FADE IN:
INT. DARKROOM-DARK NGHT
A red light glows in the corner as HANDS drop a white page into SOLUTION. An image slowly develops on the page.
HANDS (VO)
It all started last night, on Halloween. I felt my body disintegrating with AIDS. I felt the Apartheid, and every social ill of society drawn into a tiny pill. Right now my chest feels like it will explode any minute. I feel like I’m bearing the sins of the entire world. I look like a skeleton with a mustache. My throat is tight, and so dry I can’t even swallow. I’ve got to keep moving or I know I will die.
The HANDS move the page to another solution and the image of a naked twenty-something woman begins to appear. The HANDS move across the room and close the drapes.
HANDS (VO)
I can’t even look out the window anymore. Every time I do, I see a giant Jesus Toreador in the stars holding a glowing red flag with all of my sins on it. I see myself as a bull in the night sky, charging at him. Everything is on that damned flag. Even the time I got caught in the bathroom when I was thirteen. And the time I spied on my sister and her boyfriend in the barn.
The HANDS throw another page into the first tray of solution. A CIGARETTE is lit. A moment later there is a little puff of smoke.
HANDS (VO)
I just want it to stop. I want to close my eyes and make it go away.
But if I close my eyes I see what happened with my wife last night. We were making love.
I was nervous and slowly going mad, so I don’t even know how I managed to function.
Halfway through she turned into a neon blue, Shetland sheep dog. Every so often she wagged her tail rapidly, like helicopter blades. Then she would bark, and I could see her thoughts as wisps of energy floating above her head in a swirl of rainbow colors. If they were red, that was the signal to do this, if they were blue I was supposed to move this way, or say such and such thing, so on and so on. If she were angry or sad, I could tell by the color of the emotion bubble above her head. After we finished she was still a sheep dog, so I took pictures. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t real. That’s what I’m doing right now.
We hear panting and gasping. Another cigarette is being lit.
HANDS (VO chattering, Andy Griffith theme song playing in back ground)
I’m freezing cold. But the thermometer in here reads 76. Outside I can hear Andy Griffith’s theme song being played over and over again on loud speakers. That damned whistling won’t stop. I don’t have much longer to live. Maybe ten minutes. Maybe twenty if I’m lucky. My heart is going to pop like a balloon. Please God…help me. I promise I won’t ever do this again.
We hear gasping. The HANDS move across the room to a sink. They grab a cup from a cabinet and begin filling it with water. We hear gulps and more panting.
HANDS (VO)
In the corner, the skeleton of my grandmother is wearing a Hookah and smoking a red corset. I think it should be the other way around, but I don’t have time to think. I know it’s her because there is a tiny bit of flesh left on her face. It rapidly changes back and forth between her skeleton to my wife’s, and then finally to that Shetland. The skeleton of the dog has a bag of heroin and bloody syringes between his teeth. A Japanese Charlie Sheen wearing a raspberry Kimono keeps waving me over there. He’s miming taking a shot with an empty shot glass. But I’m not going to budge. It’s too intense.
The HANDS throw the page into another solution and a picture of a night sky is beginning to appear. Little stars speckle the page.
HANDS (VO)
I’m so damaged right now, everything makes sense and nothing makes sense at the same time. I’m looking at the beginning of the universe form on the atrium wall, as a giant web spreading out on a gold scale. Everything is represented by a tiny picture in the web, and I slowly see all the dots being connected. In this web I can finally see the correlation between a Hare Krishna and decaffeinated coffee. It all makes sense and nothing makes sense. Why channel 43 comes right after 42, it all adds up.
What doesn’t make sense is thirty minutes ago, on my way here, I almost crashed my car. Coming straight at me on the interstate was a thirty-foot tall Cadillac. It stopped maybe fifteen feet in front of me and a giant tongue rolled out of the front. Out of the tongue I watched a Kirin charge at my vehicle. When I closed my eyes and opened them, everything was gone.
The HANDS pull out a camera and take pictures of the WEB. There are two flashes and the hands place the camera on a table.
HANDS (VO)
I don’t even know what I want to see on these photos. I guess you could call it a sanity experiment. If what I saw last night and today is actually on there, it proves I am sane. That there really is a Jesus outside my window, pulling my pants down and airing my dirty laundry in front of the whole universe. It also means my wife really does transform into a Shetland. I sure don’t want to believe any of that’s real. If these photos come up without all those monsters, then that means I’m crazy. I’ll have to be a closet schizo for the rest of my life, feigning smiles at work and every dinner party. I can’t win either way, and I guess in ten more minutes it won’t matter anyway.
The HANDS hold up two photos, one of the woman and the other of the night sky. Moments later we hear a long, soft sigh.
HANDS (VO)
The walls are still dripping like candle wax, but my heart has stopped pounding so hard. Maybe I’m not crazy. One thing for sure, I’m NEVER taking those again...EVER!
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