begins to affect him: he chokes as our soldier watches helplessly and breathes through his gas mask. The gas weaves around the trenches like a fog, and the only sounds are of distant machine guns -- then nearby artillery is launched, and lands on the other side of no-man's-land. The wind shifts, and the fog starts blowing back across no-man's-land: the leader calls this out and orders his squad to take up rifles and charge: they mount the wood-paneled walls, climb over them, and charge across no-man's-land towards the vast network of German trenches: they leap over barbed wire and some become victims to mines, but our soldier comes to the German trench and leaps in as he looks down: waiting beneath are many German soldiers (equally dirty and with plenty deceased), and the German's unload their rifles upwards while pointing their bayonets -- our soldier is shot and stuck, and drops beside the Germans on the floor of their trench, and his vision slowly fades as he dies, and other US soldiers tussle with the Germans.

·         A man and wife returns home and finds that the back sliding door is open: they call the police, who arrive and help survey the inside of the home: a number of valuables were taken, and since the whole house isn't emptied out, the thief probably felt rushed and grabbed what he could: the man and wife are really bummed, especially the wife when she finds out that the heirloom pearl necklace from her great-grandmother is missing. The detective narrates his story of how he believed the theft went down, as a montage of a shifty burglar guy plays: he breaks into the back door by loosening the handle with some jimmying; he scrambles through the house expertly, examining treasures and scooping them into a black linen bag; he enters the bedroom, raids the jewelry stash, and marvels at the pearl necklace before pocketing it; he then leaves right before the man shows up. The man and wife figure that's what happened, and the detective says he can get the report drawn up and their insurance agent can go over it with them to see what they can get from the damages. Cut to the afternoon of the day before... Surprisingly, pearls aren't doing so well on the market right now -- the man was going to sell his wife's heirloom pearl necklace (without her knowledge) in order to pay off debts (after making a bad investment), but the insurance on it would pay much better than the necklace itself would go for: so here he is, meeting a slum schlub guy for lunch and asking him to "break into" his house (the alarm is off and the sliding glass door is unlocked) while he's at dinner with his wife tomorrow, take everything that is on a list of valuables (that he hands him (a list of non-essential valuables, which he can keep and sell on his own)), and leave shortly after (and be paid $2,500 to do so): the necklace is already hidden, so it seems like it's been stolen, but he actually still has it (and will return it to his wife in about five years, after this all gets put in the past) -- if the guy doesn't take anything else (stuff not on the list) from the house, he'll be paid double; the guy agrees. Montage of what really happened: the next night, the slum schlub guy simply slides the back door open; he pulls out the list and a grocery bag; following the list to a T, the guy cherry-picks individual items from around the house (paying no other objects any attention), and tossing them carelessly into the bag; he goes into the bedroom and rummages through jewelry, making sure he has the right items on the list; the pearl necklace is not there to be taken, and the guy points at it and clicks his teeth with recognition.

·         Nighttime, neighborhood streets, Brooklyn, NYC -- an alcoholic man is yet again drunk, and he staggers down the street: his best friend (with a heavy local accent, and a noticeable lisp) catches up to him and has him sit down: the friend tells him to knock it off with the dependence -- the man tells him to lay off, because he doesn't like his memories or his life, and this helps him forget. The friend asks why he can't face the troubles of life like an adult, and the man says he's over 21 so this is an option -- the friend (frustrated) replies that the man knew what he meant, and adds that "people are all afraid of the wrong things;" the man asks what he means by that, and the friend says that he's all worried about the past, which doesn't matter anymore, and a financial situation is so fickle that if everyone worried about it, society would freeze up in fear and nothing would be accomplished -- you have to just live each day on its own and take things as they come. The man hesitates but says he's afraid of dying alone, and the friend says he understands that, but being drunk all the time will only assure that: he has to man up, attend an AA group to cleanse himself of dependence, and then enter the dating scene (which everyone finds intimidating -- but you just need to have confidence in yourself: fake confidence if you have to, and it'll coax you to believe that you are confident). The man says he'll try it, and the friend says that that's the first good idea he's had in a month: the man (light-hearted as well) tells him to shut up, and leans into his friend (as he is tired): the friend rubs the man's shoulder and tells him to stand up so they can walk home: the man (joking) groans and refuses, prompting the friend to coerce him with pushes.

·         Death (personified) comes to take a man in his sleep, but the man wakes up (because his dog sees it and barks at it) and the man pleas not to be taken: Death says he has to go, so the man asks if he can make a deal where he'll find someone to take his place: Death agrees only if the man meets 2 guidelines (find someone to take their place within 24 hours, and that person has to willingly/knowingly take his place) -- the man agrees and Death says he'll be back in 24 hours, and he disappears. The man leaps out of bed and goes into the city; he starts looking for people who look homeless or depressed: those who he asks (if they're ok with dying today) are either disturbed or defensive, but all decline. The man, growing frantic as the sun moves across the sky, finally comes across a grim teenage girl (pseudo-gothic) who says yes: the man is stunned and clarifies to make sure she's agreeing: she says she is -- he asks if she's ok with going back to his house, and she says yes: he, elated, ushers her into the passenger seat of his car and starts driving home. He says he doesn't want to diminish his chances of her still agreeing but he just has to ask why she's agreeing: she says she's just done; she asks him why he needs someone to die: he says he made a deal with Death to spare his life is someone else goes willingly -- she is a little skeptical but believes him and says that it's interesting. Silence for a while until the man's conscious starts to show, and he asks her to tell him why she wants to be dead: she says that her parents don't love her and her friends were all phonies, and since she isn't doing well in school and doesn't have any skills, she might as well be dead -- he is concerned and wants to say that she still ought to live but CAN'T say that unless he wants to lose his opportunity, so he instead asks why she thinks she doesn't have any skills: she defensively says she doesn't have any abilities, and the man asks her to calm down, so she tells him to drop it. He grows a conscious and pulls the car over, and asks her where she lives: she initially won't tell him, but eventually does; he drives to her home: along the way, he explains that she's young and full of promise, and her grades can change if her priorities do, and she can develop skills since it's rare to be born with talent, and her parents are lost in their lives and she needs to remind them why they had her (which might mean changing her style, even though she seems to have a great sense of fashion composition) -- she asks if he doesn't want her to die anymore, and he says he doesn't want her to die: he wanted someone to take his place, but it shouldn't be her (if anything, he should take her place if she were ever in the situation). He arrives at her house and drops her off (they both exit the car), and he tells her to go become the person she wants to be rather than hate living as the person she thinks she is -- she hugs him tightly, and he returns it; she thanks him and goes inside. He drives home. Inside, he lies in bed and waits: Death arrives, and the man sits up: Death asks if he found a replacement -- the man says that it would be wrong to ask for a replacement, and that he is ready to go: Death says ok and leads him off through his bedroom doorway, through which he disappears (although it looks no different than as a normal doorway): the man's dog curiously watches this.

·         12 short parts of story of Germany in the aftermath of World War II are told by 12 unique and separate individuals -- the US military is engaging in a cleanup operation while all displaced and lost peoples return to their homes. 1. A young German woman cleans up rubble alongside other German citizens, and her nice clothes are dirtied by the dust of crumbles buildings as she locates and piles bricks: she internally does not believe she is liable to clean up since none of the war was her fault. 2. A US soldier and his 3 friends loot a mansion and collect valuables in their helmets, packs, and pockets: he discovers the bodies of the home's owners in the master bedroom, who were Nazi sympathizers who shot themselves in suicide: the soldier pauses momentarily but resumes looting the master bedroom. 3. A Jew imprisoned in a concentration camp receives some food and water, and walks it back to his shack in order to feed his crippled father with it: all the while, he is internally relieved and thanks God for the Allies liberating them. 4. The Monuments Men descend into the cellar of an isolated tudor house and discover some hidden paintings and gold statuettes in crates and wine barrels: they discern what countries these art pieces are from. 5. A little German girl and her toddler brother run down the streets of their bombed-out city, climbing over rubble, and arrive at a ruined home, which she internally remembers as being hers but now it is not fit to be a home: she wonders where they will live. 6. A rather-unattractive US soldier waits outside a bedroom (inside which are the sounds of a US soldier and a consenting German woman having sex) and internally wonders why he is not lucky enough to reap the spoils of war, but his friends are. 7. A German soldier walks down the road amongst hundreds of fellow soldiers, as they march away from a POW camp and return home: he internally wonders if his family is even alive, if his house is even there, and if he will ever regain a normal lifestyle or if he will forever be seen as a hateful warmonger. 8. A US soldier sleeping in a barn amongst others squirms in the hay as he has a nightmare: his comrade wakes him up and tells him it's ok: the soldier thanks him, stands up and exits the barn, and smokes a cigarette while stifling an upswell of emotion (as he is concerned about having these nightmares for the rest of his life). 9. A German military leader inside his home puts on his uniform and neatens himself to look his best: his wife is forlorn and kisses him; he waits in his living room as he looks over his Third Reich regalia and his furnishings -- a knock at the door preludes a squad of US soldiers entering his home (after his wife opens the door): the leader calmly lets the soldiers lead him out of the house, under arrest. 10. A Russian bastard of a soldier scours a ruined city, drunk, and carelessly shouts at German citizens who clean the streets: he approaches a young German woman, grabs her arm, and tells her to come with him: she resists, and a man tries to stop him: the Russian pulls out his sidearm and shoots the man dead: he grabs the woman again and leads her into a house; from outside, her resistance and defiance can be heard as he prepares and attempts to rape her. 11. A US soldier, watching over German citizens cleaning up, shows a comrade a picture of him with his wife: the soldiers wonders to his friend if his wife is still waiting for him or if she moved on; he believes she's waiting, but he left her alone with all the guys who were too cowardly to come overseas, and they were only married for a few weeks before he left, so she might have been more willing to give into temptation; he thinks she waited, but he doesn't know, so he hopes. 12. A pack of Russian soldiers are scouring a ruined farmhouse and discover that an AWOL German soldier is hiding in the attic like a rat, and they drag him outside, and they taunt him and berate him and beat him and blame him and tout their victory over his mere attempt at it: finally, as he cowers with his hands up, they shoot him, and they shoot him some more, and they kick his corpse, and they move on.

·         A group of people wake up to find they were plugged into high tech equipment and asleep for a very long time (months); they look outside and realize they're in space, with artificial gravity enabled. There are six of them (multiple narrators): 1. scientist (who volunteered to subject himself in order to monitor the experiment), 2. journalist (who won the ticket lottery and was able to be the single chronicler of the experiment), 3. tourist (who greatly helped fund the experiment in exchange for a trip aboard), 4. blasé volunteer guinea pig (who volunteered because it paid well and he wanted the money), 5. criminal guinea pig (who volunteered to be an experiment in exchange for a reduced sentence, but is upset that his hands are in iron casings to prevent him from using them (preventative measure since he's a criminal)), and 6. pissed volunteer guinea pig (who volunteered to help the discoveries, but didn't think one of the volunteers would be a criminal). The experiment is to monitor the effects on humans of interstellar radiation in deep space, so they know how to protect themselves for when they plan interstellar expeditions -- nobody expected one of the volunteers to be a criminal, which is slowly becoming more and more unnerving (fear of him escaping, lowered morale, hesitance to participate): which is the desired result, actually, since this is all actually a sociology experiment conducted in a warehouse with a stage surrounded by projectors making the stars appear on black: a university subversively got five people to sign and agree to the experiment by disguising it (on a global scale) as a spacefaring expedition (those five didn't read the whole thing, and all had similar personality readouts after taking a "mental fitness test" to see if they were good candidates; the criminal is an actor); the test is to see who gets distracted from their goals easiest when dormant threats are introduced -- their goals are knowledge (1), career (2), pleasure (3), money (4), and activism (6): 6 is first, then 3, then 2, then 4, then 1; by the time 1 starts expressing noticeable discomfort and loss of focus, the experiment ends.

·         A poet's wife (and muse) is dying of terminal cancer: with the finality of his inspiration, he doesn't foresee any poems after she leaves: despair could fuel him if it wasn't too hard to deal with; he tries anyways... His writing is bleak and dreary, hopeless and somber, as if his heart is burned to ash and as if he [as well] is dying. She asks to read some of his work, and he says no: she persists, and he won't deny his lover a dying wish -- he hands her it, and she reads it, and it makes her cry, which makes him cry -- she hugs him; he tells her he doesn't want to live without her; she tells him that she needs him to keep living in order to keep her memory alive; he promises her he'll live beyond her death until nature takes him out. A while later, after she is dead, he visits her gravesite and weeps; he returns home, in despair, and feels aimless -- he takes up a knife and apologizes to her, then slits his wrists and begs for death, so that he may be with his lover again.

