net127

A woman wishes the world would go away. One day, it does.
Is it the end of the world, or the beginning?

A DV short film by Marc Pilvinsky.
It’s about how the things we own eventually come to own us.

NIGHT/DAWN/DAY
(c) 1999 by Marc Pilvinsky
FADE IN. A beautiful sky. PAN DOWN to:
EXT. POOL — DAY
A pool party behind a nice suburban home. It’s summer.
A few people cook hamburgers and hot dogs while others lounge in the shade. A game of water-basketball is in full swing in the shallow end. ALAINA, 29, stands at the edge of the pool, soaking it all in.
ALAINA (V.O.)
For a long time, I haven’t been happy.
Alaina looks around the party. In SLOW-MOTION, we see each little moment — the grill, the lounging, the laughing, kids playing, the basketball teetering on the edge of the basket, a woman floating on a raft.
ALAINA (V.O.)
I don’t know when it started — maybe it’s always been there and the white-noise of my everyday kept it from coming in clearly. It’s a deep, whispering voice from inside, telling me I should know better, I should be better, that this isn’t the life for me.
Alaina steps off the edge and is submerged in the pool.
EXT. POOL. UNDERWATER — DAY
Alaina sinks to the bottom and curls up in the fetal position. Her eyes are closed.
ALAINA (V.O.)
I’d been harboring a secret desire for the world to go away.
In the far background, we can see legs of the people playing water-basketball. We move into a closer shot of Alaina, and the background people move out of frame. Alaina can’t hold her breath any longer, so she releases from the fetal position and goes back to the surface.
EXT. POOL — DAY
Alaina’s head breaks the surface of the water. We’re in a tight CU of her face. We pull back to reveal the entire pool and patio. Everyone is gone.
ALAINA (V.O.)
One day, it did.
There is no one around. Everything looks the same, but the party guests have vanished.
Alaina looks around, taking in the scene from the middle of the pool. She swims to the shallow end, where she sees the basketball roll to a stop. She leaves the pool.
ALAINA
Hello? Anybody there? Helloooo?
She grabs a towel and wraps it around herself. The grill is still on, and hamburgers and hot dogs are sizzling. Alaina flips over the burgers and turns off the grill. She enters the house.
ALAINA
Anybody in here?
INT. NICE HOME. LIVINGROOM — DAY
Alaina enters the room. The TV blares static. She goes over and turns it off. There are potato chips and dip on the couch. A half-eaten burger is there too. Alaina picks up the plate with the burger and looks at it.
INT. NICE HOME. HALLWAY — DAY
Alaina wanders the halls of the same house. She looks in each room and moves on.
EXT. NICE HOME. FRONT DOOR — DAY
Alaina opens the front door and steps outside. The neighborhood is eerily quiet. There are no cars moving; no people. She screams at the silence.
ALAINA
Heyyyyyyyy!
EXT. SUBURBAN STREET — DAY
She walks down the street. There is a car stopped in the middle of a lane. It’s still running.
ALAINA (V.O.)
It was no use. It had happened. I wanted to be alone, and sometimes, even the most fucked-up wishes come true.
EXT. HOUSE #2 — DAY
Alaina approaches another house. She knocks, then turns the doorknob.
INT. HOUSE #2 — DAY
Alaina enters cautiously.
ALAINA
Hello? If there’s anyone here, please don’t shoot me.
She walks through the house.
ALAINA (V.O.)
I have no idea who lived here. I’ve never been here before.
EXT. RESTAURANT — DAY
Alaina walks down a stip mall sidewalk, peering in the windows. She opens the door to a sandwich shop.
INT. RESTAURANT — DAY
Alaina enters. There is food on several of the tables. On one, a cigarette has burned itself all the way down — the ashes are two inches long. Alaina smells something. He goes to the kitchen.
INT. RESTAURANT. KITCHEN — DAY
Alaina covers her nose from an awful smell, and turns off the skillet, which has burned some kind of food into a charcoal-like state. Alaina fans away some smoke, and grabs a plastic cup from a rack. She goes to the soda fountain and gets herself a drink.
INT. RESTAURANT — DAY
Alaina sits alone at a table. She’s eating. She stares out the window. In a WS, she looks small and isolated.
ALAINA (V.O.)
So the world is mine. Everybody dreams about that, but ya know, I thought it would make me happier. So much of life is about accumulating things to make our lives easier and more comfortable. I wonder how often we end up drowning in the things we own — rather than being saved by them.
She looks down at the plastic cup. It’s one of those cheap “free” cups with a movie logo emblazoned on it. She smirks at the cup and what it symbollizes.
ALAINA (V.O.)
I mean, I probably waste more time fixing computer bugs than I save by using a computer. I guess everything material is a moot point now. Unless there’s someone else out there like me.
INT. MOVIE THEATRE. UPSTAIRS BOOTH — DAY
Alaina walks through the booth. She pauses at each projector and reads the movie title. She finally sees one she likes, and tries to thread the film through the projector.
She hears a noise at the far end of the booth. Cautiously, she goes toward the noise. For the first time since the world changed, Alaina is afraid. She doesn’t know what’s in here. She doesn’t know the rules of this new place.
Slowly, ever slowly, she checks out the booth. There’s no sign of anybody else. Relieved, she goes back to the projector she was looking at. She fiddles with it for a while, threading the film through where it looks like it should go, then throws a switch to turn it on.
The film starts moving, then begins bunching up in one of the mechanisms. Alaina tries to pull the film out, but it’s getting worse, and fast. She turns off the machine and begins un-bunching the celluloid, shaking her head.
She finally has it fixed, and starts it up again. She’s smiling.
INT. MOVIE THEATRE. AUDITORIUM
Onscreen, the film starts, sputters, burns, and melts.
