"The greatest remedy for anger is delay."
FADE IN
INT. LIVING ROOM – MORNING
The Apocalypse Family sit around the breakfast table. ALICE is having ice-cream and jelly for breakfast, APOCALYPSE MOMMY is drinking coffee and looking at APOCALYPSE DADDY with an expression somewhere between worry and confusion. LUCA is not at the table, he is asleep on the floor under the table.
APOCALYPSE MOMMY
Let me get this straight, you’ve been watching the neighbours for three days straight and you now think one of them has committed a murder?
ALICE
I like breakfast, it’s all nice, I can have ice-cream every day. Is it my birthday? What’s a murder Mommy?
APOCALYPSE MOMMY
Daddy?
APOCALYPSE DADDY
It’s like when Luca eats ants in the garden.
Alice seems to accept this and shovels more jelly into her mouth. She then nods her head and dances to music nobody else can hear.
APOCALYPSE DADDY
I know it seems crazy, and there is little doubt that after thirty two days there’s a high risk of hallucinations. I’ve read Kitty Lacy seventy eight times, Ada Marie one hundred and sixty, painted four hundred houses, sixty eight suns and written the alphabet forty eight times. How about you?
APOCALYPSE MOMMY
Just this week I’ve read three thousand fairy tales, baked seventy eight cakes and read Room on the Broom three hundred and sixty four times. I’ve also worn clothes with dried baby food stuck on them for thirty days in a row. My hair is a mess, my brain has gone to mush –
ALICE
Mommy, can we read a book? And make a cake?
Luca wakes up, finds some food on the floor and throws half of it at the window, he rubs the other half in his face. Then starts screaming.
APOCALYPSE DADDY
I’m definitely bat-shit crazy. But I know what I saw.
THE CAMERA MOVES AROUND THE ROOM to reveal:
A giant screen, projected onto the wall. On it a yoga teacher limbers up.
APOCALYPSE MOMMY
If it’s true, he can’t leave the apartment anyway. I’ve got a yoga class, what are you teaching Alice today at school?
APOCALYPSE DADDY
Reading.
INT. ALICES’S BEDROOM – LATER
Alice is sitting on the bed reading a Frank Zappa autobiography. Apocalypse Daddy is sitting on a chair with a pair of binoculars to his face.
APOCALYPSE DADDY
What were his early influences?
ALICE
His children were called Moon Unit and Dweezil. That’s so silly. I’m glad you called me Alice Daddy. Why did you and Mommy call me Alice?
Apocalypse Daddy lowers the binoculars.
APOCALYPSE DADDY
Because we knew you’d turn our universe into Wonderland.
ALICE
Why didn’t you call me Frozen or Emilie or Mouse or Satellite?
Alice rolls around the bed laughing. Apocalypse Daddy raises the binoculars.
THE CAMERA PANS ACROSS To the apartments opposite. We are now seeing the world as Apocalypse Daddy sees it: through the binocular lens.
The apartments opposite are alive with movement, sound and people getting used to the new world.
THE CAMERA MOVES UP TO THE TOP LEFT APARTMENT where a man is on his balcony cycling on a stationary bike. His head is down as he powers on, believing he is in the recently postponed Tour de France.
THE CAMERA PANS TO THE NEXT APARTMENT ALONG. Projected onto their living room wall is a 12 foot high Joe Wicks. A couple, dressed in Lycra and bending over at the waist are copying his moves. They stand straight, do some arm pumps, squats, jumping jacks, press ups.
THE CAMERA PANS TO THE NEXT APARTMENT ALONG
A woman is meditating.
THE CAMERA PANS TO THE NEXT APARTMENT ALONG
There is a dance class, a couple swirling around their apartment. THE CAMERA PANS DOWN TO THE NEXT APARTMENT. A man sits in a chair with a virtual reality headset on. It’s Mark Zuckerberg in the fucking metaverse.
