A short film
BittersweetThe Screenplay
A vine is harmless until it isn’t.
Nam-Tar
Read
Scene numbers in the margin · Henry’s game is playable inside the script · Paintings shown are concept images
Black.
NAM-TAR (V.O.)
Every gardener learns the same rule.
A vine is harmless until it isn't.
Pull it when it is small, and it costs you nothing.
Wait, and it costs you everything.
Unless it chokes on itself first. They often do.
INT. HOUSE - MORNING
HENRY, 45, is asleep. His iPhone alarm goes off. His eyes stir. The other side of the bed is empty, the covers already thrown back.
He showers, gets dressed, makes coffee, scrambles some eggs, and sits down at the kitchen table.
CLARA (40s), dressed for work, breezes in, steals a forkful of his eggs, and pours herself some coffee.
HENRY
Did he end up getting in touch with you?
CLARA
He texted. He's buried in his physics midterm. Said to tell you he's "5x5."
She sips her coffee and smirks.
CLARA
Please, just, I know its a day off for you today, but, just, just don't be lazy today.
HENRY
Here’s my plan; I'm going to have a nicely balanced day. Housework, nerdy time, arty time, outsidey time, making dinner time.
Clara's eyes roll in a cute non-threatening way.
CLARA
Try not to spend the day on a screen killing aliens, okay? Have fun, but, like, try to be a grown-up? You have a son in college, right? I love you.
She grabs her bag and keys and heads for the front door.
HENRY
I know. Have a great day at work, maybe try to teach someone... something...
CLARA
Yeah, yeah, life is a lesson of endless learning...and teaching...and learning...and teaching...
Clara heads out the front door repeating this line over and over until the door closes behind her. Henry smirks to himself.
INT. HOUSE - LIVING ROOM - LATER
A nice family living room. Henry quickly removes the flowers and books from the coffee table and places them on the floor.
An old television plops on top, followed by a vintage Commodore 64, some cartridges and a joystick.
He perches two action figures on top of the TV, Mulder and Scully, facing outward like tiny sentries.
Followed by: an AM/FM radio, a MiniDisc recorder, some Commodore games, an analog multimeter, and a tangle of cables in a clump.
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | Mulder Scully | | | antenna o o | | | /|\ /|\ | | | ____/_\_____/_\____ | | | | ______________ | | | | | | READY. | | | | | | | LOAD"*",8,1 | | | | ____|_______ | | SEARCHING... | | ThinkPad | | |::: 88.1 [|]| | |______________| | ___________ | | |(o) (o) ▒▒▒ | |___________________| |~/\/\~~/\/\| | | |____________| old CRT |___________| | | | ______________________________ [===] /::::::::::/ | | '---->| [][][][][][][][][][][][][][] |==o '----------' ___ | | | [][][][][][][][][][][][][][] | ^ | [●REC] | | | [________SPACE________] | | '------> ((MD)) | | '------------------------------' '---------------'---' | | [##] [##] (O) .----. .--------. | | carts |_| |1541| | \ | / | multimeter | | joystick '----' | \|/ | | | '--------' | +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
He turns on the gear.
HENRY
It works!
He extends the radio’s antenna, thumbs the dial. Static hisses, warbles, resolves into a signal -- Worcester State college radio. A student DJ, low-fi, close-mic'd, way too excited for a mid-morning time slot nobody listens to.
DJ (V.O., FILTERED)
Good morning, Worcester State, and the six of you listening off campus. This is Retro Hour. Here's how it works: back in the eighties, some radio stations actually broadcast computer games over the air. I play the game. You record the game. Your Commodore loads the game. Audio in one end, a game out the other. Today's pick, straight from the student archive. Tape decks ready? Here it comes.
Henry runs a cable from the radio’s headphone jack into a battered, duct-taped ThinkPad. A waveform crawls across the terminal, green on black.
HENRY
And always, always, make a backup...
He presses record on the minidisc...
C64 POV -- SCREEN: a blinking cursor, waiting.
The beeps and boops and modem-like sonatas of the broadcast pour out of its little speaker and down the cable interacting with the vintage hardware assembled.
C64 POV -- SCREEN: LOADING. A progress bar crawls, agonizingly slow -- data trickling in at the same plodding rate a real cassette would have, forty years ago.
Finally: The game begins.
INT. HOUSE - LIVING ROOM - LATER
Henry is in deep playing the game.