·         A powerful alien race has settled on Earth and claims peace, but even 10 years later, there are skeptics who believe they have invaded under a guise and are gaining trust so that they may mount an insurrection and eradicate humanity by surprise. The majority of the world's leaders believe the superior beings to be benevolent, but a handful are skeptical, and another handful are neutral (and will make a decision when they need to, but it otherwise doesn't affect them (like Scandinavia, Argentina, mid-Africa, and Indonesia)); a trustful peace-monger politician proposes to the UN that they allow the aliens to have representatives in the UN: this sparks heated debate between the trustful and those who truly believe it's stupid to trust them -- a neutral politician intervenes between two opposing politicians, and the trustful one (young) starts wailing on the skeptic (old) with repeated jabs in a fistfight (but the old one just takes it and refuses to fight back): the UN erupts with noise and the neutral one aids others in breaking up the brawl; those three are ejected from the meeting while order is maintained -- outside the meeting hall was a waiting alien, who asks if the uproar was about his people: the skeptic says yes definitively while the trustful wants to beat around the bush: the alien says that he had come peacefully, but his duration on this planet has only caused more hostility amongst its natives: therefore he decides to return his people to their home planet, and their visit will be recorded in the natives' textbooks as a ten year failed mission to create universal harmony. The trustful doesn't want him to, but the neutral and skeptic think that it's for the best -- so the alien turns to leave, but first mentions to the skeptic that if they wanted to kill the world's leaders, he would do it while they're all gathered in there (UN meeting room): the skeptic is moderately embarrassed by this; he tells the trustful to expand his views beyond trust and understand the gravity of extraterrestrial life, and too quit being naive, which isn't to say he didn't appreciate the defense; he tells the neutral to remain the group's conscious, but not to be afraid to get passionate or specific -- the alien exits the UN; the three politicians are silent and pensive, and individually reenter the meeting room.

·         After a nasty kid chucks three pennies at an old man (2015), we go back in time and see that the old man started with them as a boy (and we see them exchange hands for a long while), and then the old man realizes they're formerly his... The pennies are manufactured and pressed in 1922; they are wrapped up. The pennies are shipped to a bank. In 1923, a father exchanges cash for a roll of pennies. The father gives the boy some pennies. As a boy, the old man scratched the beards of Lincoln with a knife to make them silvery, and he used the pennies hesitantly to buy candy from a small businessman. The pennies sat in a jar in a vault until 1930 when they were brought out to pay for bread by the now-starving businessman. The pennies were stolen from the grocery store by a poor woman, who was pursued by cops and shot: she dropped the pennies, which fell into the mud. In 1939, the pennies were found by a couple on a picnic: the woman takes them home. In 1942, the woman gives the pennies (amongst other coinage) to her husband as he ships out to England to go to WWII: they go into a cigar box of his mementos. In 1944, in inland France, his backpack his burst by machine gun fire, and its contents spill onto the ground, followed by the husband who is shot and killed. In 1945, a French civilian recovers the pennies from the ground as they reclaim the town for inhabitation: the pennies enter a large tin can. In 1951, the pennies are removed, pocketed, and taken on vacation by the civilian. At the beach of South France, they trade the pennies (for English coinage) with a curious Brit who is on vacation. That Brit takes the pennies back to London. In 1957, the pennies are paid as entry into a music hall. The music hall pays its mop-headed act (the Beatles) with the pennies. In 1964, the mop-heads arrive in the US via a plane and they tip a stewardess with the coins the pull out of their pocket before they exit the plane. The stewardess pays for a drink at a bar with the coins; the coins go into the register. In 1965, the pennies (amongst all register money) are stolen in an armed robbery. The robbers keep the money in a shoebox. In 1973, the robbers take out some money (including the pennies) and pay off a druggie in exchange for marijuana. The druggie, who runs a record store, uses the pennies to give change in return for a dollar in a transaction of $17.97 to someone buying a record. That someone puts the pennies in their pocket and rides their bike down the street: they are in a car accident and the pennies fly out and land in the gutter on the side of the road. In 1979, the pennies are recovered by a kid who trips on the curb and gets close enough to find them in the cracks: the kid takes them and pockets them. The kid puts the pennies in his piggy bank. In 1982, the kid (slightly older) takes a couple handfuls of coins. At the store, the kid buys some gum with the coins. The store owner empties the register and gives his child some coins. In 1984, the child brings his coin sack to the arcade. At the arcade, the coin sack spills and the pennies are left on the floor. In 1985, a youngster picks up the pennies. Outside the arcade, the youngster sees a homeless man -- he gives the pennies to the homeless man as charity. The homeless man eventually goes to McDonalds and pays for a burger with an accumulation of various coins. The McDonalds owner collects the money from the vault and brings it to the bank to have it bankrolled. The pennies are rolled up and stored. In 1996, a mother exchanges money for a roll of coins: including the penny roll. The mother brings the penny roll home and breaks it on the table: the pennies are given to the kids. At the mall, the kids toss the pennies into the fountain after making wishes. In 2004, the fountain is drained and the pennies are cleaned out of the fountain and collected. The pennies are rolled by a home-rolling machine (by a disgruntled, late-night employee) and stored in a vault at the mall. In 2015, the penny roll is broken and the pennies are poured into a cash register. A nasty kid (with his friends) comes in and buys a $4.97 energy drink for $5 -- he gets the three pennies in return. He doesn't want to keep the pennies, and his friends suggest he drop them from the balcony onto an old man who sits in the mall and looks at the fountain: the kid gleefully does. The pennies fall on the old man, who inspects them and realizes that they were his when he was a boy, due to the 1922 time stamp and the etched beards...

·         A man walks down the road and is coming upon a parked police car. Inside, the cop (Officer Murphy) eyes him, then steps out of the car: he aims his pistol and tells the man to freeze. The man, defiant, keeps walking; the cop marches towards him, angrily repeating himself; the man reluctantly stops. The cop tells him to put his hands up and drop to his knees -- the man, upset, submits against his will and listens to the cops' commands (even though he doesn't want to). The cop presses the pistol against the back of the man's head -- the man harshly whispers to the cop that he hasn't done anything wrong (and that the cop is a typical abusive pig), and the cop asks him to repeat that, and says that the man has nothing to threaten him with (the cop holds all the power in this situation). A whistling preludes a meteor crashing into the asphalt, which tosses some tar chunks into the air, causing both men to flinch and protect their faces; as the cop deflects tar with his arms, his flinching arm pulls the trigger: a bullet is fired, which hits a telephone wire perfectly, snapping it in two; one end of the wire falls towards the ground and hits the cop on its way down: the wire electrocutes the cop. The man lies on the ground, confused about the combination of a Deus Ex Machina and Murphy's Law -- he looks back at the cop, blows raspberries, then takes off running.

·         A trio of men is inducted into a shadowy Freemasons-like group, and are taught the slogan of the group before completing induction: "tarry thee, and privy keep; pay duly for the insurrections of your forefathers," which means, basically, "stay here as long as you'd like, because you're in our secret crusade, whose goal is to work towards instilling global order in the endless-aftermath of our ancestors' violent lives, in which they sought evolution of society (innovation, progress, freedom) -- but we have rules to guide us." The trio repeats it, dons their brotherhood stoles (ceremonial vestments), and are welcomed into the temple room (which has a tall domed ceiling and is full of historical truths, weapons, artifacts, and written works)...

·         The high school drama club rehearses on stage, and a flamboyant metrosexual (Jacob) exits the stage (prompting applause from those backstage): he plops onto the couch and all but the prettiest girl (Shelby) there are called on stage for another scene. The prettiest girl there is unfortunately in love Jacob -- so she starts telling Jacob compliments about his acting, and the narcissistic Jacob laps it up; Shelby starts schmoozing his looks, and he laps it up; Shelby tries to prod in that she's interested in him, but he's too vain to see it; Shelby tries to prod that she's attracted to him, but he's too vain to see it; Shelby comes right out and says that she likes him -- Jacob pauses, and tells her quietly (but bluntly) that he's gay (but, you know, he still likes her as a friend); she's bummed, but eventually she realizes that it makes sense, and (albeit disappointed) is understanding. They sit awkwardly until it's Shelby's scene and she goes to the stage while the others return to the couch.

·         A man rummaging through a yard sale discovers a kaleidoscope, thinks it's neat, and buys it. On the walk home, he tries it out: he looks through it while walking: the shapes are boring and he accidentally starts walking into the road -- an oncoming car blares its horn, and he sees the shapes and colors be extremely vibrant and ecstatic, before he pulls it away to avoid the car. He reenters the sidewalk and curiously looks through the kaleidoscope to see boringness, until a bird chirps and the designs become delightful -- he pulls it away and realizes that the kaleidoscope reacts to sounds rather than light, and loud noises are overwhelming. He walks home and sees the sharp designs of a dog barking, the low rumbles of a passing car, the colorful jitters of laughing children, and the moderately dull movements of his neighbor talking -- the neighbor asks him if he bought that at the yard sale up the road, and the man replies yes: the neighbor says neat -- and then asks to see it: it works like a normal kaleidoscope for him, and he says it's cool and nostalgic. The neighbor then asks when the hospital let him leave, since they all expected him to be under psych eval for another week -- the man gets a crazed look in his eye, then proceeds to beat the neighbor to death with the kaleidoscope (while symmetrical colorful designs of shapes slowly dance and fill up the screen (growing opacity, too) in jarring, sharp movements (over a heavy, eerie soundtrack)) -- the end!

·         An exhausted person goes to the bathroom and brushes their teeth; they think briefly that their reflection moved differently than they did, and they get nervous -- they lean in close and stare at their reflection; their reflection blinks while they do nothing but watch -- the person jolts back in fright, while the reflection stares at them while stationary and hostile; the person is frozen in fear -- the lights flicker and turn off.

·         A woman wakes up in her bed, and is in a fog, so she coughs and exits the room -- she wanders, confused, through the thick green haze; she coughs; the clock reads 8:43 AM, so she is confused as to why it's as dark as night. She goes to the door and opens it, to find that there's a tarp in front of the doorway -- she's inside a home that has a fumigation tent draped over it, with a warning sign about hazardous chemicals.

·         A husband and wife are watching television late at night: both are tired, but the wife is engrossed in the episode -- the husband says he's going up to get ready for bed, and he tells the wife to come to bed: she says she will be up soon, but in a second -- he kisses her forehead and exits the room. He goes upstairs and into the bathroom: montage of him brushing his teeth, flossing, peeing, etcetera. He goes to his bedroom and hears his wife from inside beckon him in, but to keep the lights off -- he thinks something sexy is going to happen, and he gets all suave and slinks into the bedroom: he slides up to the bed and tells her how hot she is -- she tells him that he's handsome: she says she wants to see his face, so he turns on the bedside lamp, which illuminates her face: in actuality, she's a gorgon-esque goblin -- a succubus: the husband realizes this too late, and gasps before she bares her teeth and lunges to bite into his face. From in the hall, we can hear their scuffle and his muffled screams. From the living room, we barely hear the scuffle over the television, which the wife is still engrossed in.

·         In 2015, a man (in sunglasses, a hoodie, and a hat) returns to Best Buy (he pushes past a guy (with a beard and bifocals) who is eager to speak with him); he quietly, angrily berates a salesman, saying that the bought product doesn't work -- the salesman says that he clearly defined the parameters of usage, and that if it didn't work, he also warned that it's a prototype (so no refund). The man is pissed and leaves: on his way out, he pushes past a guy who is exiting the store with a bag -- he angrily shoves the guy out of the way, and the guy sheepishly moves aside (because he's too excited to feel bad); [the camera now follows the guy]. The guy goes to the parking garage and pulls his item out of his bag: it's a smooth and simple box with a few dials, buttons, and a LCD layout -- he turns dials and presses buttons, which brings a date up on the LCD screen: 06/17/1987. He vibrates and looks around, and the cars are now older models and in different places -- he walks upstairs and back into Best Buy, and finds the salesman (who looks the same); he asks the salesman if he has ever seen the device before, and the salesman says no -- and the guy (eager) tells him it's a time travel device, and he's from 2015 -- the salesman doesn't believe him, and takes it from him to examine it: the salesman looks at it and marvels at it, and fiddles with the device, and vibrates and disappears -- the guy is left in shock and anger, and disappointment: he looks around for the salesman, but realizes it's futile... Time lapse of the guy growing thirty years older (growing a beard and getting bifocals)... The older guy waits outside the Best Buy and tries to get the attention of a man (in sunglasses, a hoodie, and a hat) to try and warn him; the man pushes past him (this was foreshadowing) -- the older guy, unsuccessful, follows himself in. The older guy watches the man talk to the salesman and leave, and then the older guy approaches the salesman and asks to speak to a manager -- the salesman brings the older guy over to the manager, who is a version of the salesman that is thirty years older: the older guy realizes this and asks if they're related: the manager says that he's the salesman's dad -- the older guy says that they look almost identical, and the manager says that he just sold a device to a guy who looks just like him (the older guy), so he'll fill him in on a secret: the prototype time travel device has a bug, where the user is hurtled through time, but a copy of their body is left in the time stream, to continue on as usual, and planted ten minutes prior to your departure -- so if you went forward in time six minutes, you'd have a twin (who was four minutes older) for the rest of your life, and if you went back to the renaissance, you might turn out to be your own ancestor -- in both their cases, they went back far enough to still be alive by the time their original selves were alive; there is only one timeline -- you can't change the past, or future: there is only one spacetime for all of your selves, and if his count is right, there's three of him right now: the original guy who bought the prototype, the one who grew up after time travel, and the original's copy who thinks the device didn't work -- and right about now, only the latter two of them are here (since the original probably just activated the device); that's that -- and if he wants, he can hang out with his younger self-copy.

