WORKING TITLE

WORKING TITLE: UH I DON'T KNOW YET, WE'LL SEE

scene 1------>
(scene opens in a field of grass/grain. The camera takes its time in focusing, eventually going to a figure in the distance.)

COHEN (voiceover): Today is March 18th. Somewhere, my mother is frantically clawing at my father's hands around her neck. I am eighty miles away in what I think may be a wheat field. I am trying to find my friends.

(the camera has been zooming in throughout this speech, finally stopping about ten feet away from Cohen. He is slim, tall, about 16-18 years old, with an air that suggests that he has seen far too much of everything and is pretty tired of it. He is dressed in overalls and a pair of large rubber boots. Over the overalls he is wearing a bomber jacket, kind of off-center. He begins to walk and the camera pivots to follow him, but does not otherwise move.)

(Silence.)

(As Cohen nears the horizon, several clips flash- a snail, a leaf fluttering, concrete slabs, a hand clapping.)
(He continues to walk until we are merely presented with an empty field. It fades to black.)

(GOOD PLACE FOR THE TITLE CARD.)

scene 2. ----->

(Opens on a rocky hill. Roc and Hierophant are sitting majestically on two rocks, side-by-side. Roc is resplendent in a scarf and a pair of ripped blue jeans. He wears no shirt, but has a pair of fake wings upon his back. Hierophant is wearing a cow mask, a leotard, and nothing else the audience can see. They both have circles of face paint on their faces- Roc's are red, Hierophant's are blue and white. Cohen approaches from behind the camera.)

ROC: Good evening, comrade!
COHEN: Roc.
ROC: Yes, yes, the selfsame. How have the merry routes treated your sorry self?
COHEN: Fine enough. You seem well.
ROC: Well? Ahaha, my consort, my dear, I've been quite better. Hierophant here has been a bit of a godsend-
HIEROPHANT: Oh, silence, you consarned beetle.
ROC: See what I mean?
COHEN: Yes, yes.

(there is a silence as Roc climbs down his rock. He is shorter than Cohen, but stronger and more tanned. He is immune to many of Cohen's terrors, being a product of his imagination [though the audience doesn't know that yet.])

ROC: I daresay, my dear chum, it has been quite a nochy or two since we've had ourselves a fine good horrorshow evening.
HIEROPHANT: And the others are nearby tonight.

(She removes her mask. The camera lingers.)

ROC: What do you say, my droog?

(Cohen seems to consider a moment. The only sound is that of the wind and the grass shifting.)

COHEN: I believe that'll do.

(Roc nods obligingly and they wait for Hierophant to descend from her perch. It is revealed that she is wearing sparkly black fishnet stockings and yellow hiking boots, as well as a billowing maroon cape. They walk.)

ROC: So do you remember the others?

(Shot of Cohen's face, then cut to shots of: a) a crane; b) a fish disturbing the top of a pond; c) a cat suddenly pouncing; and d) an apple being smooshed by a car- all in quick succession. Cut back to Cohen's face, than a slow zoom out.)

COHEN: Y-Yes. I do remember them.
HIEROPHANT: All of them? I find that a tad hard to believe, even if-
ROC: (interrupting) That's enough, my dear.

(Hierophant harrumphs softly. They continue to walk off-screen.)

scene 3 ----->
(Cut to an open, green field with a house/barn/structure in the center. There seems to be gaiety surrounding it, and as we follow our characters nearer the place, we can see people prancing around. No words are exchanged until Roc reaches the door, which is guarded by Wyvern. She is a small, willowy girl with the same circular face paint as Roc and Hierophant, though hers is a bright orange. She is dressed in a petticoated gown with a tattered flannel haphazardly thrown over it. She also has pearls strewn through her hair, dangling down and dragging on the floor behind her. She goes barefoot.)

WYVERN: And ho! Our guest arrives! (Roc kisses her hand.) Thank you dear. And Cohen! Oh, the years have been weary for you as well, I see. Please, follow my lead.

(She opens the door graciously for them and leads them through a room saturated with gauze hangings and multicolored lights, making it look like a fuzzy rave. The music is loud and booming, but we can still hear Wyvern as she says

WYVERN: Come, they are expecting you sub-level.

(She beckons them through a trap-door sunk within the foggy floor.)

(another flash of clips: ice breaking, a dog barking, a tree on a hill, a time-lapse shot of a cloud)

(it is dark.)

WYVERN: Ah, well- Cohen, I'm afraid I'm going to have to change you a little.
COHEN: What?
ROC: She's going to have to give you these. (points to face-paint circles.) If you don't mind.
COHEN: (a little confused) Sure, go ahead.

(Wyvern dips her finger into a gourd she picks up and draws circles on Cohen's face, a deep green. There is no visible change.)

