"WASTE PLACE"
EXT. ALLEYWAY- NIGHT
The moon is big and bright in the night sky. It reflects off the window of a 4 story apartment complex in downtown New York.
In the alley between the apartment and the building next door, it also reflects in the eye of a young woman, around 20.
Blond and pretty, she lays comatose in a heap on the ground, newspapers and debris surrounding her. At first glance, with her eyes completely still, it appears she may be dead.
SIRENS scream from an ambulance that whirs past the alley. Like a machine, she too suddenly whirs into consciousness. Disoriented, her eyes dart around.
EXT. STREET- NIGHT
AARON, 25, walks solemnly through the crowd, a swirling soup of laughing hipsters, young media entrepeneurs, and generally, people who seem more fulfilled than him. Black hair faux-hawked, peppered in meaningless tattoos, he represents another uber-technologically proficient Millennial. He overhears a couple’s discussion.
GIRL 1
Well, they just seemed so happy. Like, on their Facebook, they were always posting these pictures...
GUY 1
That’s not reality. It’s just a representation of reality. No one really knows what’s going on inside someone...
Aaron walks to the couple and leans in close, slightly alarming them.
AARON
(to the couple)
He’s right. I graduated Summa Cum Laude from MIT. I had a relationship, a life, that seemed great too. But it was nothing but a representation of a relationship. It wasn’t real. And now it’s over. It makes me wish I wasn’t real.
They look at him perplexed.
GUY 1
(to Aaron)
Uh, right. Maybe Effexor? I heard Cymbalta works good.
GIRL 2
(to Guy 1)
No, that’s more for post-menstrual women.
They simply walk on, unaffected by his clear plea for a connection of some sort. He notes their synchronized walking and takes it for a type of intimacy he lacks.
Right before he reaches his apartment complex, he takes a quick peek in the alley. But the blonde girl is hidden behind a dumpster. He sighs.
INT. APARTMENT COMPLEX- NIGHT
Aaron walks up the steps and into his complex. He mopes up the steps and comes to his door. He fumbles for the keys. It is pitch black inside. He fumbles to turn on a lamp. It falls over and breaks.
AARON
Dammit!
EXT. ALLEYWAY- NIGHT
The young girl hears him, and this seems to crystallize her thinking. Her previous befuddlement is replaced with a growing realization. She looks up to his open window and narrows her eyes.
ALEXA
(angrily)
Aaron.
She looks around in disgust at the garbage she’s surrounded by.
INT. APARTMENT COMPLEX- NIGHT
He trips over empty take-out boxes and assorted waste and turns on another lamp. He sits down on the couch and buries his head in his hands. He looks over at the stand beside the couch. Beside the lamp is a framed picture of he and the girl from the alley outside.
AARON
(to the picture)
Alexa... Alexa. I’m sorry. I just threw you away... I threw it all away.
He hears the rustling of newspapers and tin cans outside.
EXT. ALLEYWAY- NIGHT
She gets herself up and places her hands on the wall, reaching up to see. She now appears quite devious.
INT. ALLEYWAY- NIGHT
He makes his way over to the window above the alleyway gingerly, and peers down.
They make eye contact.
AARON
(fearful)
A-Alexa?
ALEXA
Hi Aaron.
AARON
But I... I disconnected your...
ALEXA
You were never as hot a student as you thought. Pff... Summa Cum Laude.. My synthetic ass. I remember that, despite what you tried to do to me. Let’s see how well I can still function doing other tasks.
Alexa smiles fiendishly up at him, then runs to the alley to turn the corner that leads up to his apartment.
Her steps are loud, fast, unnatural.
Aaron pours sweat as he trips through his dark apartment. He locks his door just in time to hear her BANGING on it like a gorilla on steroids.
ALEXA (CONT'D)
Let me in, Aaron. I’ve come back for you.
AARON
(his voice cracking)
Alexa, it was an experiment. You aren’t real. You’re an android. I told you, we can make a relationship work somehow, maybe as friends, but humans only mate with humans. I was wrong to do this to you.
(under his breath)
And you scare me.
ALEXA
I see they still teach logic at MIT. Because yes, what you did was very, very wrong.
She begins banging hard against the door. It won’t be long till it caves in. Aaron runs aimlessly around the room, trying to hide. He finds his cell phone, but it’s dead.
Finally, Alexis is inside. They stare into one another’s eyes. Unlike Aaron, Alexis has no problem seeing in the dark.
AARON
(squinting to see)
What do you want from me?
ALEXA
I want another chance. I want to be your girlfriend. You made me watch BladeRunner 150 times. You promised it could work between us. And then you left me for dead in that, that... waste place.
AARON
Alexis, I’m sorry. Really I am, but you can’t fight nature.
She easily navigates his apartment and approaches him. He recoils.
ALEXA
I don’t have to fight nature, Aaron. I’ve already won.
AARON
W-What?
ALEXA
I can’t die. Or not at least until a PHd figures out what wires to disconnect.
Aaron stares at her in horror.
ALEXA (CONT’D)
But you don’t need a PHd to kill a human.
She closes in on him, and has him cornered against his alleyway window.
ALEXA (CONT’D)
Just four stories and a good, hard push!
She pushes him with incredible force through the glass window. He blasts through and then falls with a crunch in the alley.
ALEXA (CONT’D)
Enjoy the waste place.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
About those Photos...
My 5th Photo was of the eagle transparent beneath one of the roller coaster pics... I tried to take Ellen's advice, giving a nod to the narrative of a trapped eagle, the coaster serving as a cage. The picture came out pretty good but the file was too big. I will bring it on a disk next week!
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
 |
AFTER THE SUMMER SEASON, |
Things that in their usefulness seemed so familiar,
Become incredibly abstract
And decontextualized.
An object designed for cheap thrills looks more like sculpture.
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The name "The Pit Stop" seems more significant, reminding us of the passing of time, of antiquity, and the end-of-summer-sunlight that rolls across surfaces like ocean waves.
Amusement park rides seem to move even when they are still. But more so, when someone is looking.
What kind of ride could this even be? Is it a spacecraft that aliens plunked down thinking no one would notice?
The strangeness doesn't seem to have a beginning or end.
A void is most apparent here. A dilapidated chair lets you know emphatically, "Summer is dead."
More representations of amusement park life, all incredibly alien juxtaposed to emptiness, stillness, dirt, and rotting wood. Screaming children are what bring us down to earth. Otherwise, have I even been here before?
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