Suddenly, the screen glitches -- tears, stutters -- and the game dies out. His phone buzzes.
He smacks the machine fairly hard. A modern beep boop is heard. His phone buzzes again.
PHONE POV -- SCREEN: Battery 91% | REMINDERS APP. "Mow the lawn, Water the plants. Water the flowers. Paint the house. Dig out the bittersweet root."
Henry, dejected, forces himself to get motivated to start the chores.
EXT. HOUSE - DAY
Henry fires up the lawnmower and mows the perfect lawn.
He checks this off on his reminders app.
EXT. HOUSE - LATER
He waters the plants.
He checks this off on his reminders app.
EXT. HOUSE - LATER
Henry sits on a stool outside his house. In front of him, an easel and a table of watercolors. He's painting flowers, nature, the sky, and his house.
He checks this off on his reminders app.
PHONE POV -- SCREEN: REMINDERS APP. Battery 87% | "Remove bittersweet root, call Dig Safe Worcester."
Henry takes a deep breath, and then dials the number embedded in the reminders app. He puts the phone to his ear.
DIG SAFE OPERATOR
Dig Safe Worcester, go ahead.
HENRY
Hi, I just wanted to check before I dig up this nasty bittersweet thing in my front yard, yeah, yeah, nothing too deep. Yes, my address is 27 Sparkwood Street, yes, in Worcester. The Heart of the Commonwealth...
DIG SAFE OPERATOR
I got you. Just. A. Second... Digging in your front yard?
HENRY
Yeppers.
DIG SAFE OPERATOR
Okay, gotcha, checking the schematics... You're good to go. Good luck with the big dig!
HENRY
Yeah, you too.
EXT. HOUSE - LATER
Henry uses his tools and begins digging. He makes decent progress pulling at various bits of vine and root. He gets a bit dirty.
Suddenly... he hits something hard.
His equilibrium shifts immediately -- he drops to one knee.
Odd. He takes a moment to compose himself, then grabs his trowel, continuing to search for whatever he hit.
Finally, at the heart of a bittersweet tangle, he finds it -- the main root has swollen into a strange, lumpy bulge.
Odd.
He grabs a saw from his tools and begins to cut into it. It's not easy, but he is able to pull up the root eventually. Part of it is hard as wood, almost thick like a tree branch.
He begins to pick at it with a trowel.
Suddenly, a glint of light reflects directly into his eye, knocking him back. He gets up, nose bleeding, and then he sees it: The “bark” from the root has completely splintered off revealing... a perfectly shaped, metallic, sphere.
He reaches to pick it up, barely touching it, but then he recoils, it's so cold it flash freezes his fingers. He drops it back onto the ground.
He pulls gloves from his back pocket, puts them on, and picks up the sphere again.
He gently brings it over to the table with his watercolor kit and sets it down. A deafening thud -- as if it pulls the sound into itself. He taps it with the trowel. No sound at all.
He moves his gloved hands around it. Its surface reflects everything -- his gloves, the sky, the house -- warped and flawless. He glances at his painting, at all the effort spent chasing light and shadow, then back at the object. Perfect.
He shudders, his nose still bleeding down his shirt. He grabs for the paper towels from his paint kit to stop the bleeding.
As he reaches for them, he knocks over his dirty watercolor water. But -- it's frozen like a popsicle.
Worried, he picks it up and moves it inside his house.
INT. HOUSE - CONTINUOUS
Everything electronic flickers as he sets the sphere onto the table in the middle of the living room.
Taking out his phone, he begins snapping photographs. Then, suddenly the screen goes totally black. He attempts to reboot it.
HENRY
(under his breath)
Huh?
Frustrated, he gives up trying to reboot the phone -- the battery is somehow dead? His gaming setup seems to also have lost all power.
He tries to pick the probe up again -- and this time it burns him.
HENRY
Ahh, great, just, great.
Half angry, half frustrated, he pulls his gloves back on, picks the thing up, and heads to the kitchen. Put it in the oven? No. Fridge? No. Instinctively he pops it into the microwave and slams the door shut.
He heads back to the living room and sits on his couch, thinking.
Behind him, the living room lamp flickers back on. Then the Commodore 64's power light.
He checks his iPhone and it's back on, the battery is at 80% and working fine.
He closes his eyes and focuses on his breathing. In and out. Then... he has an idea.
He grabs his multimeter and sets the loose battery on the counter, just outside the microwave door -- close enough to test, far enough to stay safe if he's wrong.