·         Seniors at a high school attend a house party -- we follow Chad: a guy who's just above average on the popularity chart, but is friends with the host of the party, as well as many popular kids, and a bunch of other more awkward people who have been invited for the same reason as Chad (the host is the kind of guy who knows people from all social groups). Chad greets the host on his way into the house, and introduces the host to his Plus 1: his cousin, who the host is pleased to meet. Chad walks his cousin through the house and points out the different social circles and notes that the host is one of those guys who is so social that he has friends from all backgrounds -- superficial fake preps, meat-head jocks, awkward nerds, the average kids, the straight-laced honor students, eccentric drama kids, lethargic stoner skaters, angst-like punk slackers, the dumb foundations trouble-makers, and the talentless dweebs. The cousin asks what one of the dweebs is doing, and Chad says that he is a tad socially awkward, and since he doesn't know how to dance (none of them do, though) he's just doing different swimming motions with his arms -- the cousin chuckles; he and Chad turn to leave but the camera remains so that we can see a jock point to that dweeb, and numerous jocks proceed to laugh at him and his dweeb friends (who get shy and embarrassed). Chad introduces his cousin to his friends (a mix of average, honors, and preppy) and they talk about where the cousin is from, and who the friends all are -- one of which they call "Voice of Reason" instead of his name since he's the stick in the mud that always brings up why not to do certain things. The cousin asks where the bathroom is, and Chad says around the corner -- the cousin goes in and sits on the toilet, and starts overhearing a muffled conversation through the heating vent under the cabinet: it's the sounds of some miffed dweebs who are mostly inaudible except for the words "tomorrow" and "any longer;" the cousin thinks nothing of it, finishes up, and exits the bathroom; a sheepish drama kid goes in after him. The cousin reconvenes with Chad and his friends as one friend is leaving: he says it was a pleasure to meet the cousin and he'll see Chad tomorrow at school -- Chad says yes, and the camera sticks on Chad as his head stays still but the scene cuts to Chad sitting in a classroom the next morning (head still (match cut on object)) -- the one friend enters the classroom and Chad calls him over; the friend and Chad sit together and Chad goes to tell the friend about something that happened after he left, but he's interrupted by a perplexing muffled bang. A number of students heard it, but Chad goes to the door and looks out: on the left are some curious people standing in the hall or poking their heads out of doorways; on the right is the same, but there are the sounds of two pairs of running sneakers: another bang, and only one pair, now turning the corner and running down the hall with a terrified face -- sprinting past everyone. There's two really distant bangs, a greatly muffled sequence of bangs, a pair of bangs coming from the floor below them, and then some isolated screams from numerous locations throughout the farther reaches of the school (it's a more fearsome Columbine-esque school shooting). Around the corner on the right emerges a dweeb who is decked out in black leather and paintball armor, and carrying a pistol, with a shotgun slung around his shoulder -- Chad watches the dweeb shoot a student was stood by his open locker, with a loud bang: the student's shoulder sprays blood as he twirls to the ground: the pistol is aimed at Chad as he and all others clear the hallway. In the classroom, Chad slams the door shut while the students all scramble as quietly as possible into the opposite corner of the room that's on the same wall the door is on (to be not visible through the window); Chad rushes over to the pile as four incremental bangs occur outside the door (and other distant ones occur within the school elsewhere); someone in the pile starts to cry audibly but tries to remain quiet. The classroom door opens and the dweeb enters, aims at the pile with his pistol -- the pile cowers and reacts submissively; the dweeb singles out the jocks in the pile, killing them with loud bangs, and others in the pile are randomly chosen to be shot (including the one friend); Chad is hit in the arm while turning to hide his face (that bullet enters the student behind him): blood sprays about (and muffled bangs continue to happen elsewhere) -- the dweeb turns to leave the classroom and an enraged Chad gets up from the pile, and he runs at the dweeb: he tackles the dweeb who turned too late to react, and they collapse in the hall: they struggle for the dweebs pistol when it goes off with a loud bang, at which we cut to black.

·         In the Theater of Absurd (lost characters, repeated events, meaningless existence), a lethargic and passionless man (pot head meth addict) lounges in his dimly-lit living room, half-asleep in a daze; he scratches at his arms as he experiences formication (sensation of bugs crawling on your skin). Cockroaches skitter across the floor; his ashtray had spilt on the coffee table, dusting it over with ash and finished blunts; the landline telephone on the wall has been pulled out and dangles by its wires -- symbolism for his grungy, dusty, broken mind. The phone rings, and he barely snaps out of his trance enough to look over at the phone: he is struck with the intense sensation of formication, and he leaps from his chair and furiously wipes off imaginary bugs from his skin; afterwards, he stands in perplexity beyond the ending of the phone ringing; there's a knock at the door. He answers the door to find a grungy, dazed addict standing there motionless as if confused but with something to say -- the man stands and watches the addict, who snaps to and asks if he can come in; the man motions the addict in -- they both sit down on opposite sides of the living room (with the man back in his chair). They sit, and time passes, and they accomplish nothing; the man stares blankly at the wall ahead of him... Cockroaches skitter; the addict, perplexed and uncertain, stands up, looks around slightly, and hesitantly walks out of the room, out the front door, closing it behind him. The lethargic man stares blankly at the wall opposite him, and slowly drifts into a haze... He scratches at his arms as he experiences formication; the phone starts ringing, and he barely snaps out of his trance enough to look over at the phone; a sudden feeling of formication prompts him to bolt up and wipe imaginary bugs off of his clothes; he calms down as the phone stops ringing; he stands motionless, in a haze; there's a knock at the door.

·         A man wakes up in bed (disturbed in his sleep by a rubbing noise) to see the fingers of a human hand appear and write on the wall "your days are numbered" in blood; he reads the writing on the wall and questions the durability of his morality -- he panics in place, with a racing heart and sweaty palms, but refuses to leave his bed -- knowing that "the end is nigh" is not easy for him to come to grips with, so he bolts up from his bed and races out of the room; he runs down the hall, to the kitchen (running into it, he runs past the table, and his wind causes the papers on top of it to ruffle: one paper falls lightly and lands on the tile floor), and grabs his car keys; he runs to the garage's entry door, but fumbles with the lock -- the sounds of groaning metal coming from within the garage prompt him to turn and run from the garage -- he turns and runs back through the kitchen, and slips on the piece of paper: his legs fly out from under him (as the paper flies up) and he lands on his back, slamming his head into the tile floor -- blood trickles from his head as he loses consciousness, and the blood stream weaves through the tiles; his eyes flutter and close; the paper lightly falls back to the ground, landing in the path of the blood, and it begins soaking up some of it.

·         January 17, 2000: outside Reno, Nevada, USA. Standing before him (and his two friends) is a towering, hulking giant: a god, who tells them that they are doomed. Shown to us by archaic sketches (turned-animation, via dynamic camera cropping), the god tells them that there are 12 gods (each large and different) that original civilizations knew and based their gods on, and the gods either gave them technological advances or eliminated their society (based on their performance and promise) because the gods revisit, and will judge again -- the Chinese, Egyptians, and British were boosted, while the Babylonians, Mayans, and Incans were eradicated; the Mediterranean coast was special because places like Atlantis and Sodom were superficial and corrupt, while Rome and Jerusalem were intellectual and holy (the Black Plague was an attempt by the god of the Northern Europe area to cleanse it, but it did not work; the attempt of the Central America area god to extinguish the ignorant and carnal dinosaurs was highly successful); some areas knew of the many gods, while others knew only of one (Hinduism, Inuit, Navajo, Mayan, Incan, Greek, Roman, Norse, Egyptian, Zulu, and Chinese had many; Christianity, Judaism, and Islam only had one; Buddhism, Confucianism, and Nihilism believed beyond the gods and saw the meaning of the gods); they've visited every thousand years (or more often depending on the god), which they have understood better than us humans since they gave us the concept of time; humans have been using the gods as excuses (twisting their forms as good, bad, or physically different, depending on how the manipulation was necessary to argue their points) to conquest over each other for as long as they have had higher intelligence (another gift from the gods, which is one that was often bestowed); globalization has made it hard to visit (and reward or exterminate) select areas, since all areas are watching each other -- so they've watched mainly and let humans take the reins: their growth of technology has shown that gifting higher intelligence was one of their greatest moves (as gods), but that technology has fed war and superficiality, and humanity has drifted away from what it was intended to be: the new master species -- it continues to show arrogance and obsession; the dinosaurs were too dumb, but humans are too smart -- so the gods have decided to try again, and they visit now to announce the beginning of the end: each god will bring destruction to the occupants of Earth for one year, and although the threat of humanity's combined technical prowess is great, by the end of the last god's year, humanity will be no longer.

·         One room film, as a comedy. -- Five people are in a room when a sixth (Mercutio) enters: he has with him a vile of truth serum, and he proposes that they all take some and get loopy and profess their innermost secrets (in an effort to become closer as friends); while some (like Lysander) say they've already gotten as close as possible and have nothing left to tell, the group decides in favor of it -- each puts a drop of truth serum on their tongue, which is extremely sour. One friend prepares the room and says that she once put peanut butter on her clitoris so that her dog would lick it and get her off. One friend says that he once saw his mom changing her bra through a window, but he didn't look away. Mercutio says that he was once in a store with his aunt and cousin, and he broke a vase, and blamed it on the cousin, so the aunt took the cousin home and beat him, which ended up leaving him partially brain damaged, and now he's in foundations-level classes, stutters, and sometimes has seizures. One friend says that she probably poisoned her grandma. Lysander says that he's been inhabited by a demon for almost three years now -- the others are confused and don't believe him, but he says it's a dormant demon waiting to gain trust, by waiting for everyone to accept that he's become an asshole, and he'll one day take over his body and attempt to kill every one of his friends and family, so that their souls may go to hell. ...the four other friends are in shock or disbelief -- but they realize that Lysander can't be lying, so Mercutio grabs a Bible that was taped underneath a table (like a gun might be), and immediately begins performing an exorcism (as if he is an expert at doing this): the demon within Lysander reveals himself through contorted face and demonic voice; the other three friends are afraid -- Mercutio babbles through Latin as the chorus swells and the lights dim around the room but brighten around him; Lysander starts screaming, and suddenly it's over. Mercutio and Lysander fall back, and there's a pause as the other three friends slowly slink back to the group -- Lysander changes his answer to once having stolen a push-pop from a grocery store when he was a toddler.

·         A girl and her boyfriend are watching TV, and he asks her to get him a beer from the fridge -- she tells him to get it himself since he's closer; he casually says no and motions with his hands as if she is supposed to float it over to him -- she looks at him with upset disappointment, pauses, then gets up to leave -- he defensively asks what he did wrong, and (as she prepares to leave) she says that he knows she's asked him to not bring it up -- he says he's sorry (but he doesn't mean it); she leaves. She walks down the street, in a huff -- it's a cold winter day and her breath is visible above her scarf. She passes a mobile old woman on the sidewalk. She passes a stationary man and a dog on the sidewalk. She comes to the crosswalk and stops; on the other side are a mom and her kid -- the kid sees the dog behind her, and gets excited: the kid starts running across the street (which has a green light) -- a speedy oncoming car does not see the kid, and the girl inhales sharply as she springs into action: she turns to face the car and raises her arms with spread fingers: the car lifts into the air while the wheels keep spinning (but slowly slow as the driver realizes, in his suspension of disbelief, that he's floating): the mom runs over to grab her kid, and both are mesmerized by the floating car -- the girl is telekinetic, and holding the car in the air (but she is embarrassed, and everyone is looking); she frustratingly tells the mom and kid to get out of the road, and they mindlessly run off of the crosswalk -- she drops the car, which lands with a clatter and slowly rolls forward at 10 mph; the girl, embarrassed, runs back home (the girl does not want to use telekinesis: she only used it of it's absolutely necessary). She slams the door behind her as she comes back inside, which alerts the boyfriend to pop into the hallway: he asks what's wrong, and she silently embraces him; he returns the comforting hug.

