“Things that were hard to bear are sweet to remember.”
Fade in:
EXT. GARDEN – EARLY MORNING
C/U – Bees flying from flower to flower collecting pollen.
The camera pans into the sky revealing: first a garden given back to nature, then a deserted city, like a million others scattered around the globe, empty, devoid of human life. A flock of birds is startled and flies into the blue, morning sky.
INT. BEDROOM – MORNING
Toys are scattered across the floor of a bedroom. A pair of jeans hangs from a bedside table. APOCALYPSE DADDY (40, handsome, muscular, like James Bond) and APOCALYPSE MOMMY (36, beautiful, sanguine, like Elizabeth Taylor) sleep. A leg sticks out from under the duvet.
INT. ALICE’S BEDROOM – SAME TIME
ALICE (3, nearly 4) is sleeping. How she can sleep in such a contorted position is known only to small children. She is upside down, her head hanging off the bed, her legs up the wall. She is hugging a model camper van.
EXT. LONDON – MORNING
A lone cat walks through the empty city, across Trafalgar Square, past Westminster, along the South Bank. Shops shuttered, cars abandoned.
EXT. PARIS – MORNING
We follow a police car as it drives down the deserted Champs Elysée, past the empty luxury boutiques on Rue Rivoli, across the Pont Neuf and into the winding side streets of Saint-Michel.
EXT. CAPE TOWN – MORNING
A nurse glances up at Table Mountain as she hurries to her car.
EXT. CHENNAI – MORNING
A pack of stray dogs fight as they run down the narrow, empty alleyways of the world’s biggest slum.
EXT. QUITO – MORNING
A solitary condor soars high above the empty city.
INT. ALICE’S BEDROOM – MOMENTS LATER
Alice opens her eyes, leaps out of bed and starts piling toys into a plastic shopping trolley. As she does this she speaks to herself, creating a story only she knows. If you could hear her, you wouldn’t be able to follow it. She laughs as she places a toy oven in the trolley.
INT. BEDROOM – SAME TIME
Apocalypse Daddy and Apocalypse Mommy are still asleep. Smiling and dribbling like imbeciles.
INT. MEDICAL LABORATORY
BRIGHT light shines down from the ceiling of a medical lab, the height of cleanliness and hygiene. At separate microscopes, two
scientists gaze down at Petri dishes, adjusting the zoom as they search for clues.
INT. EMMANUEL MACRON’S OFFICE, PARIS
A grim-faced EMMANUEL MACRON studies a calendar, turns the page to June and draws a big red question mark on the 5th June.
INT. BEDROOM
Alice RUNS through the door pushing her shopping trolley full of toys. The shopping trolley hits the bed, the toys are jettisoned out over the bed, across the floor. The oven SMASHES into the left temple of Apocalypse Daddy.
APOCALYPSE DADDY
(…inaudible moaning…)
ALICE
Mommy, Daddy, are you awake?
Apocalypse Mommy sits up in bed. She looks at the blood on Apocalypse Daddy’s face. Smiles.
APOCALYPSE MOMMY
Daddy is.
Apocalypse Daddy rolls over. He groans.
APOCALYPSE DADDY
What day is it?
ALICE
Monday.
APOCALYPSE DADDY
Wasn’t yesterday Saturday? Or Wednesday. Alice, if today is Sunday, what day is tomorrow?
ALICE
Dimanche.
APOCALYPSE DADDY
No.
ALICE
Yes.
APOCALYPSE DADDY
What day follows Sunday?
ALICE
Sunday.
APOCALYPSE DADDY
What day was yesterday?
ALICE
Can we play Play Doh? I have some here.
Alice rubs yellow Play Doh into the bed sheets.
APOCALYPSE MOMMY
We need a plan for whatever day it is.
ALICE
Thursday.
APOCALYPSE MOMMY
I thought yesterday was Tuesday?
ALICE
Play Doh.
APOCALYPSE MOMMY
What shall we make?
ALICE
The Eiffel Tower.
Apocalypse Daddy continues to speak from beneath the duvet.
APOCALYPSE DADDY
We can build the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The Colossus of Rhodes, the Eiffel Tower, the pyramids of Giza. Alice, go and build the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Come and get us when you’ve finished.
ALICE
Look, I made a poo.
Apocalypse Daddy forces himself to sit up. We don’t know that he knows it is important to encourage creativity. (Hey show, not tell, right?)
Alice rubs brown Play Doh into the bed sheets. Blood continues to pour from Apocalypse Daddy’s left temple.
EXT. SOMEWHERE IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN
Red tuna swim in a shoal. As they flicker and dart around, glistening in the clear blue water, their number grows.
A montage: Fifty tuna.
Two hundred.
A thousand.
EXT. ANCHORAGE, ALASKA. SUBURBS
A herd of polar bear walk down the empty suburban streets.
EXT. ROME – MORNING
A nurse cycles around the Colosseum. She is chased by Eagles, cawing as they grab her hair.
INT. LIVING ROOM – DAY
Your first thought is a burglary. You can’t see the floor for toys, crayons, paint brushes and teddy bears. It used to be a living room. Chairs are upturned. The table is on its side, the wall for a den. Pictures and photos on the wall are at strange angles. Crumbs and cake and crisps fill the gaps.
ALICE
Daddy, look, I made the Statue of Zeus at Olympia out of all the pots and pans.
APOCALYPSE MOMMY
Looks more like the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. They’ll probably need to rebuild that.
ALICE
I love you Mommy.
APOCALYPSE MOMMY
I love you too. But you still need to tidy up.
To be Continued….