Re “The Snail King and His Mystery Mission”
[img]2689|right|Eugenia Mansell||no_popup[/img][Editor’s Note: Ms. Mansell, introduced to readers earlier this month, is a burgeoning writer and a deeply searching thinker. Today she concludes a suspenseful two-part script offering.]
Interior. Day. Office.
Mr. Smallking enters his office. The clock shows 8 a.m. sharp Right on time. He takes a deep breath. With a napkin, he cleans the sweat off his forehead. He folds the napkin and puts (not throws) it in a trash can. Sharpens a pencil and checks the edge with his finger.
Suddenly the wide door opens. The same WOMAN appears in front of Mr. Smallking’s desk. We see her tears are about to form. She is in despair.
Mr. Smallking ignores her. He pretends that she doesn’t exist. He keeps sharpening his pencil. [repetition *3]
Desperate WOMAN grabs the papers from his table and throws them in his face.
The pencil falls out of Mr. Smallking’s hand. The sharpened edge breaks. [Closeup on the pencil on the floor. Then closeup on Mr. Smallking’s eye. (He is very angry.)]
Mr. Smallking says that she is interrupting him. He stands up and opens the door for the WOMAN, asking her to leave. WOMAN is crying. She looks at him with fierce anger, turns her back and slowly leaves the room, forgetting to close the door.
Mr. Smallking stands for few seconds, then carefully closes the door.
Exterior. Evening. Park for Kids.
Mr. Smallking is walking home after work (the same day). We can tell that he is bothered by something. His gloomy mood completely brightens when he sees a family of small snails carefully crossing the path. He licks his dry lips, holds his breath and slowly gets closer.
He raises his foot and smashes the biggest snail, then the one which is smaller, and afterward, the two tiniest ones. His face is lighted with joy and pleasure. He is about to walk away when he notices one tiny snail he did not see before, trying to escape the murderer. The snail almost reached the grass where it could safely hide from everybody. But the big dark shadow already is crawling, covering the sunlight – a second, athe smallest snail, will be just a wet spot on the dry concrete.
The big man’s foot rises in the air and crashes down. But instead of smashing the snail, it hits a red woman’s shoe – the same WOMAN (whom we saw in his office three times) is staring at Mr. Smallking.
Silence.
Mr. Smallking is startled.
He backs off and leaves the place looking at the WOMAN when he finally turns his back and paces away, disappearing behind the corner.
[Closeup of the abandoned wood toy-man in the sandbox, lying in exactly the same as we left it.]
Interior. Night. Mr. Smallking’s apartment.
Mr. Smallking prepares to go to sleep. He gets under the blanket. The portrait of his mother is staring at him from the wall, smiling. He looks at it. He smiles back.
We hear the thunderstorm outside the window. Mr. Smallking gets deeper into the blanket.
The camera closes up on him, showing his sleeping face.
Then the camera shows lightning striking.
Now we see Mr. Smallking’s face upside down. Camera closes up on him.
[He sees a dream, but the audience does not know yet it is a dream.]
Dream.
Exterior. Day. The path outside the house.
Mr. Smallking sees a snail. He licks his dry lips. His big foot rises in the air and crashes on the snail.
No sound.
Mr. Smallking removes his foot – the snail is still there. It’s alive. Nothing happened to it.
Mr. Smallking tries again.
Failure.
Again.
Failure.
He gets more and more irritated. The snail is still alive. Its shell is not damaged at all. Matter of fact it seems as if it has started getting bigger.
Bigger.
And Bigger.
It reaches the size where Mr. Smallking is not able to step on it anymore.
Now it has reached enormous size. It’s bigger than Mr. Smallking. Mr. Smallking is shouting.
Interior. Morning. Mr. Smallking’s apartment.
[Closeup.] Mr. Smallking opens his eyes. He looks at his clock 6:30. He has overslept.
He jumps from bed. Casts a look at the smiling portrait. It’s not hanging straight anymore. It has creeped to the side. He makes a move to fix it – then stops.
