Copyright 1995 Deborah
Greenspan
FADE IN:
V.O. BLACK SCREEN
NARRATOR
In 2054 the rich and powerful gave up
the polluted and over-populated earth as
a lost cause, and went underground,
living in carefully prepared and well
outfitted Habitats, and leaving the rest
of humankind to fend for itself. This
move underground became known as "the
Fall," and shortly afterward, when guilt,
remorse, and boredom had set in,
those in the Habitats took up the cause
of restoring Mother Earth to her former
glory as their one and only mission.
Using every technology of the 21st and
22nd centuries, and inventing formerly
undreamed of capabilities, they began
making progress toward their goal of
reclaiming the earth. But blood tells,
and in 2143 there arose in their midst,
a man who did not want to restore the
earth. He wanted to rule the Habitats
and all those who lived in them...
EXT. NEW MEXICAN DESERT - DAY
A mushroom cloud rises over the desert accompanied by the noise of the explosion.
INT. A LABORATORY
EVIE enters the lab where GARRET is working on some complex machinery.
EVIE
Is it true?
GARRET
It's true.
EVIE
He dropped an atom bomb on the New Mexican
desert?
GARRET
Releasing millions of tons of stored
nuclear waste--plutonium, cesium...The
earth is finished. There won't be a
living thing left on the surface.
EVIE
Oh Garret...There're people up there.
People, animals, plants...They'll all
die now.
GARRET
The only chance we have is if Reiland's
machine works and we can put our seeds
back in the past.
EVIE
None of it's tested. We don't know if
the plant will support the mammalian
DNA...We don't even know if the spores
will germinate...
GARRET
And we don't know if we can really get
them into the past.
REILAND
(coming from in back of the machine)
We don't know much, do we?
GARRET
The beginning of wisdom...
EVIE
That maniac! Why did he do it? We've
spent nearly 100 years trying to undo the
damage our ancestors did, and now...why?
Why?
GARRET
Power. That's all that ever mattered to
Morgan, and millions of others like him.
Someone bangs on the door. Evie
takes a dark brown pod out of a
container and places it in the chamber
of the machine.
EVIE
Hurry!
The banging on the door continues and culminates in a burst of machine gun fire. Several men enter the lab as Evie and Garret both reach for the lever that closes the chamber and activates the machine.
GARRET
Evie, remember the first time we went
outside?
EXT. MOUNTAIN - DAY
Garret and Evie as children exit a
cave into a glaring,
sunswept and barren landscape.
The light gets brighter and
brighter. There's more machine
gun fire.
EXT. SKY - MORNING
The bright light resolves into a wide shot of the sky above the cloud layer. All is silent. Out of the hush we hear the faintest of musical chords as we watch a shooting star blaze its way across the sky. Getting closer, we track with the shooting star as it falls. At first it's a ball of fire but then the flames sputter out, and the pod, placed in the time machine by Evie in the previous scene, falls forward until it fills the screen. It drops through the clouds until it cracks open, releasing hundreds of wind-carried spores. The pod suddenly drops away and we see the spores drifting lightly on the air, each doing its individual dance, all going in the same direction.
EXT. NEW YORK CITY - DAWN
The spores break through the cloud layer above Manhattan and drift slowly into the streets. As they approach ground level, the titles come on the screen. There is a building site at the end of the block down which they are headed. One spore lodges in a crack in the concrete as another drifts past it. Some of the spores are eaten by pigeons. Some drift down a storm drain. Most of them drift into a building site, where they will be buried under the foundation of a skyscraper. Of the few remaining spores, whirling uselessly over the concrete only one is picked up by the wind and carried out of the city, over the water, toward Long Island.
EXT. NORTH SHORE OF LONG ISLAND - DAY
The spore drifts along the shore. The heavily populated and industrial areas of Queens give way to the less crowded suburbs. Seagulls fly by and swoop down to catch fish Finally, way out on the island, the spore begins its descent. It drifts over housetops near the shore, children playing in the street, down and down until it is over the backyard of Truman and April where it settles into a freshly dug corner of the vegetable garden. Most of the yard is devoted to the garden. The door of the house opens and TRUMAN comes out. He is an athletic, well built man in his early thirties, casually dressed. He's carrying a blanket and is followed by a tortoise shell cat. He pulls up a weed in the garden and looks over some early spring buds. Then he spreads the blanket on a small patch of grass and begins some yoga exercises.
INT. LIVING ROOM OF THE HOUSE - EVENING
The living room of the house is a medium sized room with windows in the front. The room is clean though threadbare the walls hung with original paintings. The cat is on the floor, in the middle of the rag rug, wrestling with a catnip toy when the front door opens and startles it. APRIL comes in the door overburdened with three bags of groceries. She is a pretty blond woman in her early thirties.