THE CAMERA PANS ACROSS TO THE NEXT APARTMENT ALONG. Children sit around a table reading books and colouring in. A man walks around them. We zoom in. He is reading APOCALYPSE DADDY HOME OF ADVANCED LEARNING™
Finally THE CAMERA MOVES BACK UP TO A TOP FLOOR APARTMENT where an ELDERLY MAN is watering the flower pots on his balcony. Next to him is a small yapping dog. The man puts the small dog in a basket and, using an old mechanism he must have found in a well, lowers the dog down four floors to the garden below.
THE CAMERA FOLLOWS THE DOG DOWN. The dogs jumps out of the basket and runs straight to a freshly dug flower bed and starts scratching at the soil.
Back on the balcony the man continues watering his plants.
ALICE
Are you spying on the neighbours again Daddy?
APOCALYPSE DADDY
How do you know about spying?
Apocalypse Daddy lowers the binoculars.
ALICE
In cartoons. In Paw Patrol dogs have to find a naughty man who took pet and put it in a tree.
APOCALYPSE DADDY
I think we should go to school Alice. What do you want to look at today?
ALICE
Can we do colouring?
APOCALYPSE DADDY
What would you like to colour?
ALICE
I mean paint, I’d like to paint Daddy. Can we paint? Can we paint, can we? I promise I’ll only paint on paper.
APOCALYPSE DADDY
What would you like to paint?
INT. LIVING ROOM – NIGHT
Apocalypse Daddy sits in his chair at the window. All the walls are painted with childlike interpretations of fish, cars, dinosaurs and life size characters from Frozen. If you lived here, you would hope the paint was washable. It isn’t.
THE CAMERA PULLS SLOWLY BACK across to the apartment opposite, the focus of Apocalypse Daddy’s attention. The curtains are open and The MAN is back, smoking a cigar casually as he washes his hands at the kitchen sink.
THE CAMERA FOLLOWS HIM into the bedroom where. He drags a large travel trunk across the floor and into the living room. The man places newspaper in the travel trunk and then drags it back out of site. He is gone for a minute and then drags the trunk back into view of Apocalypse Daddy. The man is red faced from exertion.
The man looks straight at Apocalypse Daddy through the half drawn curtains. Apocalypse Daddy lowers the binoculars and shifts his chair back from the window.
EXT. OUTSIDE APARTMENTS
A removals lorry pulls up in the car-park below the apartments opposite. A man in a N95 mask jumps down from the cab, puts on gloves and goes the door of the apartments opposite.
INT. LIVING ROOM
Alice comes running up to Apocalypse Daddy. Apocalypse Daddy lowers the binoculars.
ALICE
I can’t sleep. I had a nightmare. There was a big big big wolf and it ate you Daddy, then Mommy comes with Elsa and three horses and cat with a small frog on its back and they use a snowman and freeze the wolf but it is too late and then.. and then… Daddy? Can I have some cake?
APOCALYPSE DADDY
What time is it? Three a.m.? Perfect time for cake. Grab me a slice too please.
INT. LIVING ROOM – MORNING
Apocalypse Daddy is asleep on the floor, curled up like a cat. Alice is asleep in his chair, upside down, one arm hanging off the side, her head hanging down below the seat. She has a slice of cake in her hand.
Apocalypse Mommy walks in.
The sound wakes Alice. Remaining upside down, she eats the cake.
INT. LIVING ROOM – LATER
ALICE
Can we read Hansel and Gretel?
APOCALYPSE DADDY
Sure.
They read Hansel and Gretel.
ALICE
Why is their Mommy and Daddy so naughty? Can we read The Snail and the Whale?
They read Snail and the Whale.
ALICE
Can we read Funny Bones?
They read Funny Bones.
ALICE
Can we read Richard the Third?
They read Richard the Third.
ALICE
Can we read Snail and the Whale again?
They read Snail and the Whale again.
ALICE
Can we read –
Alice falls asleep.
Apocalypse Daddy sighs. And opens a beer.
INT. LIVING ROOM – NIGHT
Apocalypse Daddy sits at his usual chair. He raises the binoculars to his face.
And JUMPS BACK, SPRINGS to his feet.
INT. APARTMENT OPPOSITE
The Man stands at the window, a GUN pointing straight across Apocalypse Daddy’s apartment. He is holding a sign. It reads: I KNOW YOU KNOW.
…To be continued…