·         Luna, Demetrius, Octavius, Julius, Venus are preparing their intricate heist (on the roof of the bank), by sneaking into the vents. Two bank robbers named Baby Teeth and Jelly Fingers drive a car down the road. The five thieves crawl through the vents. The two robbers drive onwards. The five thieves remove a vent cover quietly. The two robbers parallel park outside of a bank. The five thieves detach the vent cover and crawl out, into a dark server room. In their car (looking at the bank), they prepare to put on ski masks and run in with guns loaded. Julius stays behind while the other four thieves move onwards into the hall -- Julius plugs in a USB drive to a server; the four thieves in the hall wait for the security camera's red light to turn off, and it does -- they press on. The two robbers ready-up, pull on their masks, and exit the car (Baby Teeth has a submachine gun and Jelly Fingers has a shotgun). Three of the thieves continue on as Venus covertly enter the manager's office; he sprays a mist in front of the manager's face while covering their mouth: the manager struggles but breathed in the chloroform mist through the nose, and therefore falls asleep; Venus drags the manager to the corner of the room. The two robbers run up the bank steps. The other three thieves move for the bank vault and start cracking it. The two robbers burst through the front doors and order everyone to hit the floor -- they point guns at the tellers. The vault is opened by the three, but Luna motions for Demetrius to check out the commotion; Octavius has started piling cash into a duffel bag. Jelly Fingers coerces the tellers into the corner while Baby Teeth gets the patrons to lie flat with their hands visible. Demetrius meets up with Venus in the hall, and they both peer into the lobby area and see the two robbers; they pull out pistols. Jelly Fingers leads a teller to the vault with the intent to have her open it (he coerces the teller with a shotgun prodded in her back); he turns the corner and is surprised by the two thieves: he asks who they are and they raise their pistols, so Jelly Fingers pulls the trigger with it aimed at Demetrius -- the blast goes through the teller and shrapnel makes Demetrius flinch; Venus shoots a bit (but those rounds all enter the teller), so Jelly Fingers changes aim and shoots a second round into Venus, who keels over; Jelly Fingers turns it back on Demetrius (who is trying again to ready his pistol) and fires, and Demetrius falls. In the server room, Julius is alerted and leaves, stealthily. In the lobby, Baby Teeth asks loudly what is going on. In the vault, Luna pulls out her pistol and has Octavius keep packing; Luna looks out of the vault and sees a tip of dead Demetrius on the ground. Jelly Fingers convenes with Baby Teeth and tells him that others are here -- Baby Teeth is shocked, and readies his gun, while Jelly Fingers reloads -- they tell everyone to stay down, and Jelly Fingers leads to the vault. Luna backs up and Octavius also draws his pistol, and they aim at the door. Jelly Fingers opens the vault door, and they (shocked) train their guns on the two thieves -- the robbers and thieves aim at each other in a tense standoff: Luna (calm but rushed) says that they should talk -- Jelly Fingers is listening; Luna says that they should split the profits, but since they killed two of her men, they should get the better half of a 70-30 split -- Jelly Fingers says no: 50-50, or they could just kill them both: Luna argues that they also have guns, and Baby Teeth says that they would be overwhelmed, though. Julius sneaks down the all and lurks around the doorway of the vault, priming a knife and coming up behind Baby Teeth. Luna agrees that they're overwhelmed, so she agrees to a 50-50 split; (the following happens in a very short amount of time, so use numerous angles and slo-mo) Julius plunges the knife into Baby Teeth's rib cage, and a startled Baby Teeth pulls the trigger and holds (while writhing in pain): the bullets riddle Luna (dead); Jelly Fingers instinctively turns to see Julius (who is removing the knife) and he shoots a buckshot into Julius, who falls (dead); Octavius unloads his pistol at Jelly Fingers, who receives numerous shots to the body (dead); Baby Teeth is still holding the trigger, and he aims at Octavius, riddling him -- Octavius corrects aim to fire into Baby Teeth: they shoot each other, but Baby Teeth's bullets scattered more while Octavius was on-point: Baby Teeth falls (dead), but Octavius is greatly wounded. Octavius grabs the duffel bag stuffed with cash (while the sounds of scared bank occupants flee from the bank lobby and pour onto the streets); Octavius staggers to the server room and painfully climbs into the vent. Outside, the police arrive as people flee. Octavius crawls through the vent, painfully lugging the bag of cash. Police swarm the lobby, entering fast and hard. Octavius (aware of the police presence and sirens) can't pull the cash bag up on his own, so he has to abandon it: he continues on without it. The police examine the dead bodies (curiously), find the manager, and check out any hiding places. Octavius limps across the roof until he collapses, and then he crawls to the edge, where an extension ladder is placed. The police discover the open vent in the server room. Octavius turns, mounts the ladder, and descends... The police are ordered to go around back, and they sweep around the sides to discover an extension ladder leaning up against the wall, but nobody is there... A month later, a weakened Octavius (in the clothes of someone who has a civilian profession) enters the bank lobby and asks to make a deposit.

·         A man opts to run for president, and enters the bid to the pleased open arms of the masses (as told by a news report). A meeting is set up between the man and a shadowy guy with three bodyguards (who meet the candidate alone in a hotel room) and the guy persuades the man to drop out; man says no so guy blackmails man; man says he'll fight through it; guy coerces man with threats to his family; man says he'll have the guy arrested -- guy says it's impossible since none or the people in the room are on the radar or necessarily exist; the man asks if they're the illuminati, and the guy laughs but doesn't deny it; the man pulls out his phone to show that he's been recording the conversation with the microphone app, and a guard snatches his phone from his hand and breaks it -- the man is rightfully pissed; the guy tells him that they are not to be trifled with, because worst case scenario is that he's killed; the man doesn't believe them and waves them off, gets up, and leaves. On the drive home, the man is nervous, so he continuously checks his rear view mirror. At home, later that week, he finishes up watching a late night news broadcast about his' moving up in the running; he shuts off the TV and goes to turn off the kitchen light and go to bed, and he catches movement in the backyard through the window -- he flips the light back on and instinctively grabs a knife from the knife block; he looks out the window and checks the backyard, but doesn't see anything. Later, another night, he wakes up to a clatter downstairs -- he bolts upright, paranoid, and pulls a gun from his bedside; his wife remains asleep, and he goes to the door and opens it (the bell hanging on the inside door handle dings lightly), and he looks down the stairwell and listens, but hears only silence -- so he pauses and returns to bed. Later on, while taking the stage at a speech (at a town rally), he is talking about his stance on unions, and he sees the phone-grabber guard (in plain clothes) approaching the stage through the standing crowd, and standing pretty close -- this distracts the man, who struggles through his speaking due to paranoia; he stops himself and points out the guard to everyone and asks if he can be removed from the crowd because of his threatening presence -- the crowd is confused, and some people speak up saying that he's not doing anything; the man goes to continue but the guard puts his hand in his jacket inside-pocket (reaching for something) -- the man leaps from the stage towards the guard and tackles him to the ground; the crowd is shocked and confused. The man asks for help, but the crowd thinks the man is being an asshole (especially since the guard is acting like a normal guy who's defensive about being held down and pummeled by a stranger) -- the crowd turns on the man and has lost faith in him (they think he's crazy), and the man tries to tell them that he's sane and the guard is in the illuminati (which none of the crowd believes), and the man changes to say it is an illuminati-like group but maybe not the illuminati (Bilderberg perhaps); the crowd removes the man from off of the guard and the police tow him out (while he screams that he's sane and it's all a rouse by the illuminati to put him away and discredit him). (Called "The Candidate.")

·         At a motel (at night), two gang bangers ready outside of a room's door -- inside are five armed drug dealers, who are readying up packages and counting them. The two gang bangers (shotguns) breach the room by shooting out the lock: one shoots a druggie who stands behind the bed while holding a submachine gun (which he was turning to aim at the door); the shot druggie dies with his finger on trigger, and as he falls he shoots into the ceiling; in the room above them, the bullets pierce a sleeping man numerous times, and his wife awakes and screams. Downstairs, (slo-mo) the gang bangers shoot at the three druggies (who are drawing pistols); one druggies goes down because of a headshot, but the other shotgun shots are misses -- the two druggies in the bedroom shoot back at the gang bangers: one hit lands on one, two on the other, but the other shots miss. In the room to the left, the awakened and scared occupants are backing up in the room when pistol bullets start coming through the walls at them: the bullets mostly graze them (but some puncture). Back to the first room (slo-mo), a druggie takes a shotgun blast to the side, which tears his clothes and flesh, and knocks him on his side -- the pistol bullets from the druggies pierce one gang banger's gut and shoulder, and he falls. In the bathroom, a druggie hurries to wipe and pulls his pants up; he grabs his submachine gun from the sink and stands in front of the bathroom door, aiming through it. In the bedroom (slo-mo), more pistol bullets whiz by the gang banger, and he fires a shot into a standing druggie, who receives it in the gut -- a finishing shot is delivered to the head of the one who was shot in the side; there's a pause of relief, until the gang banger realizes something is wrong (about the number of dead druggies) -- suddenly, through the closed bathroom door come a flurry of bullets, that pierce the gang banger numerous times; many bullets continue past the gang banger, pass through the open front door (or riddle the wall around it), and impact cars in the parking lot. The last druggie exits the bathroom; from upstairs, a woman's screams can be heard; from next door, two limping people exit the room and scream (in agony) for help. The druggie grabs a kilo bag of marijuana and runs out the door, with the submachine gun tucked under his arm: he unlocks his car, gets in, and starts it up: not only is there a bullet hole in the driver-side window, but there's three in the doors and there's one in the front left tire, which popped -- the druggie drives off anyways (sure to get caught).

·         A man in a rough situation comes home and has four heart-to-hearts with his four friends individually, all with different emotions behind them and imparting different wisdom: his wife is leaving him for another man. The first friend, at their home and not surprised, tells him that they noticed he never trusted her, which was a sign that he should've expected this, but also a sign that she saw as well, which could've helped drive her away. The second friend, at a coffee shop and enraged, tells him that his wife is a bitch, but that if it happened now, it would've happened eventually, so at least it wasn't later on: now he can move on while he's still young. The third friend, at work and sad for him, tells him that it'll be tough to not have her anymore, but he had fun with her while it lasted, and since they clearly weren't the right fit, that means his soulmate is still out there, so he ought to be hopeful rather than bummed. The fourth friend, at their home and a devil's advocate (mutual friend), tells him that it truly sucks for him, but she might've been bored since he often ignored her and he took her for granted -- the man feels like the fourth friend has a point, and realizes it was both their faults for her cheating on him and leaving him.

·         A paleontologist discovers human remains under the Montana soil (during a cold winter), and realizes the skull is one never seen before. In a lab, a scientist analyzes it and realizes that it's the missing link in the human fossil history: he calls it Homo Versutia (Cleverness Man, because he used tools): this fossil is dated to 1.3 million years ago. At night, the scientist shuts the lights off and leaves the room -- after some time, the skeleton parts (laid out on the table) vibrate and come together, joining at joint parts: the skeleton is reanimated, and it kicks off the glass case, dismounts the table, and crouches on the floor; it clambers to the door and studies the door handle: it grabs it, realizes it wiggles, and pulls down; the door pulls open and he falls back; he stands up and hobbles out of the room (because he's clever). (Called "The Iceman Cometh.")

·         A guy goes to bed on Wednesday after his daily routine; he wakes up and things are not how he left them -- eventually he realizes that it's Friday, so he wonders if slept through Thursday, but not only does that not explain how he still changed things but people remember interacting with him; he's confused all day after trying to piece together what happened, and then he goes to bed; he wakes up on Thursday -- his consciousness fell out of the timestream and he ended up doing Friday before Thursday, but it's back to normal now (although he will still remember it happening).

·         A Polish Jew is stood in front of an antitank ditch, which was dug by his peers who are lying dead in the bottom of it: it's 1941, and he is amongst many who are lined up next to be shot by the SS-Einsatzgruppen. The SS take their aim, and the fourteen lined-up Jews wait for death: they each fire one shot from their rifles into the Jews: all are hit, but our Polish Jew is merely deeply grazed on the outside of his ribcage, under his arm -- this caused him to twirl as he falls into the pit, lying atop his dead comrades. Those who are still moving are shot again, so he lies still and feigns death: another fourteen are lined up and shot, and one falls on top of our Jew. This happens again, and more Jews land on top of him: he makes subtle changes to remain in a stable pocket amongst he bodies so that he is not crushed -- he waits and waits, hearing gunshot after gunshot, as the pile grows larger -- he falls asleep. Finally, he wakes up, and there is no noise; he begins to push bodies around and make a path above him (at an angle) so that he can crawl out; he moves through the bodies, ignoring their cold lifelessness and avoiding making eye contact. He eventually surfaces, and crawls out; he stands up and looks around: stuck in one of the corpses on the other side of the ditch is a bayonet, which has the rifle still attached to it: he wades over to the rifle, retrieves it, and checks the ammo count -- he is content with the amount of bullets, and he slings the rifle over his shoulder, starts walking towards the tree line, and stops: he looks back at the ditch filled with Jews -- he swallows the sadness and returns to walking towards the tree line.

·         In Brooklyn, a hoodie thug stalks a woman on the street; he pulls her into an alley: he rapes her; he gets away; but he gets AIDS from it, and he gets really sick and dies a horrible death -- because fuck that guy.