He leaves his bed undone. Puts his clothes on. Mirror view: the suit is especially tight today.
He walks outside.
Exterior. Day. Path outside the house.
Mr. Smallking grabs the newspaper from the ground. He rushes down the concrete path.
Searching and not finding something he is dying to find – snails.
No snails. Not even one. He looked everywhere. Even under the old rusty bucket (their favorite spot) – nothing.
Interior. Day. Bus.
In a very angry spirit, he boards the bus, looking outside. Unconsciously, he keeps searching. Failing to succeed, he finally opens the newspaper:
[Newspaper. Front page. Text and picture.]
Closeup:
“A woman hanged herself on the street lamp at the entrance of Court House” Crazy woman committed suicide last night, right in the middle of Downtown. She hanged herself on the street lamp at the entrance of the Court House. Poor little thing went crazy after her son died from a seizure in prison. Strange thing, the police found her pockets full of snails and a note whose contents are hidden from the public.”
Interior. Day. Office.
The door opens carefully, and Mr. Smallking enters the office. He looks around as if he were expecting someone to come to the office. He sits down at his small desk. He is anxious. He looks from side to side. Quiet. No one here.
He takes a deep breath and grabs a pencil, looking at the edge. It looks sharpened enough, but Mr. Smallking still reaches for the sharpener.
He twists the pencil a few times, then takes it out to test.
He touches the edge of the pencil and suddenly pokes his finger. Small ball of thick blood is getting bigger and bigger till it is not able to stay on the top of the finger. It streams down his cold grey skin, becoming a drop, which leaves a red line along the finger and falls onto the floor.
The frosted door opens. Two big feet step into the room. The big man’s hand closes the door after himself.
It’s the BIG BOSS. Camera shows him from the back. He is bald, wearing a black suit. BIG BOSS approaches Mr. Smallking’s desk.
Mr.Smallking’s scared face is gradually being covered by the growing shadow of BIG BOSS’S silhouette. Instantly Mr. Smallking raises his hand up to protect himself.
The dark shadow crawls towards the SECRET DRAWER. Big man’s hand (which we saw before and which belongs to BIG BOSS) opens the drawer.
Camera shows hundreds of undelivered letters stored in alphabetical order.
Mr. Smallking is not moving. Two hands of people in uniform grab him from both sides and walk Mr. Smallking towards the main door exit. [We do not see the faces of the police officers.] Camera shots from the back show three of them are leaving the office. Mr. Smallking turns his head back.
Interior. Day. Prison.
Mr. Smallking is in PRISON, separating himself from other prisoners who are entertaining themselves by playing poker. The arrested people are excited about the game. Most of them are smoking cigarettes. Somebody is laughing, another is arguing, another one is being silent. All prisoners are wearing grey clothes that look more like madhouse pajamas rather than a prisoner’s uniform.
Mr. Smallking is sitting in the right corner of the room alone, looking from time to time at the guard who is bored, walking back and forth outside the grate.
One of the cigarettes falls out of his hand onto the floor, unnoticed, after one large prisoner hits another skinny one, who was holding it.
The cigarette burns a hole in a piece of the rug. A fire ignites.
Loud sound of a fire alarm.
Everybody is in panic.
Mr. Smallking rushes in front of everybody to the gate. He stumbles and falls on the floor.
[img]2721|right|||no_popup[/img]The GUARD opens the grate and crowds of prisoners are streaming out towards the exit, stepping on Mr. Smallking lying on the floor. He is trying really hard to get up but he can’t – heavy feet won’t let him do that.
The camera is lying on the floor, showing dozens of feet (only) smashing Mr. Smallking’s barely alive body.
He is dead.
Everything gets quiet.
Small snail is crawling on top of his lifeless body.
Exterior. Day. Kids’ park.
The abandoned ugly wood-toy in the sandbox is being covered by sand, slowly disappearing.
Fade out.
A rising author, designer, artist and entrepreneur, Ms. Mansell may be contacted at zazazu.zazazu@gmail.com