He clips the leads to the battery terminals and reads it. 9.2 volts. Good.
He cracks the microwave door an inch. Nothing. Two inches. The needle dips.
HENRY
(to himself)
There you are.
Suddenly Henry’s nose begins to gush again. Sweat on his brow, he passes out cold on the floor.
The multimeter readings are going off the chart, back and forth.
Inside the microwave, the sphere begins to glow eerily. The house and everything begins to rumble and shake. Mulder and Scully fall off the TV, one hitting the load button on the C64, the other landing on the minidisc backup recorder’s “rec” button, starting it recording.
As Henry is passed out, the Commodore 64 is loading... Loading... Loading...
CUT TO:
INT. HOUSE - LATER
Henry is face down on the cold hard kitchen floor. He wipes his nose with his sleeve and gets up and looks in the microwave.
The sphere is still there. He shuts the door nonchalantly, and then turns on the sink and washes the blood off his face, and wipes up the blood on the floor with his flannel shirt, revealing a nerdy Harvey Ball smiley T-shirt. As he finishes cleaning up his face, he hears... old 8-bit music... playing... orchestral... familiar...
He heads to the living room.
C64 POV -- SCREEN: a pixel boy climbs a cherry tree behind a barn, dreams of Mars -- and falls. Little stars circle his head. PROJECT HOOPSKIRT. PRESS FIRE. is emblazoned on the screen.
He picks up the joystick. Presses fire.
It takes him a few attempts, but, eventually he beats the game. The screen flickers...
C64 POV -- SCREEN: the stars go dark. A single line of numbers blinks: 42.2865 N, 71.7826 W.
Henry takes a screenshot of the screen with his phone, and searches the coordinates.
A pin drops across town: Green Hill Park.
An eerie glow from the microwave. The metallic ball melts through the microwave and floats away.
It enters the living room. It stops just in front of Henry’s face, showing Henry his own odd, curved reflection.
It bobs once. Slowly. A nod? Maybe a smirk?
The probe goes from nothing to fast, melting a perfect “O” through the window behind him. He looks out the hole after it. It's gone.
Henry grabs his keys and phone and heads out the house.
INT./EXT. HENRY'S CAR - MOVING
Henry drives across the city, the map pin on his phone propped against the wheel. He calls his wife, and gets her voicemail.
HENRY
Hey, there, ah, stuff has happened, it's all, it's all, good? It’s okay. No worries. I am working through it, everything, is okay, maybe, now, well, in the event of, well, don’t you worry, I am on it, definitely, yeah, umm, I’ll figure it out. No worries here. I’m not worried! I love you. Hope you're having a terrific...
He turns quickly onto a side road: GREEN HILL PARK.
EXT. GREEN HILL PARK - DAY
Henry pulls over and cuts the engine. He continues to follow his phone's directions.
He works his way towards the top of a large hill. He sees the probe. As he approaches, the world glitches into winter...
EXT. GREEN HILL PARK - VISION
A vision, Henry watches as a man, dressed in a late-1920s professorial outfit, walks towards a large contraption with a torch and lights the bottom of the thing.
The rocket roars, rises, clears its frame, and arcs into the snow. The man in the 1920s outfit watches and takes notes.
MONTAGE -- GODDARD'S ROCKETS
-- 1926: forty-one feet, two and a half seconds.
-- 1929: a bigger rocket, a camera and a barometer aboard. Higher.
-- The 1930s, the New Mexico desert: a launch tower, a sleek finned rocket. Two thousand feet.
-- Higher. Faster. A rocket breaks the speed of sound.
-- Nearly nine thousand feet. A thin white line climbing out of sight.
END MONTAGE.
Back on the snowy hill, the man lowers his notebook.
To the left of the man is the metallic sphere. Hovering. He attempts to take out his phone to take a picture of the man and his creation, but it's as if he is in a dream, he can’t swipe his phone on. It's blank...
Giving up hope of recording this, he walks towards the metallic sphere... and... disappears.
INT. DREAM SPACE GALLERY
Henry walks through a doorway into a long art gallery. The probe guides him to the first frame.
1. THE SINGULARITY -- One point of light.
NAM-TAR (V.O.)
Everything begins as a point of light.
2. NAMMU -- A green-blue world.
NAM-TAR (V.O.)
Stars. Worlds. Water and salt. Life. Ours took a very long time.