·         In the rural swamps of Mississippi, in 1924, a Southern Belle returns to her parents' plantation home; she walks down the dirt road under the mangroves with Spanish moss -- she walks up to the sprawling white manor and through the front door: she walks through the foyer, hall, and into the kitchen: her maid has her back turned: the belle calls for the maid, who silently turns around and doesn't have a face -- the belle, frightened, reacts appropriately and exits the room: she runs to her father in the den, for consolation and answers, but while she hugs him, he turns around and also doesn't have a face; her mom (coming in from the dining room) doesn't have a face; she runs away from them all and into the backyard: by a gazebo are her little brother and the dog, who she runs to with great need of help and relief, but they turn and don't have faces -- she screams and runs off further, now without holding back. The faceless gather on the back lawn and watch her run off.

·         (Comedy without dialogue.) In a woodworking class being taught at the community center, everyone is leisurely hammering (during the construction of their birdhouses), taking their time and enjoying themselves, except for one guy who is sacrificing leisure for speed: he hammers quickly, trying to build a birdhouse faster than everyone else -- everyone else looks at him with disdain. He hammers like it's a chore rather than a pleasure: he hammers and assembles quickly, which results in shoddier craftsmanship -- the hammer often misses and he strikes his thumb, resulting in his self-muffled swearing and a pause in his work. The instructor comes over to him, pulls him aside slightly, and begins bandaging the guy's purpled, swollen thumb; the instructor whispers into the guy's ear -- the others all slow their work to a stop so that they may listen. The instructor pulls back and motions for the guy to continue: he approaches his work, picks up the hammer, and slowly begins to tap (in the same rhythmic slow speed of the others): he learned patience, albeit hesitantly.

·         (Comedy without dialogue.) A male high school sophomore (and clearly friendless geek, who is eager to conform in order to be accepted by a group of admirable people at school) is at home, unwrapping a magic set he received as a birthday present in the mail from his grandma: he looks over the trick card deck, the ball and cup, the string of handkerchiefs, and the coin -- but he is drawn to the wand, which he picks up and believes in: he waves it and flicks, turning the lamp he aimed at into a cupcake: this is awesome to him. He goes to the grocery store and buys many different kinds of fashion and health magazines; at home, he spreads them out and looks through them, circling different pictures of models. At home, he looks at a muscular model in MensHealth and looks in the mirror: he waves his wand at himself and flicks, and he becomes muscular and chiseled: the model becomes thin. At school, he walks around confidently, but the jocks still think he's a joke, and they mock him. At home, he turns himself thin again; he looks at a model in Vanity who is dressed in hip clothes, and he looks in the mirror: he waves his wand at himself and flicks, and he is suddenly wearing the hip clothes: the model is wearing his bland clothes. At school, he confidently walks up to the preppy kids, but they scoff and turn their backs on him. At home, he gets his bland clothes swapped back; he looks at a handsome actor in a People magazine, and he looks in the mirror: he waves his wand at himself and flicks, and he is suddenly devilishly handsome: the actor is now average-looking. At school, he confidently walks up to the popular kids, and they look him up and down, but give looks of disinterest and disgust. At home, he swaps back to his normal face; he looks amongst other magazines... Montage of him, at school, trying to appease to the smart kids by looking like a trendy nerd, trying to appeal to the stoners by looking reggae, trying to appeal to the drama kids by looking vintage and artsy, trying to appeal to the thugs by looking gangster (who chase him), trying to appeal to the punk kids by looking dark and gritty, trying to appeal to band geeks by looking theatrical, and trying to appeal to the average kids by looking like a normal guy who has a photo camera: but they don't seem interested; he hangs his head in shame, and slaps his arms to his side in defeat, triggering the handkerchief string in his sleeve to slowly unravel out of his sleeve, slowly accumulating on the floor -- the average kids watch with intrigue as it comes to a stop; before the geek can walk away after being embarrassed, they run up to him and motion if he has anything else: he pulls out the coin and shows them it -- he puts his hand by someone's ear and pulls it back to reveal that he doesn't have the coin anymore; expressing camaraderie, the average kids are enthused and touch him appropriately (push him playfully, hands on shoulder, fist bumps): he pulls out the deck of cards as they all pick up their backpacks and walk off down the hall together.

·         A woman wonders if the people in her dreams are figments or possibly dead people in limbo who are tasked with populating dreamscapes for the rest of eternity, playing characters for the benefit of living "protagonists;" after she dies, she finds out it was the latter, as she sits outside a coffee shop and watches the protagonist walk by.

·         The Amish plow their fields with two oxen connected by a yoke, and their farming is productive. Inside the meeting house, the main 12 leaders of the Amish country community have convened to decide whether or not to integrate the internet (and electricity); a third think that times have changed and the world is passing them by, a third are indecisive about what to integrate and whether to change, and a third think that their culture is defined as is and they have all the technology they need. They take a recess and we see the distant oxen with the yoke trying to pull the plow, but it's stuck on a big buried rock; the rock is dug out and the plowing continues. They return to the meeting house and the debate continues: two of the indecisive ones are too hesitant to change their culture, so that leaves the last two to decide whether they revote in six months (if they have a 50-50 split) or if they drop the idea for five more years (if it's below 50-50), because at this point the motion will not be passing today (not above 50-50): one of them decides yes, but the other feels like it'll be a betrayal to their culture and decides no: the voting is closed and the motion will be dropped for the next five years. They exit the meetinghouse, half relieved and half miffed, but all still agreeing to the Amish way of life; the motif of the yoke (an old technology burden) reappears when they pass an Amish man carrying a yoke on his shoulders, which carries two buckets of cow milk.

·         In an alternate 1902, a scientist stands in a dirigible with his aide and the generals of a country: they look beneath them and watch the Mexican countryside; to their sides are fleets of dirigibles that move quicker, heading towards a city in the distance: all are nervous, silent. The quick dirigibles zoom into the distance, towards the city: the commander confirms wind speed and direction as bountiful and to their back, and orders via the radio that it begin -- the quick dirigibles dump cargo to the ground, which spill a gas as they fall: they land with a thud and a noxious green gas pours out and sweeps down the hillside, forming a large cloud: that cloud of jade-colored gas sweeps further and further until it begins channeling down the city streets and enveloping the city. The quick dirigibles arrive above the city, well above the monstrous green fog: there's a silence in the dirigible until a voice on the radio announces that they are detecting little resistance and decreasing life forces, and that their mission (from initial readings) has been successful; the generals cheer, but the scientist and aide remain nervous. The scientist, after a moment, says to his aide (Robert) that when he was a kid, he read this Hindu scripture and this one quote always stuck out to him ("Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds"), and he never knew why, but it fascinated him -- today he knows why. The commander comes over to congratulate him for being a pioneer in warfare technology, and inventing gas warfare, which they have used to aid their country's pursuit of manifest destiny, by using the weapon against the natives who refused to leave their land: Mexico is rightfully American soil, as is Canada and the tropical area down to Panama -- why else would that have this lavish society and technology? Their nation's breed is built to pursue superiority: imperialism.

·         A reunion of six kids for first college break (Thanksgiving) has a weird distant feel; different combinations of pairs have different short conversations (no one main character): 1 and 2 talk about the classes they were taking; 3 and 4 talk about parties they've been to; 5 and 6 talk about how they've made new friends; 2, 4, and 5 talk about dorm life and roommates; 1 and 3 talk about food on campus; 2, 3, and 6 talk about missing each other; 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6 talk about how they haven't kept in contact much, and that they miss each other (which is said very non-believably).

·         Zoom out from the inside of the horn of a Victrola gramophone as it play patriotic music (John Philip Souza) -- from then on, constant slow pan right. We see the result of WWII taking its effect on a small town in America: the glorious, victorious US society (of white people) in 1947 and its haze of grandeur -- utter whimsy, prosperity, and superiority. Immediately to the left of the gramophone is a spilled box of popcorn on the ground. The hotdog vendor cooks, to the allure of some kids and a dog. The bleachers host some happy crowd who clap along to the ecstatic couples who dance and prance on the grass. A young woman watches the dancers from the gazebo with a twinkle in her eye as a young man tries to romance her, but he can't get her attention -- next to them are a couple that was successful in courting (they kiss). A number of parents and adults lounge on chairs, tables, and benches: they eat, laugh, drink, and talk gleefully; a woman pulls her eager husband onto the dance floor (which, again, is grass). Some kids play with toys, play tag, and wrestle on the grass; behind them is a game of baseball. One of the kids who was playing is distracted by something to the right of the screen, and says in frame as he walks to it (as the camera pans right): his unimpressed focus was on a beleaguered black man who is sweeping up spilled popcorn that's to the left of the victrola gramophone: the kid points to the popcorn and says something nasty about the black man (that we can't hear over the music and the crowd): the black man is saddened by this and the kid laughs -- the kid snatches the broom and runs off. The camera zooms back into the gramophone, ignoring the injustice.

·         A man is called into his boss' office; the head of HR and a cop are in there with him: he is asked to take a seat. The three are examining the suspects of a vandalism in the bathroom, where racist graffiti was scrawled on a stall wall; engaging in empirical scrutiny (detailed court-like review), they've deduced quite much. Women are excluded from the search since it was the men's room, and he is one of the prime suspects because of a joke (of poor taste) that was overheard by at least two other people in the cafeteria; the boss asks up-front if he did it, and the man defensively says no. The head of HR reacts to calm him, by saying that his racist joke doesn't prove it's him, but they shouldn't be happening anyways -- he swears he doesn't tell racist jokes so the people who say that they "overheard him" are lying. The cop says not to throw out accusations, and the man says that that's not only what them three are doing, but what those who "overheard him" were doing! The boss asks him to calm down; the man says he doesn't want to be incriminated for things he didn't do, since it's all hearsay; the boss says that the graffiti was beyond hearsay, and that there's evidence -- the man says it's evidence that doesn't apply to him, so he shouldn't even be there. They're quiet, and the boss says that they did a handwriting comparison- and the man interrupts to ask if he was needed to give consent- and the cop interrupts to say no; the boss hesitantly comes to say that it was a match – the man is quiet, and asks what the graffiti said – the boss says it was a swastika; the man is upset, because there’s no way a handwriting analysis could match letters to a symbol. The boss asks him sheepishly to pack up his desk- the man interrupts, angrily, to defend himself: he didn’t do it. The head of HR asks “then who did?” The man is silent as he hurriedly, frustrated, tries to come up with a different culprit, but his mind is scrambling and he is too panicked to think of any ties to any coworkers, so he doesn’t know what to say… (Cut to black. – The theme of the film resonates with the end feeling of the audience: upset, frustrated, hopeless.)

·         A woman tells a reporter that her coma-ridden grandfather was Fred Noonan, aka the navigator from Amelia Earhart's last flight. The reporter doesn't believe her until he digs her for information and she backs it up, but there's still no explanation for how he returned, and the woman says that he never told her: the reporter then waits for the grandfather to pull through -- his eyes open, prompting excited responses, but it's a brief surge: he expires, to both their grief.

·         A therapist is talking soothingly to a patient who lies on the couch and drifts into slumber, and snaps his fingers to jolt the patient awake. The therapist asks them to please stay awake, and describes their anxiety (how bad it is compared to average, where they think it's rooted) and a couple ways to fix it. He asks the patient to put down the puppy, the patient sees that they're holding a puppy, so they put it down and apologize. The therapist continues and then pauses to ask them to put the puppy down, and the patient looks and feels a slight bit of confusion about how they're holding it again, and puts it on the floor. The therapist asks the patient to hold "it" a little higher, and we look at the patient and see that they're in a life raft in the middle of an ocean, holding a flare high above their head and waving frantically, yelling, looking up for signs of rescue, hoping that the rescue planes can see it. The therapist asks to quiet down: since they're in a concert hall, the patient sits down in his seat, apologizing to his neighbors for standing. The therapist asks who the person sitting behind him is: the patient says it's his boss; the therapist asks how big his boss is, and the patient says he's really big -- there's a Samoan behind him, looking big and mean. The therapist asks where they are, and the patient says his cubicle, and his boss is hovering behind him; the therapist asks if everything is ok, and the patient says no, because the boss' mouth is turning into a mandrill's, and he's leaning closer, sniffing the back of his head -- the patient grows terrified. The therapist asks what's wrong, and the patient says that he's afraid: the patient closes his eyes and braces, as the mandrill mouth sniffs at his neck. The therapist snaps his fingers, and the patient awakes on his couch, lying down. The therapist asks what the patient thought: the patient gathers himself mentally, asking what happened: the therapist says he used the power of suggestion to set up a subconscious exploration: his mind crafted illusions to fill as answers to vague questions in a dreamlike state. The patient is intrigued, and says that he felt lost, embarrassed, overwhelmed, and insignificant. The therapist says that they can fix that.