WYVERN: Now, come, come. We mustn't be late.

(She opens a door and we have a shot of Cohen's face, blank but amazed, before a cut to a younger Cohen, his father (Paul) and his mother (Carol). They sit at a nondescript kitchen table. A rooster crows outside.)

CAROL: -So I was thinking, Paul, that Daniel-
COHEN: Mum, I'd like to be called Co-
CAROL: I don't like that name, eat your beans. (to Paul) Anyway, I was thinking that he shouldn't be hanging around those dreadful Thompson boys.
PAUL: And what makes them so "dreadful"? I see it as he's learning how to be a man, how to defend himself.
CAROL: They tease him about his…his "condition".
PAUL: So? Daniel knows they're not real, right?

(Carol looks disgustedly at her husband. She turns to Cohen.)

CAROL: Daniel, please go to your room.

(He wordlessly gets up and leaves.)
(The camera stays on his seat for a second before panning to his mother's face.)

CAROL: I swear to God, Paul, you will not say those kinds of things around him. Heaven knows his mind is fragile already.
PAUL: Carol, I told you. Only way he's going to get past this is if he goes at it head-on! What am I gonna tell my golf buddies, that I've got a pansy for a-
CAROL: Fuck your golf buddies. This is your son, Paul. We can't leave him like this for the rest of his life.
PAUL: You heard the fucking therapist- he's delusional! There's no way in hell he's going to ever be normal!

(silence.)

PAUL: Shit. I…I need a drink.

(The camera follows him through the door, and stays long enough to see him place ice and gin in a glass and say

PAUL: For God's sake, he talks to a bloody Hieropha-

(cut back to Cohen [close-up]. As the camera zooms out, it is revealed that the room seems to be part of an abandoned house, though with Christmas lights strewn about, woven through furniture and branches. Vines wrap around everything wrappable. There is a huge party going on in this space. Everyone has the same bright circles of face paint as Roc and Hierophant, albeit each with different colors. All are dressed ridiculously.)

ROC: I'll see you in a few hours, my good lad. (He disappears with Hierophant and Wyvern in the heaving crowd.)

(Almost immediately, a dark girl with close-cropped hair comes waltzing up dressed in a corset, a tie, and a pair of glittery pants. Her facepaint is aquamarine. Her name is Llrona.)

LLRONA: Hello, yearling. How are we this fair evening?
COHEN: I'm not too sure anymore-
LLRONA: Do you still know who you are?
COHEN: Yes.
LLRONA: Then we must change that, yearling. Come. Come with me.

(She leads Cohen through the crowd, stopping near a door. There is a bowl of candy beside it, and she hands Cohen one.)

LLRONA: Eat and forget! Eat and live with me. Eat and fly with the gods.

(Cohen cautiously chews one- we see several short clips of a bear roaring, the sea, the sky, and a building collapsing.)

COHEN: What- what-
LLRONA: Don't ask questions, my dear consort.

(They kiss passionately.)

COHEN: Ah-but-
LLRONA: Why are you asking anything, my dear? There need not be a purpose for love-
COHEN: Please, again. Your lips-

(They kiss again, more intensely.)

LLRONA: Yes, that's the ticket, yearling. (She nibbles on his ear.)
COHEN: Y-you are so strange! What are you?
LLRONA: Ahaha, strange? But I am not the strangest one around this place! And as to what I am- I am all the fantasies, all the things inside you that screamed for the act of love, that pleaded for lust.
COHEN: Ah, ah- shall we kiss again?
LLRONA: Certainly.

(Another kiss.)

COHEN: Why-
LLRONA: Because. Come with me, dear. We will stop the screaming within your body's reaches.

(They exit the frame.)

(The party goes on, but it seems to blur and warp and distort, until finally it fades to black.)

scene 5 ---->
(Opens in an airy bedroom. Cohen is lying shirtless on the bed, wearing tight leather pants. Llrona is in a gown at the foot of the bed.)

LLRONA: Your familiar ones are looking for you.
COHEN: Roc? Ah, right. They must be wondering…
LLRONA: Our kind does not wonder. We know.
(silence.)
COHEN: Are you- you're not real, are you.
LLRONA: Was the ecstasy you felt real?
COHEN: I should hope so.
LLRONA: Well then I, too, am as real as that.
COHEN: Real…I see.

(cut to Cohen's parents sitting on the side of a younger Cohen's bed.)

CAROL: Now, Daniel, we realize that you sometimes see things that aren't there.
PAUL: And we know you can't help it.
COHEN: You see them too?

(Carol and Paul look at each other.)

CAROL: No, Daniel. But the doctor you've been going to has given us some nice pills to make your invisible friends go away.
COHEN: But they're my friends! Roc, and Hier-
PAUL: Daniel, they don't exist.

(Cohen is silent.)