INT. KITCHEN - EVENING
The kitchen is utilitarian, the appliances old, the cabinets painted wood. Truman is standing at the counter fixing a salad when April enters. He takes the packages from her and sets them down on the counter.
TRUMAN
Why didn't you call me?
APRIL
I love to suffer.
She moves forward to kiss him but he backs away.
APRIL
(pretending it's okay)
Did you have a good day?
TRUMAN
What's a good day? Is a good day one in
which I accomplish something? Or maybe
it's a day that the sun shines. Maybe a
good day is when I do a good deed. But
no, most likely you mean did I do any
work, produce any great, or not so great,
literary pages, draw from the chaos of
human...
APRIL
Oh for heaven's sake, I only asked if
you had a good day.
She empties the bags of groceries on the countertop and begins separating the goods into groups. Truman goes back to preparing the salad.
TRUMAN
I had a lousy day. While I was jogging
I kept thinking, where am I going?
Everytime my foot hit the ground I
wondered where it was going. I don't
know what I'm doing anymore. Look at
you. You just keep on working, everyday
the same place, doing the same thing.
And for what? To come home to a
miserable sore ass who doesn't give a
damn about anything anymore.
April gets tears in her eyes and Truman laughs.
APRIL
Is it funny, my tears?
TRUMAN
It's funny that you care.
APRIL
Oh God...
She picks up the cat and cuddles her.
APRIL
Did Psipsina eat?
TRUMAN
(chuckling affectionately)
Her majesty ate chicken livers tonight.
What a spoiled bitch she is. Eh!
Aren't you a spoiled bitch?
APRIL
It's your fault you know.
She puts the cat down while Truman sets the salad and plates on the table. They sit down to eat.
APRIL
I wish we had a baby.
TRUMAN
The only luck God ever gave you was when
He made it so you couldn't have kids.
APRIL
I want kids!
TRUMAN
Just what you need. A baby screaming for
food and attention. How're you going to
take care of this kid when you can't even
take care of yourself?
APRIL
I can take care of myself!
TRUMAN
You call this taking care? This shitty
little hole with a roof over it?
APRIL
Well if you want better, then why don't
you...
TRUMAN
Why don't I what April? Why don't I do
something? I don't feel like doing
something. I feel angry. Why don't I
what? Go back to writing? Write what?
For whom? For some idiot publisher to
tell me it's not commercial? It's
wonderful but it won't make them enough
money?
He gets up and starts pacing.
TRUMAN
(continuing)
I didn't write it for money! I wrote a
work of art. I wrote beauty. I didn't
write to make a buck and I'm not going
to start now. I'll go dig ditches first.
APRIL
I know that honey.
TRUMAN
What do you know? All you need is for
your man to be sweet to you, make love
to you once a day and play house with a
contented look on his face. That's all
you need.
APRIL
No! Yes! What's the difference? You
make it torture to love you. What do
you want? What can I do to help you?
TRUMAN
I don't want your freaking help. What
am I? A goddamned charity case?
APRIL
Truman please. Tell me what you want me
to do and I'll do it. Tell me what you
want me to be and I'll try my best to
be it! It's true what you said. The
most important thing to me is that we be
happy together. I just want to be your
wife. I just want...
TRUMAN
It's not your fault. It's just not
enough for me. I want to feel proud
of myself, you know? I used to be so
damn proud of myself. I'd walk down
the street or into a place and I'd feel
like a king. I was high on being alive.
You were too. Remember when we met?
APRIL
I remember Tru. I was showing my
paintings on the street in Greenwich
Village. You tripped because you
couldn't take your eyes off me. You
looked so open and vulnerable...
TRUMAN
And you...there you were with those
weird paintings behind you, pouring
love for all the universe through your
very pores. You were like a light...
shining in the dark...
APRIL
I smiled and you came right over and
made yourself at home, as if we were
old friends, as if we'd always known
each other.
He squats down to be at eye level with April.
TRUMAN
You reached out and took off my
sunglasses.
She pantomimes removing his sunglasses. The movement turns to a caress on his cheek.
APRIL
I wanted to see your eyes.
Truman gets up and turns away from her.
TRUMAN
It's not like that anymore. I feel so
stale and useless and nothing between us
feels the same.
APRIL
But it can't stay the same. Nothing
stays the same. It changes. It grows.
TRUMAN
I never thought we'd end up like this.
The camera pulls out to include the room, then out the window to include the house, the yard, and the neighborhood. Then it zooms into the garden where light from the window falls on the spot where the seed landed. A tiny sprout rises out of the earth.