3. UNTITLED -- Silver spheres leaving Nammu.
NAM-TAR (V.O.)
Life becomes hunger. Hunger becomes war. The one with the advantage strikes first.
But destruction costs. We spend it only on threats. So we built watchers.
4. RESOURCES SECURED -- A dead world, a silver sphere, a grey swarm.
PROBE POV -- INTERNAL DISPLAY: KOI-4878 b -- THREAT: CONFIRMED -- RESOURCES: SECURED.
5. UNTITLED -- A pale blue dot.
NAM-TAR (V.O.)
Most worlds that reach for the sky destroy themselves. It saves us the cost. So we watch.
6. WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS. MARCH 16, 1926. -- Goddard's rocket.
PROBE POV -- INTERNAL DISPLAY: BENCHMARK: SPACEFLIGHT -- APPROACH.
NAM-TAR (V.O.)
A rocket. We came closer.
7. TRIPTYCH -- The watcher leaves the moon, falls through the sky, and lands in a Worcester yard. Bittersweet vine closes over it.
NAM-TAR (V.O.)
Your vine held us. So we listened.
The gallery goes dark.
SOUND ONLY -- THROUGH THE ROOTS:
-- Crackling radio. Big band. Rain on a roof.
-- A news bulletin: a new kind of bomb.
-- A TV, far away: "That's one small step for man..."
-- Children in a yard. A screen door.
-- A baby crying. A lullaby.
-- Two voices shouting in a kitchen. Silence.
-- A slow song on a kitchen radio. Two sets of footsteps, moving together.
-- A door slams upstairs.
-- A car pulls away. The house goes quiet.
INT. DREAM SPACE GALLERY - THE LAST ROOM
Three watercolors, loose and a little clumsy. His style.
A baby asleep on Henry's shoulder.
Slow dancing, dishes unfinished.
An empty bedroom, a Clark University pennant.
PROBE POV -- INTERNAL DISPLAY: ANALYSIS: RESOURCES -- HIGH. EXPERIENCE -- CANNOT CALCULATE.
NAM-TAR (V.O.)
We have measured every world by what it holds.
We cannot measure this.
A Commodore 64 screen glows on the wall. A joystick rests below it.
C64 POV -- SCREEN: RESTART / CONTINUE / POWER OFF
NAM-TAR (V.O.)
Power off, and it ends. Continue, and we wait. Restart, and none of it ever was.
Choose.
Henry picks up the joystick.
.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| .--------------------------------------------------------------------------. |
| | | |
| | **** PROJECT HOOPSKIRT **** | |
| | | |
| | YOU HAVE A CHOICE. CHOOSE. | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | RESTART | |
| | | |
| | > CONTINUE | |
| | | |
| | POWER OFF | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | READY. | |
| | █ | |
| '--------------------------------------------------------------------------' |
| |
'--------------------------------------------------------------------------------'
||
||
.--||--.
.--' '--.
| [FIRE] |
'------------'
The cursor rests on CONTINUE. He presses fire.
NAM-TAR (V.O.)
You are not spared. You are postponed.
A beat. Then, for the first time, a single voice.
THE WATCHER (V.O.)
I will keep listening.
EXT. HOUSE - AFTERNOON
Henry lies face down in the front yard next to his easel.
His car is parked in the driveway.
He stirs, and stands up and looks into the hole.
The window is whole. His fingers are unburned. It's as if none of it ever happened.
The vine is gone and the probe is nowhere to be seen. He looks towards the garden bed, various flowers and veggies are sprouting, as is a new shoot of bittersweet vine.
A car quietly pulls in behind him. Clara and Ed, their son, exit the vehicle and walk over to him.
Henry reaches to pull up the bittersweet root, but then he decides to leave it alone. He turns and sees his family.
EXT. MOON
The small metallic watcher sphere is watching over the planet. Waiting.
FADE OUT.
ROLL CREDITS.
INT. HOUSE - LIVING ROOM - NIGHT (POST-CREDITS)
ED sits down in front of the Commodore 64. The MiniDisc recorder sits beside it, its little red light off.
He presses PLAY.
The warbling, modem-like song pours out of the speaker and down the cable.
C64 POV -- SCREEN: LOADING...
C64 POV -- SCREEN: a pixel boy climbs a cherry tree behind a barn, dreams of Mars -- and falls. PROJECT HOOPSKIRT. PRESS FIRE.
Ed picks up the joystick.
CUT TO BLACK.