COHEN: I don't think that's true, Daddy.
PAUL: (stands up, angry) Goddammit, Daniel- they don't exist. We're not sending you to a therapist for 1400 dollars a session for things that exist-
CAROL: Dear-
PAUL: Shut it, Carol. Now, Daniel, you're going to take these pills. If I find that you haven't, even for one day, I'm going to beat your ass to Hell and back. Understood?

(cut back to present Cohen, head in hands.)

COHEN: He told me you weren't real…
LLRONA: Hush. Roc comes.

(Roc enters through a door, disheveled and covered in gauzy wrappings. He yawns.)

ROC: An evening for the mighty, eh my friend? Ah, it's been nice, but we must ramble on.
COHEN: I see. (to Llrona) Thank you.

(Llrona nods, then goes to the nearest wall and seems to sink through it, leaving her gown on the floor.)

COHEN: And where shall we go now?

(Hierophant enters loudly, flowers in her hair.)

HIEROPHANT: Into the underbelly of the world, into those places where we will find our friends Thunderbird and Sasquatch- into our woods, into the land.
COHEN: Let us go, then.

(A brief shot of the sheets as he leaves- they are covered in glitter- then a shot of the trio leaving. Cohen has butterfly wings upon his back.)

scene 6----->
(outside, a woodland. Cohen opens his mouth to speak, but before he does there are clips of the moon, a cave, and a gaslamp.)

COHEN: Roc, can you fly?
ROC: (gazes into distance) Oh, oh once, when I was grand, and feared, and wondrous in my conquests, I could fly. It wasn't flying, though, it was soaring, my wings spread- OI!

(a figure flits through the woods ahead.)

HIEROPHANT: Camellopard! (she runs ahead.)
COHEN: Camellopard? She was one of the first I'd seen- well, besides you, Roc. And then Hierophant, but she came later-

(Roc nods sadly.)

ROC: And then they wrenched you away from us- I remember, I remember. We were lonely, meaningless…

(Suddenly a cry sounds from the woods. They run in to see Hierophant hugging Camellopard, who is a short, "exotic"-looking girl with long, wild hair, dressed skimpily and wearing high boots. Her face-paint circles are golden. They turn as Roc and Cohen approach.)

ROC: My dear-!
CAMELLOPARD: Ah, a long time- and Cohen! Oh, even longer.
COHEN: I missed you.
CAMELLOPARD: And I you, little one. Now come. There is much to do before the night.

(They start walking through the woods.)

HIEROPHANT: Are the others here too?

(Close up of Cohen's face, then cut to a fox, a bear, a fawn, and a raccoon before going back to Cohen. Then pan to Camellopard.)

CAMELLOPARD: No- it was their time, it was the forest's choice-
COHEN: Gone? How?
CAMELLOPARD: Nothing is immortal but the earth. Not even we are immortal, despite being made of different stuff than you and your kind.
COHEN: The forest took them?
CAMELLOPARD: Yes.
ROC: We must continue, we cannot dally now that they are gone. We may not have much time left ourselves. Will you accompany us, my love?
CAMELLOPARD: I shall.
HIEROPHANT: The sea grows near- let us walk.

(though they exit the frame, the camera lingers on the woods for a long second before fading to black.)

scene 7---->

(Above Annaly Bay or some similar location. The four walk slowly, silent until

ROC: Our time grows shorter, Cohen.
COHEN: How- but you never mentioned time!
ROC: Because there never used to be any. Now we are swept in its currents- ah, the sea!

(they have reached the shore.)

HIEROPHANT: Our time is shorter still, come, come Cohen! Follow us-

(Roc, Hierophant, and Camellopard walk into the waves.)

COHEN: But- I cannot swim-
ROC: Nor can I, but I will not drown. Come, come! Quickly!

(Cohen cautiously steps in, slowly, until he is up to his neck in the waves. And Roc still beckons him

ROC: Come, further! Further!

(until Cohen is underwater, he is drowning, he is terrified, and the screen suddenly cuts to black.)

(Flashes of color, of animals, of trees.)

(Silence.)

(A white screen fades into a small girl, walking along the beach and picking up rocks. She sees Cohen, sitting in the sand, and runs to see who he is. She taps his shoulder.)

GIRL: Mister, mister, are you okay?

(Cohen turns his head. His facepaint circles are now a deep blue, and he looks back at the girl with a mournful, melancholy gaze.)

COHEN: I've been better, little one.
GIRL: What's your name?
COHEN: Dani-. No. No, it's Saeglopur.

(The little girl cocks her head.)

GIRL: Weird name.
COHEN: It means (he looks out on the ocean, obliquely facing the camera) lost-at-sea.
GIRL: Well, that's pretty- Mister, mister, are you real?

(Cohen doesn't answer her. Fade to black.)

END.