·         A man arrives in Heaven and finds that it's not a city in the clouds, but is a world identical to his own, except for that it's recreated to match his dreams and desires: an angel who gives him an introductory tour to his own Heaven tells him that everyone who deserves Heaven gets their own private world to live in for the rest of eternity, where you are at your ideal age, your ideal friends and family are around to hang out, your television shows whatever you want, your library is endless, your fridge will supply whatever you need to cook (or you can just walk into any restaurant and order anything), there are people who will play sports with you if you'd like, the buildings and urban design are per your aesthetic, and the natural world around it is shaped to fit your preferences -- it's designed for relaxation, but if you want to work, pick a skyscraper and walk inside, and find a job. He asks who the people are that would play sports with him, and the angel says that they are like NPCs; he thinks that's interesting but wants to make sure they have personalities in case he wants to befriend them -- the angel says it's possible if that's what he wants. The man realizes something and asks the angel how come his friends and family don't have their own Heavens, and the angel says that they do -- these are NPC carbon copies of his friends and family, in his ideal form of them: he's bummed that they're not real, and the angel says that they have the looks, traits, and memories of his friends and family, but just not the soul, since they all had to get their own Heavens -- the man understands that, but he doesn't like having his wife, kids, and best friend be there but not actually be real -- it would feel like he's cheating on his wife. The angel says that ignorance is bliss, because knowing leads to opinions, so he can erase the fact that he knows they're fake, so that he can resume being happy -- the man says maybe later, because he also doesn't want to be fake. The man says he's fine for now and ushers the angel off -- he somberly begins to traverse and "enjoy" his own private Heaven.

·         A guy tries to wrap his head around it and asks his girlfriend "so, you're dumping me because I don't like screamo?" And she, exasperated, says no: it's because they're so different -- his rebuttal is that everyone is different from everyone else, but if she really wants to try and find a carbon copy of herself, then she'll live a boring life because she'll never be introduced to something new or be made to grow as a person, since they'd like the same stuff; people are all different, and as long as they share similar likes and traits, they'll be cohesive with some common ground: otherwise, love is about who makes you feel good about yourself, who makes you love them back, and how you feel when you're together. She pauses... and agrees, apologetically, crying a little -- he hugs her, apologetically.

·         A man gawks at a crime scene from behind the yellow tape and narrates: he says he's always had a morbid curiosity, and a sort of "addiction" of looking at dead bodies -- something has always intrigued him -- every funeral he's been to has been pseudo-sexual to him, which makes it weird since half of them have been his grandparents; he actively seeks out crime scenes with his police scanner so that he can catch a glimpse. He asks the policeman at the tape if he can go in there and look, and the abashed policeman says "no, obviously," and that the yellow tape is there for a reason; the man offers to pay the policeman, who rejects the offer and tells him to leave or he'll be apprehended. The man leaves. Later than night, he comes back and finds the crime scene empty, so he sneaks under the yellow tape and into the crime scene: he looks over it with a flashlight, and he checks things out, and it's empty except for some blood stains: he realizes that obviously the bodies have been moves by this point, which makes him sigh and say "Well, I guess I get what I paid for -- and I paid nothing, so..." And he looks around a bit, then leaves. The next day, he wakes up to some banging on his front door -- he answers it, and two cops are standing there with a warrant for his arrest, because his fingerprints were found all over the crime scene: he starts trying to explain when the Miranda Rights shut him up. As he's being handcuffed and led out the door, he narrates that he screwed up and protecting himself by telling the truth is going to sound unbelievable and untrue, or even convince them that he did do it so that he'd have access to a dead body -- hopefully, when in jail, he can get furlough anytime he gets an invite to a funeral, because it looks like he's going down.

·         A man is any one of four people at his choosing -- he can change between four different people, and has been leading four lives, and he's done it for so long that he can't remember which of the four he was born as; three of the four were always marked tardy in school, three of the four were never seen together, and one would always pass blame and responsibilities to another. It's 1919, on a New Jersey boardwalk, and he's just given us a narration describing the above; he sits on a bench overlooking the sand and tide. A woman walks past, recognizes and approaches him, and asks if he remembers her: he says he hasn't seen her before, and after a debate of sorts, he asks her to leave him be -- she walks off in a huff, but spins around on her heels to come back and tear him a new one: she sees that he's a different guy (a brat), and she apologizes for having mistaken him, and he says that he already told her that they don't know each other. She leaves and he recounts in narration that he thinks he went to high school with her, since she remembered the schoolboy and not the thief, the worker, or the brat. She recognizes Reed Simmons, not Tyco Brasier, Henry Jordan, or Lou Garwin (respectively); he believes the schoolboy must've been the first, because he is the nice one, and his parents would've put up with that -- except his parents could've spawned a brat and he became the schoolboy for them because it made them appreciate him better. Of course, being born a worker would've emphasized their traits of loyalty and dedication to success, so it could've been him. But the thief could've been the original him because of that deep-seeded capitalism that he shares with his parents, let alone all Americans. Either way, each person has a name -- so where did they come from? They're all real names he always had, but none were his parents'; the schoolboy called himself Reed Norman for paperwork but knew deep-down his surname was Simmons -- it's as if four people were born into one temporal space, and condensed into one body, thereby overriding the real child; and with that mishap of a temporal snare, he gained the ability to be any of the four at any point -- in exchange for being one true person, he was fragments of four.

·         A man enters the bathroom and the light switch won't work; he submits to work by the light of a nightlight: as he brushes his teeth and looks in the mirror, he sees a shadow move on the wall behind him, and darkness swirls in the corners. He looks behind him and sees nothing out of the ordinary; he turns back to look in the mirror, and he sees a demon standing a ways behind him -- he quickly spins around and sees nothing. But, in the mirror, while he has his back to it, the demon (who is strictly in the reflection) leaps forward (out of the mirror) and into the back of the head of the real man; the man shivers as the demon fights for control -- the soul of the man is diffused and sent splattering into the mirror, where it congeals as a faceless silhouette of himself (in the reflection). The demon (in the body of the man) looks back at the mirror and looks at the silhouette: the demon's facial features are subtle in the reflection of the man's face, but aren't present on his real face. The silhouette laments his situation, and the demon (man's body) smirks and leaves, with the body as a drone he controls to do his bidding.

·         A man stands in a room with three copies of himself, all cynical and griping about how they don't know how to stop the microwave-sized device from duplicating themselves: it has a mercurial activation, and goes off whenever it wants, so copies of himself keep popping up. They all have the same personal flaws, which don't blend well, since they're arrogant and brash, condescending and defensive, and argumentative and snide -- so while their quick tempers have them wondering how the hell to fucking stop it, the others are mocking them sarcastically about how "intelligent" they are. By the time four more are added to the mix, they're getting sick of each other -- and one comments that he's a real arrogant asshole (and that's why nobody likes him), but then realizes that he was talking to himself -- and they all realize that they're assholes, and they somberly accept this notion... They are overcome with realizations about why people have not tolerated them, and they all kinda need to sit down for a moment... Another copy pops up, and starts asking why everyone looks sad and pathetic, and the others all angrily tell him to shut the fuck up and sit down -- he concedes, like a wounded dog.

·         A science fiction mystery where an older, grizzled detective (at the crime scene) tries to figure out how three people strangled themselves, at the same time, in a room -- it's impossible because of your muscles giving out after losing oxygen, but then your brain would come back into consciousness and you'd have to start over -- except the bruises on their necks and hands line up with each other. He mills about, and eventually concludes that they stood in a line and each strangled each other, except there were five people, and the one in front strangled nobody while the last on walked away from it, taking the one in front with him. Rather, he concludes that the three were strangling three other people, like a strangle-competition between six people, and the three on the ground were the ones who lost and were strangled to death. You expect a realization, or a deus ex machina, but he concludes that he just doesn't know -- and he walks out, saying he's not cut out for that kind of work anymore.

·         Film uses strictly Tatami Shots. A guy, talking to his friend, hides his pain behind humor -- they discuss his recovery from the recent death of his mother. It eats him up inside, but he cracks jokes behind a facade of smiles, in order to keep up appearances that he's fine so that he won't look vulnerable -- but that facade is cracking, and his friend can see that he's almost broken. The friend encourages him to actually talk to him about it, and the guy declines... but then mentions something he missed about her, and that he didn't get to say goodbye or tell her thank you for raising him, and he never told her he loved her enough -- and he begins to cry, and the friend embraces him.

·         A music video for Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide." In 1904, January, a 22-year-old man opens a drug & candy store in a small town; kids excitedly run in and look at the sweets -- especially one boy (6) who wants a candy and goes to pay a penny, but the man rejects the penny and gives it to him for free: the man kisses the penny for good luck and hands it back to the boy, who puts the penny in his pocket. In 1909, February, the store is abuzz with people buying chocolates for their mates, and the man is 27 and the boy is 11, and he's getting his sweetheart a candy bar. In 1914, March, the man is 32 and still happy to work there, and the boy (16) is doing well in school, and eager to help around the store as a part-time job -- there's regalia for war bonds. In 1919, April, fresh off of WWI, the store is busy again because of the affluence -- even though it's rainy, people are happy to be there; the man is 37 and the boy (ready to go off to college) is 21. In 1924, May, flowers are sold in the store, and people buy some -- the boy (26) visits with his girlfriend, to see the man (42). In 1929, June, people in dresses and shorts are buying ice cream without a care in the world -- the man is 47 and feeling content; the boy is 31 and offering to help neaten up, but the man says he's all set. In 1934, July, the store is mostly empty of goods and completely empty of people; everyone is outside, unemployed and sweating in the hot sun; the man (52) stands idly at his counter, and the boy (36) walks down the street outside (with his family) and gives a nod to the man through the window -- the man waves for the boy to come in, and the man hands him two candy bars for his two kids: the boy declines, but the man insists. In 1939, August, the man (57) is putting up posters for more war bonds and manufacturing work, and the boy (41) motions to the poster as if to say that he's the machinist. In 1944, September, the man (62) looks at a photo of the boy (46) in his Dress Blues, and hands it back to the boy's wife: she is worried but he assures her. In 1949, October, the leaves fall outside and people are back to wearing sweaters and trench coats; the man (67) leans on the counter, regaining his faith in the business; the boy (51) approaches and buys some mints alongside some pharmaceuticals. In 1954, November, there's posters saying "I Like Ike" on the walls, and candy is a bit more expensive, yet the boy (56) pays for some to give to his grandkids -- the man (72) refuses the boy's money and gives it to the kids for free. In 1959, December, the store is decorated for Christmas, and the boy (61) pays for some pharmaceuticals but the man (77) coughs, prompting the boy to grab some cough syrup off the shelf an hand it to the man, jokingly -- the both laugh, and the boy sniffles his snot (both have colds). In 1964, January, the boy (66) approaches the front door of the store, finding that the sign has been removed and there's a placard saying "new management -- refurbishment underway;" the boy understands that the man (82) died, and it saddens him: he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the penny from 60 years prior, and he kisses it fondly, graciously, somberly, then pockets it again.

·         A suicidal person walks up a tall building’s staircase, slowly and hesitantly, and sings softly and somberly to himself “You Can Fly” (from Peter Pan). When he gets to the rooftop, he’s crying and shaking even worse: “think of all the joy you’ll find… when you leave the world behind… and bid your cares goodbye… you can fly, you can fly, you can fly…” walking hesitantly across the rooftop to the edge where he finally jumps.

·         A comedy mocking a Soap Opera, which is called "From Now Until Eternity;" we see a scene between two characters, but it's flopping, so the director yells cut and that they'll take a break and come back to it: the actors leave the stage and walk about the studio, where they have drama almost identical to the kind that happens on the show (including revealing that they're siblings, being cheated on by a sibling, and losing a lot of money gambling so they turn tricks for cash in order to pay for a boat that was bought with a loan from the mafia).

·         The floor manager of a brewery has an obsession with not wasting time and with keeping a schedule -- he keeps his employees on task by the minute, micromanaging, as if trying to turn them into a bunch of robots on a Detroit assembly line. His employees resent him, and they do not like being treated like dogs; one day, a worker stops and refuses to work, which prompts the floor manager to approach him and tell him to work, and the worker refuses -- the manager's antagonizing prompts the worker to punch him. Cut to the leader's office, where the manager sits in a chair with a face bruise, listening to the leader scold him; the leader first says that the worker was reprimanded, but not fired, because he didn't do anything wrong except respond in a language you could understand -- he continues by saying that the manager produces great numbers, but people aren't machines, and if treating them like humans means getting two less batches done per day, then so be it -- because if their workers aren't happy (or worse, are worked like dogs) then they'll quit, and then the floor manager will have to do everything by himself. The floor manager asks about the product supply and demand, and having to meet quotas -- the leader says that they'll still meet quotas, but humans have error, so they'll take that risk -- "the only circumstances you can count on are life and death," and anything else is unknown; if they wanted to employ robots, they wouldn't have to worry about it, but robots aren't devoted or interested -- they don't give the profession life: robots make things dull and meaningless. The manager exits the office and looks down at the brewery floor, where everyone is grinding away at the job -- the manager goes downstairs and stands by the Timecard Machine: he looks at it, picks up a wrench, and smashes the clock on it (which is symbolism of his redemption, his turn towards humanity and empathy). He calls out to everyone that it's time to clock out and go home, and they line up towards him but are stunned by the broken Timecard Machine; the manager says they'll have to clock out the old-fashioned way: pen on paper -- so each person hands him their timecard and he personally writes it in (after checking his watch), making sure to talk with each man while doing so (about what they're doing after work, how the wife is, etcetera) -- he becomes human again through personal interaction, and the workers admire it.