INT. MOVIE THEATRE. UPSTAIRS BOOTH
Alaina loses her smile.
INT. MOVIE THEATRE. AUDITORIUM — LATER
Alaina munches popcorn in the completely empty theater. A movie flickers on her face and in her eyes. She looks happy. Suddenly, she senses movement behind her and jerks her head around. She stands up. There’s no one there.
ALAINA (V.O.)
I’m having to start over. There’s just static on the television, no radio, no movies, and no one to run anything. Every physical thing I see is my property now, but whatever I want — whether it’s a steak or a new computer system or a trip to somewhere I’ve never been — there’s no one to show me how it’s done. I’ve gotta figure it out on my own.
EXT. ROAD — DAY
Alaina drives along a road. Smoke starts pouring out of the engine, and she struggles to keep the car going. She can’t. She pulls over, gets out, and opens the hood.
She fans away the smoke and looks at the engine. She doesn’t know what she’s doing, so she closes the hood, grabs her backpack, and walks thirty feet to another car, which is parked haphazardly in the road. She gets in the new car, starts the engine, and drives off, a little proud of herself.
INT. OFFICE. LOBBY — DAY
Alaina wanders through a nice-looking office.
ALAINA (V.O.)
This is where I used to work. When someone would ask me who I am, describing this place was the first thing I would do. It’s so important, apparently, the thing you do — the thing that pays the gas bill. But what if — at the core of it — your job doesn’t make you happy? I mean, I know jobs aren’t supposed to make you happy, but now that things have changed, I’m never gonna fill out paperwork, or call a vendor, or kiss some client’s ass again. Now that the world has gone away, there’s no point. Come to think of it, what was the point when things were normal? We’re adding numbers together, or selling soap, or entertaining them while their time just slips away. Half the jobs out there aren’t even doing anything. I mean, what purpose did a caveman have for a systems integration manager? None. It’s not like we were curing cancer here. We’re wasting our lives, and wasting the lives of everybody else by not rejecting what humanity has become.
INT. SUPERMARKET. FREEZER AISLE — DAY
Alaina pushes a grocery cart down an aisle. The lights are still on and the freezers are still cold.
ALAINA (V.O.)
Cancer. Man, wouldn’t that be hilarious. The world disappears, leaving only me, and I develop a disease that couldn’t have been cured even if there was a doctor here to treat me.
INT. SUPERMARKET. VITAMIN AISLE — DAY
Alaina looks at the vitamins.
ALAINA (V.O.)
So now I’m faced with some new dilemmas. Do I need vitamins? Should I eat low-fat meals? Do I even need clothes? What’s the point? Okay, so maybe I’ll wear clothes no matter what. But what is really going on here? Do the normal laws of physics still apply? Do I still have seventy years to live?
EXT. ROOFTOP OF HOUSE — DAY
Alaina walks along the high rooftop of a suburban home. She looks out across the horizon, watching the city in the distance.
ALAINA (V.O.)
What the hell am I gonna do for seventy years without talking to another human being? What if my eyes go bad, and I’m the last person alive, but I starve to death because I can’t find the fucking store? Oh man, how long will the power stay on? I mean, I can’t run a power plant. It’s got to burn itself out sometime, right?
INT. CAR — DAY
Alaina drives, drinking in the world around her. Over the course of her monologue, her face changes from despair to great happiness.
ALAINA (V.O.)
Okay, okay, I’ve gotta think positive. I’m gonna give myself an ulcer if I think about bad stuff all the time. Then I’d have to drink milk to coat it, and there can’t be any unspoiled milk left now, so I’d have to learn how to milk a cow, and…that’s just too much for me to worry about. Okay, think positive. The world is mine. So why am I driving this piece of crap car?
EXT. SPORTSCAR — DAY
Alaina takes off in a beautiful new sportscar.
INT. SPORTSCAR — DAY
ALAINA (V.O.)
And where is God in all this? I’ve been a devout believer, but I’ve also had long periods as a skeptic. But I want there to be a God. I want to know Him and have Him know me. I want to share that amazing, unknowable thing. So please answer me, God. Please help me make sense of all this. I’m stupid and weak and — ooh! A shopping mall.
INT. SHOPPING MALL — DAY
Alaina wanders through an empty shopping mall, window-shopping.
ALAINA (V.O.)
So what else? I can do whatever I want. I can go shopping naked and take everything I need. I’ve got the time I always wanted to read every book I wish I had before.
EXT. SOCCER FIELD — DAY
Alaina slowly walks through a recreational park. She absent-mindedly dribbles a soccer ball with her feet.
ALAINA (V.O.)
I never have to hear another politician’s lies again. I don’t have to fear nuclear war. I don’t have to be afraid in the city at night. I don’t need to worry about bills or taxes or money ever again. I’ve got nothing to worry about, right?
Alaina sets the ball in front of a soccer goal, as if she were in a shootout with the goalie. She runs up the the ball, arching her leg back to kick and –
CUT TO BLACK.
ALAINA (V.O.)
The future is mine.
EXT. POOL — DAY
Close up on JULIE, 25.
JULIE
Oh my God, she’s not coming up!
PULL BACK TO REVEAL: The pool party from the first scene. Everyone is where they were when we last saw them. They all drop what they’re doing and race towards Alaina, who is still underwater at the bottom of the pool.
VOICES
Alaina! Somebody get her up!
Several people dive into the water, scrambling to bring Alaina back to the surface.
VOICES
Call 911! Oh God! Oh God!
PAN UP to the sky. We hear the faint sound of sirens approaching.
VOICES (O.S.)
She’s not breathing. Does anyone know CPR? Help! Help us! Alaina!
FADE TO BLACK.
ALAINA (V.O.)
The future is mine.
The sirens are getting closer.