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"A Reasonable Hypothesis"
by Jack Ferry
© 2002, All Rights Reserved


Title Card - "England. 10 years from now."

BLACKNESS.

Quietly, a slow irregular rhythm of electronic beeps ring out.

LOUD - the steady ringing of a heart monitor gone flatline.

VOICES, muffled and almost unintelligible: Two medics in a
hospital, rushing to someone’s aid.

NURSE

        ...Three One-Thousand, Four One-Thousand,
        Five One-Thousand...

DOCTOR

        CLEAR.

BOOM. Blinding light, two indiscernible shapes, then...

BLACKNESS again.

FLATLINE ringing. Muffled voices.

DOCTOR (CONT'D)

        CLEAR.

BOOM. Blinding light, two blurry figures of the medics, then...

BLACKNESS again.

FLATLINE ringing. Muffled voices beginning to fade out.

NURSE

        ...Four One-Thousand, Five One
        Thousand...

DOCTOR

        CLEAR.

BOOM. Blinding light, two distorted faces, mutated demons
surrounded by needles, machines, tubes. The blinding light
intensifies...

QUICK FADE TO WHITE.

LOUD FLATLINE slowly fades out as the white screen...

FADES TO BLACK.

BLACKNESS.

SILENCE.

Slowly, a steady BEEP BEEP BEEP fades in until it’s a strong
healthy rhythm.

An EYE shoots open.

Everything is blurry and blazing in white.

The eye shoots its glance around the room at the
nightmarishly distorted shapes of the machines and jagged
instruments.

MICHAEL, 18, on a table slat, tries frantically to pull
himself off the bed. His movements are restricted to small
violent spasms. He’s nearly paralysed, and appears to be
tied down by wires puncturing his skin, charging his muscles
like batteries.

The monitor above his head beeps loudly with the same
intensity of his convulsions.

He begins to choke on the tube down his throat. Blood spits
out of his nose.

The beeping quickens, like an alarm.

Fingers grasp for the edge of the bed.

Irregular hissy breaths, struggling to pull oxygen through
the miles of tube.

Eyes tear, blood red.

A person enters the room now, wearing a white lab coat. It
exists as a silhouetted figure. It approaches MICHAEL.

Suddenly, into the light, IN CLOSE, and through the blur:

NURSE

        HELLO THERE!

A gaunt cockney woman with big crooked teeth.

This sends MICHAEL into a blind panic, though he can barely
move, captive to his paralysis.

NURSE (CONT’D)

        Let’s get this out, shall we? See if we
        can’t do it on our own, ey?

The NURSE grips the tube that is down his throat and slowly
slides it out of his mouth with a fluid violence.

MICHAEL chokes as he tries to catch his breath.

The room spins.

Panic beeps so quick they blend together like machine gun
fire. This activates an automated IV. Versed slugs down a
tube into MICHAEL’s arm.

NURSE (CONT’D)

        Uh oh. Nighty night.

Blurry peace.

Eyes close.

FADE TO BLACK...


© 2002, John F. Ferry,
All Rights Reserved.

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