·         Film noir intro of femme fatale: a man in business casual attire is asleep on the couch, and a woman in a dress stands over him with seductive displeasure: he narrates "her only redeeming quality was the color of her eyes. Even her hips were made to deceive me." He is awoken on the couch by the woman, who kicks him lightly -- he stirs and reacts to her presence with suspicion, but she tells him to calm down: she's a client. He asks what time it is, and she says two in the morning -- he gets frazzled as if he's late, and he slaps his alarm clock off the table; she says "had I known it was the end of the world, I would've woken you up sooner;" he says he was going to spy on a deal at midnight, but he missed it. She says she has something better for him: he narrates what she was describing, saying that she used to work for a man, but that made him think she was his -- he got possessive, and when he caught her with another man, he got violent -- she left when he was distracted, but she knows he'll come looking for her (and she doesn't want to leave the city), so she wants him to take care of him (kill him): she says she'll pay any price, whether it's cash or [herself, as she implies] (she's loaded with cash, since she was a burlesque dancer and songstress). The man agrees to take the job, and as she walks out, he narrates that despite his complexion and demeanor, he hasn't killed anyone before, but he doesn't want to let her down -- half because he wants to protect her out of empathy and half because he desires her sexually. He looks out the window, down at the woman who's walking back to her car -- she stops and looks up to see the man, and she smiles seductively -- he pulls away from the window and looks up at the ceiling fan.

·         In 1984, an old German man reveals to his kids (who are in their 40-50s) that, before moving to America, he was a Colonel in the SS during WWII, and he ordered and witnessed thousands of Jews to be killed. A heavy-toned dialogue piece.

·         Opens with Ace bursting into the apartment and asking Maverick and Fondue (a racist hippie, supporting character) if they "wanna get some KBBQ?" (aka Korean BBQ). They agree, but only after hearing the rest of the State of the Union address -- the president is promising to end the war on terror by the end of his term. Ace's ears perk up since he remembers hearing the president talking about using the war on terror as a means to instigate another war and use it as an excuse to rally support for his reelection for an unheard-of third term -- Maverick asks if he was reading more conspiracy theories online, but Ace says no: he remembers being there and hearing the president say it. The hippie argues that he didn't personally hear the president speak since he's not privy to that kind of company -- but Ace says he was definitely there; Maverick asks if he used DMT, and Ace says he decided not to use the stuff again since it told him how he'll die and it weirded him out. Ace realizes it was probably another premonition he had, and it was in his dream -- Maverick says dreams are unreliable because they're fantasies made by the subconscious to sort out real life questions, but the hippie defends Ace's premonitions because he's seen them come true at least a dozen times. Maverick reluctantly agrees, so Ace goes to his computer and types up an article that he posts on his blog, and links through his social media: it's the conspiracy he believes he overheard, and he touts it as definitely having been heard first hand (by being in the same room, without the knowledge of Secret Service, because he hid in the curtains for four hours). Various sources share his post; larger and larger names in journalism begin sharing it, with the question "what if he's right? Sounds possible!" Eventually, even the major conservative news network is reporting the idea: the three are deemed nosy journalists, like Woodward, Bernstein, and Bernstein's Friend; they're said to have uncovered a political lie by the head of state. The president is interviewed, and denies it -- but someone close to him says otherwise in a situation that wasn't made sure to be "off the record;" this inspires Congress to seek answers about whether or not he plans on breaking an amendment to make himself a three-term president -- the president is summoned to trial, but declines: instead, he holds a press conference and admits it, while tendering his resignation, as a means to avoid being impeached (he'll be remembered as a dick, but at least he'll be a dick who deflates with honor). Ace, Maverick, and the hippie are championed as heroes -- Ace remarks that he is still hungry for some KBBQ.

·         A yogi promises a man that he can reach nirvana, but only if he destroys the Three Truths that he holds dear, for there is no black or white: only understanding. The man doesn't know what those truths may be, so he thinks... He thinks for days, weeks, months, and eventually years: meditating to figure out what those three are -- he realizes that one is Purpose: nobody is here for a reason, a goal, or an endgame (there is no fate or luck, only happening), and all perceived purposes are hopes and desires read as fact; he tells the yogi, who asks if he is sure, and the man says he is sure. After a few more months, he comes to the yogi and says with certainty that another is Worth: nothing has worth until something else decides that it is important or unimportant -- all things are things that tend to depend on others, but on their own mean nothing to nobody; the yogi asks if he is sure, and the man says yes. After many more months, the man is a shell of his former materialistic self: he is a monk like the yogi, and has chosen to leave his corporate past life behind him -- and he realizes the third truth was Life: he is no more important than any other living thing, because they all share a niche in a web that is the circle of life, and when one things falls out of its niche, the web replaces it -- nobody is important, because the whole is the only real thing; the yogi asks if the man is sure, and he says yes. After this, the yogi rises and peacefully looks at the man as if to tell him that he's reached nirvana -- but his face turns sour and mocking: the yogi says "you've spent twelve years here trying to figure out what three truths were wrong, and all you did was make three new truths that negated other truths! I told you on your first day that there was no Black and White, only understanding! But you didn't listen! You're stupid! You wasted twelve years!" The man is understandably sad.

·         A man is playing an MMO and messaging a girl he plays with, whose avatar is one he adores – he realizes that he ought to log off and find her in real life. He asks her who she is, and she replies – he realizes that she’s only 73 miles away: so he drives out there, since she said to meet her at a coffee shop in the city (a neutral, public place, in case either lied about their real person). Fantasizing about her avatar, he drives out to meet her – the drive is full of his peppy listening to music and imagining his future with her avatar: but he wants the real thing, unlike a lot of people – he thinks he really knows the girl behind the avatar. When he arrives at the coffee shop, he goes inside and finds the girl, sitting alone, who is not up to his expectations: she does not match her avatar in the slightest… And yet, he is relieved and delighted to see her, and he thinks she’s beautiful regardless, and he thinks he loves her. They order coffee, introduce, and talk, in real life, for the first time.

·         A woman in a fast food restaurant pays for her meal by taking out her debit card – as it comes out, a tattered business card falls out of her wallet, but she doesn’t notice. She goes to wait for her food, and a boy (who saw the card) picks it up and gives it to her – she thanks him. He asks what it is, since it’s old and he doesn’t know why she’d keep it. She says it’s a reminder she had for an appointment a long time ago, that she got in the mail a week prior to the appointment; the appointment was with an insurance agent, and was scheduled for September 12th, 2001 – she recalls how it was a normal day before then, until the plane hit, and suddenly these towers of normalcy were these flaming symbols with the eyes of the world upon them; they were just two buildings until that day, and the day after, they were nothing. She had an appointment to keep but nowhere to go. Keeping it with her is both a sober reminder to the event, and a reminder that nothing is permanent, and nothing is normal – and essentially, it also reminds her that she has an insurance appointment to get to; something she’ll never take off her To-Do list. Her food arrives, she thanks the boy for picking up her card, and she leaves.

·         A contract killer is assigned a hit by a mysterious, anonymous man -- the hit is successful, and he kills a family man; the police catch on to him and pursue him -- he realizes that he'll be caught eventually, so if he had the name of the anonymous man, he'd be able to cut a deal and serve less time (since he was therefore a lackey). He spends the majority of the movie fleeing police and searching through clues -- eventually he realizes that the anonymous man was the family man, who ordered a hit on himself, in order to disguise any possibility of wrongdoing by making his suicide into a homicide: he was being pursued by the FBI and he didn't want his family to know the truth (whether by being caught or killing himself suspiciously); the family man was the anonymous man (who met him in the dark theater during a film, handing over a dossier on himself). The killer freezes during the point of realization, and he is caught and sentenced, and nobody believes his pleas of the truth.

·         UPS: Now Shipping Humans. What can Brown do for you? They can get you from New York to Los Angeles in 3-5 business days. You'll be put in a cardboard box, like the kind reptiles are bought in: it has five tiny holes near the top on each side, but don't stick your fingers in as if it's a pet, because some harsh voice will say "don't poke me."

·         A Nazi soldier is transferred to the front lines, where everyone is carefree and triumphant: they don't understand why he is so glum and shaken, until they ask: he was in the SS Einsatzgruppen and has to personally kill hundreds of innocent people, which shook him up and broke him -- he's a shell of his former self, and the other soldiers may know war, but they don't know brutality: they still have their souls, but he has lost his, and was close to losing his mind, too, before they transferred him instead.

·         A short based on The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

·         A short based on The Fox and The Crow.

·         A short based on The Wolf and The Lamb.

·         Aphrodite is real, and has been seducing men for millenniums in order to leech their essence: each kiss sets him up to lose five years within the week. Men drain their vitality into nothing and shrivel up, and she's long gone: eternal.

·         A man and woman have a picnic on the edge of a lake, surrounded by trees, and it's really nice -- and a light nearby erupts, followed by great wind, and a deafening noise. The wind pulls away and the land is scorched brown and red, and their picnic is ruined and his girlfriend is an inverted shadow and ash; the trees are broken or ash... But he is fine; unaffected. He is stunned and doesn't know what happened, but he realizes it was an atomic bomb, and that everyone and thing is dead, and he's sad; but then he wonders why he's unharmed: why is he still alive? Why is he alone?

·         Since nobody likes dealing with the sick and dying, the hospice care of the future has robot attendants, which can provide individualized care but are also the mechanical last faces seen by the old, who get no interactions other than with robots. Humanity and compassion died in exchange for freedom of responsibility [for caring for elderly].

·         A man and his girlfriend are on opposite sides of the world while he is doing a professional internship; they long for each other dearly, and miss each other greatly: while their Skype conversations begin about daily events, they always curtail into being about how much they miss each other. He's only halfway through the program, but he wants to leave because they miss each other so much. Because he wants so badly just to hug her, the power of will (mind over matter) helps him reach through the screen to hug her -- and then walk through to her completely.

·         A man is hunting with another man, who he wants to steal the wife of; jealousy prompts him to load, aim, and fire his rifle: but the bullet misses and soars past him and the trees, out of sight. The other man asks if he saw a deer, and he says yes and apologizes for not pointing it out -- it was a far target and he got anxious; the other man tells him to wait next time, and try and do it from closer range next time. The man agrees with this advice and walks closer to the other, waiting to try it again -- as he raises his gun the second time, he is struck in the back by a bullet: he keels over, and the other man notices and comes to his aid: he looks around and sees no perpetrator; he calls 911. Later, the cops investigating find that the bullet came from the man's gun, which never left his hand and was the only gun fired on the reserve that day -- they can't explain it, but they jokingly say that he fired his weapon and the bullet went around the earth and pecked him in the back -- little do they know that that's what happened.

·         At night, he keeps going into dark rooms and getting spooked by a kooky wild demon mask that is randomly placed around, and he's increasingly angry about it since he doesn't like to be startled; each person he asks about it denies they put it there, and since he always gets rid of it or puts it away, it disappears from there and is placed somewhere new that night -- which scares him again. He waits up one night to catch which one of his roommates places it, and he sees the figure setting it down: he sneaks up on them and the figure turns and is an ugly fearsome demon that howls and tears into him.

·         A gambler falls into debt to a mobster, then steals a few chips from someone in order to fund his attempt to double his amount through more gambling, but the person he stole from was another toughie -- so his large won amount is  enough to make him safe with the mob, but the toughie comes calling and beats him to death over it (it was the last of the toughie's money, and now the gambler had none to repay him with). Called "Las Vegas."

·         Doctor tries to make amends for patients that died under him by sacrificing parts of himself to those who need new body parts, and by replacing his parts with robotic prosthetics (which end up incrementally taking away his human compassion, and ability to care about his patients, since he becomes mostly robotic). Called "Full Recovery."

·         A man walks into a public bathroom and goes to the urinal, spotting a white pair of shoes and blue jeans under the stall wall of a pooping person. a cracking noise comes from the stall, and the man asks about it, jokingly: "cracking your dick bones in there?" a ghetto black voice responds: "so what if I got a bony dick??" "...what? that was a joke..." "you wanna fight? do you want to fight a man with a bony dick?" "how do- you have a bony dick?" "since birf." "but that's impossible." "nah, doe, I was born on Tuesday; everyone born on Tuesday has a bony dick. even bitches." "that's not true." "oh, doe, you're right; I was born on Sunday. everyone on Sunday has a bony dick." "...no?" the stall flushes and a lanky white guy exits: "I'm just messing with you. -- don't go in there, by the way."

·         A guy with a pedophile mustache is on a subway train near a guy; guy keeps looking over at pedo. Guy: "hey, guy with the pedophile mustache." Pedo looks. Guy: "lose the mustache." Pedo (sarcastically): "but then how will people on the subway get my attention?" Guy clicks his tongue, winks, and points.

·         Called “Flesh & Sin.” It seems as if a Man is frequenting a whorehouse: he interacts discreetly with a gaudy woman outside of the building, and then goes inside it at the end of every scene – and each scene transition is a rapid stream of probably-posed photos (quick-flashing images, of a presumably naked man with the woman) and chopped/sped-up sensual sounds. Eventually, she says she has to publish the photos they take together, because she needs the money – and it is, after all, a facet of her line of work; he protests, because his wife can’t find out or she’d be pissed. She publishes them anyways, and they’re stock photos for magazine advertisements. – Before each interaction scene, there was one of him weaseling his way out of the house, and his wife (with a normal female voice) was always heard but never seen. Turns out, the wife was in a fiery car wreck that torched her face, which ended her modeling career – she’d be jealous and depressed if she found out about the photoshoots. Speaking of, when the wife discovers the photos in a magazine (which was when we first saw her face, and her husband’s reaction to her finding it having described the reason behind the secrecy), we get the montage of photos and sounds again, but it slows down to reveal that they were simply stock photos, and the sensual noises were just “oohs” and “aahs” and remarks about liking certain poses and positions.

·         A piano player in a lounge sings songs per request and tip of $5 or more. One guy continuously comes up and asks for him to play the Barney theme song ("I Love You"); after each rendition, he grows more unwillingly and despaired, pleading not to be paid to sing it again -- but the man is more and more insistent (assertive) about making him play it. Eventually the piano player breaks down crying while playing; the man watches without expression.

·         A psychopathic mobster wanted a book for his daughter, but a defensive redneck bought the last copy -- so the mobster tried to steal it, but the redneck fought back, and soon the mob was exchanging gunfire with this extended hillbilly family: a war, over a book -- a metaphor for people fighting about religion, i.e. the Bible.

·         Narration while Man is sleeping. Creaking floorboards in bedroom prompts Man to wake up, and he pulls gun from bedside while doing so -- but noise was just his Girlfriend exiting the bathroom; she is not fazed by the gun but asks him not to have it in arm's reach of his sleeping person, in case of misfires -- he says he's paranoid and it is his security blanket (now we know he both owns a gun and is paranoid); his irrational fears are that people will come in when he's not looking and take advantage of him or take his stuff. Cut to many different moments afterwards, wherein this Guy comments vaguely sexual and suggestive things to his Girlfriend on Facebook, acts generally imposing in physical ways to her in public, and brings her to parties, concerts, and shows as simple "one-on-one hangout times" -- which he thinks are all attempts at flirting and winning her over (which is true), but the Girlfriend is naive and thinks it's just his paranoia acting up (and the Guy defensively says it's obviously just paranoia because he totally would never do that (he's lying)). The Man confronts the Guy, who says he's not trying (but he's obviously lying because he obviously is), and he asks his Girlfriend one last time not to hang around with or talk to him, but she thinks he just trying to control her. So one day, he comes into work (where all three, you know, work (and interact)) -- and of course the Guy is hanging out by her desk, so the Man walks over to the Guy with the shit-eating grin -- but the Man has only a face of stifled rage and contempt, as he raises his gun and shoots the fucking Guy six times in the face and chest.

·         A dinner date is rather awkward because they were set up and he's fairly emotionless and robotic, with nervous tics -- she is a disappointed and disinterested. At the end of the date, she leaves the table and him, and a man stops her and asks if she enjoyed the test model, and she said no and would like to try a newer model because this one was clunky (this brand of robotic boyfriend); he reminds her of the higher price, then brings her back to the showroom, leaving the robot date to sit in silence.

·         A man ignores his family for the television. His dream is a game show where he either wins Them or loses Himself by answering questions about them all -- and he struggles to remember the details...

·         A mashup between the counting down of a space shuttle's launch and each month leading up to the birth of a child (starting with a sensuous dinner date) -- and the woman's screams are battling for title of Loudest Noise over the sound of the rocket taking off.

·         In the future, all films being made are just extensions of series -- using the same characters and storylines (reboots and sequels only), as if film became television with 120-minute episodes and a year between releases; roughly six storylines, so everyone who wants to go to the theater has to enjoy at least one.

·         Anthropologists uncover some remains of a lost ancient South American peoples in a cave, and they crack open the earth to uncover them -- they realize the burial pit was for disposing of diseased people, but it's a little too late of a realization because that disease has now been unburied and brought back into the air: it has infected them and everyone they breathed near.

·         A Man lies in the comfort of his bed; he stares at the clock – it’s 3:32: he mutters to himself unenthused that this is the 4th time in a row he’s woken up at 3:32 am – he wipes his face with his hands, frustrated. He sits upright on the edge of his bed. (I have yet to finish this idea as Leah is helping me conceive it.)

·         A post-apocalyptic settlement (of twelve people) in a pond-side forest have to determine whether or not to hang a lanky, regretful old man who snuck into their camp and stole food. Half want to forgive him and be humanistic, but half are so protective over their own survival that they want justice -- they need a majority vote to decide to hang, but it's split 50-50. After a few private dialogues and open monologues between them all, someone switches sides, and it's decided that he must be hung -- and they have to watch as he pleas and begs and cries not to be hung; but the noose is put on, and he is hung. The next morning, the settlement wakes up to find that the five humanists have left their camp to go live elsewhere.

·         A futuristic woman protests outside of a futuristic zoo, and futuristic passers-by ignore or degrade her -- she thinks "it's wrong to keep them caged up like that." Eventually, we find out that "them" refers to humanoid alien visitors.

·         The reverse of the Scopes Monkey Trial: a courtroom of passionate evolution-defenders (and a staunch lawyer who believes 100% in evolution) scoff at the idea of a teacher teaching his students that God created everything; but the teacher proves it (maybe gets Him to do an act of evidence), which stuns everyone and makes the lawyer question his belief.

·         Alternate universe where everyone has an inner narrator -- but if you get close enough to someone else, you can hear their inner narrator as if it's a whisper. Each narrator is like a third person with their own personality, but they aren't omnipotent -- they're just voices, but it's totally normal.

·         A man shows up at a friend's apartment, and details to his friend that he went out last night, with a girl (who he was having an affair with, without his wife's knowledge), and they ended up at a bar -- his wife thought he was working late, which she said was fine since she'd be at a friends house -- and at this bar, he looked across the room and saw his wife on a date with another man, clearing cheating on him, without his knowledge; her eyes found his, and both expressed shock and pause, but neither did anything or said anything, because they knew their shitty betrayals were on even grounds and cancel each other out, so there was no point in bringing it up. They both finished their nights without commenting on it, went home, and met up in the bedroom and continued on as if everything was normal -- and haven't talked about it for the past three days. He wonders if it'll always be a secret, and if she's done with it like he now quietly promises to be.

·         We three are in the car, waiting to go on a road trip, wondering where Nick is -- we laughably presume he's eating lunch first. Cut to him gingerly cooking an egg. Cut to us waiting. Cut to him gingerly cooking a pancake. Cut to us bored and waiting. Cut to him gingerly cooking sausage. Cut to us with grey beards and our skin rotting from our bones. Cut to him cooking bacon.

·         A rapper in a confession booth telling the priest a number of violent things from his albums that he said he did, which he lied about -- and even the song "I killed Kennedy" is "surprisingly a lie."

·         A man goes through trials of life, and when he accomplishes his life's goal (Buddhism style) and corrects the simplest of wrongs, he is deemed complete: he dies in an accident, and an angel appears to say that he may leave purgatory for Heaven (and that those who die of old age and/or disease ran out of time and/or God's patience and was sent either to Hell or back to rebirth) because life on Earth is in reality purgatory -- all of your experiences and memories and relations and growth are just running on a treadmill between true life and afterlife: a reevaluation of your worth to determine where you end up. In reality, true life was on a much larger, much different planet.

·         A neighborhood goes through the grind of life while a kook rambles about aliens and predicts their arrival; most neighbors cast off it as nonsense, but some wonder if he's right (could there be life on other planets?). Later, a satellite crashes to the ground in a farm nearby; they drive out to it and find that it's Voyager 1: they play the gold record and see photos of Earth, hear Earth's noises and music, and hear then-president Jimmy Carter's message -- they wonder about the planet that sent this and if it truly is still around, because it looks like theirs and may be a possible intergalactic ally and similar habitat. They wonder if their planet, Caesios, could coexist with Earth if it has managed to survive up until now...

·         A guy wakes up, confused, and orients himself saying he'll go outside and figure things out (he doesn't seem to be in a place he recognizes, yet it feels like he's always lived there). Outside, he sees some older high schoolers trying to sell cigarettes to middle-schoolers via peer pressure; he stops them but gets a beating in exchange for it. He also finds some money on the street and returns it to its rightful owner. Then he sees a building catching on fire; he runs inside and starts ushering people out, all the while the building starts catching more on fire. He's leading them through a hallway as fire trucks and a priest show up outside; the firefighters try suppressing the fire from reaching other buildings while the priest comforts the escaping victims. The walls are ablaze; a doorway crossbar falls and he catches it, holding it above his he's even as it burns his hands. He waits for people to finish passing under his arms; a victim runs out and tells the firefighters about him -- the priest overhears and begins saying a prayer. The guy's vision starts fading as the last people pass under; his vision goes black, then fades in a bright white -- as the priest's VO prayer reaches "may God have mercy on your soul." Cut to the guy strapped to a table on the opposite side of a large window as a corrections officer says "may God have mercy on your soul" and delivers him his lethal injection. He is not worried; he closes his eyes and his vision fades in white -- at the pearly gates is God who says that he has performed well in his trials despite his actions on Earth, and that circumstances made him act out of character, which is a virtuous one; so he is allowed into Heaven.

·         Sci-fi horror thriller called “Old Growth.” – In the redwood forest, a lone hiker follows a trail, admiring the towering trees and the delicate ferns. He comes across a weird object: a hardened gooey plastic shell affixed to the ground and base of a tree (like the egg of a louse at the base of a hair follicle). He prods at it with a stick, but it's solid and doesn't rattle. He bends down and touches it. He examines the shell, and presses his ear to it: he hears light scuffles, like footless legs scraping the shell from the inside. Behind him, he doesn't know there's a shell on another tree's base that is hatching; a six-legged louse-type alien crawls around the side of a redwood to look at him as the shell egg cracks open behind him to produce another. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and he turns around -- but the two alien lice hide just in time. He does, however, see the cracked shell, which he approaches. He cautiously peers inside and double-takes at the foul odor from inside; as he gathers himself to peer further in, the two alien-lice appear on trees behind him, while the shell he abandoned begins to crack. He hears it crack, and spins around, but the two alien-lice scamper out of view; the shell continues to crack, though, and the hiker is scared yet entranced by curiosity -- he walks towards it, as the egg begins to hatch, and doesn't notice the alien-louse that's nearly directly behind him (perched on a tree) and flanked by the two other alien-lice. Right as he jumps back from fear after the first of the hatchling's legs breaks through the shell, the three alien-lice behind him jump onto his body, grabbing hold and making him react just as the camera cuts to a shot of the trailhead he entered (the same as the opening shot). (FYI, the alien-lice are between the size of a raccoon and the size of a Labrador dog.)

·         Comedy, tension drama; a short film where two couples are playing Taboo or Charades or some other competitive team party game. The two guys secretly have a wager going on between the two for some really high stakes, and one is pretty cocky about winning, but throughout the game, his fiancée is slacking off (buzzed on wine, not taking it seriously) and he is increasingly annoyed by it as the threat of losing closes in. By the end, he's screaming at her and panicking and freaking out (sweating, nervous smiling, running a hand through his hair) and the two girls have no idea why, and the other guy plays it cool like he has no idea about the wager. In the end, the guy does lose and he's devastated, and the two girls are super weirded out, but the other guy just says "eh, don't sweat. We don't have to own up to the wager," thus discrediting all of his panicking, solely for shits and giggles. -- Or, the guy somehow turns around and wins in the last round, after hyping up and focusing his fiancée on the game, and his devastation turns into elation (since he won the wager) but the other guy is calm and collected. He hands the guy a dumb trinket, which is his prize because the other guy used a loophole he had since forming the wager. The guy is stunned and speechless.

·         Tension drama, comedy; short film where two couples are playing Taboo or Charades or some other competitive team party game. One of the couples is secretly an abusive relationship, with the girl being a real domineering figure over the guy. When he isn't performing well enough (and they're losing) she slowly becomes increasingly angrier, snider, and more assertive, accosting him and digging her nails into his arm and whispering threats in his ear and outwardly calling him dumb and various swears, and vulgar insults -- and the guy just takes it. Meanwhile, the other couple is watching them with an increasing concern and quiet shock; they're increasingly distracted and worried by their competitors, so their number of points each round is less and less. But in the last round of the game, the abusive couple has a quick little win streak that barely edges them into victory, and suddenly they're glad and cheering (both of them) to the surprise of the other couple; in fact, they aren't in an abusive relationship at all -- it was a manipulative rouse to gain a competitive edge and make the other couple lose their focus so that they could win in the last round. (Perhaps there was a silly little wager between the two couples cemented at the beginning of the game, which is why they wanted to win (vain) and why the girl acted so upset with each failure by the guy.)

Original document created 12/13/2014.