Category: Screenplays

our protagonist, smoking hash, has a conversation with himself

INT. STUDIO APARTMENT – NIGHT

CODY packs and rolls a cigarette paper with hash and ground cannabis flower. The room is redolent with an oily skunkiness. Curtains drawn. Littering the coffee table are books bearing titles like The Occult and Symbols of Freemasonry. He wets his lips, licks the adhesive strip, twists off the joint, and holds it out to light with a Bic. He takes a deep drag and blows 3-5 smoke rings before exhaling fully.

CODY

Feel like we’re losing the plot a little. You want to do what exactly? A history of monetary policy?

CODY (HASH INFUSED)

Man, d’you know how powerful the Federal Reserve is, man? D’you know about Bretton Woods, man? The petro-dollar? And now with COVID as cover, Jay Powell is letting that money printer just brrrr away, man, infusing the securities market with free cash and no aid given to the Little Guy, man. You don’t think that’s worth worrying about?

CODY

Maybe, but, what, we’re gonna be anti-fiat crypto guys? Goldbugs? I don’t like thinking about the market at all.

CODY (HASH INFUSED)

Man, you need to open up your Third Eye, brother.

CODY

Wasn’t the concept of a Third Eye popularized by Blavatsky’s descriptions of the Lemurians? And we all know who loved Theosophy so much they adopted their little cross symbol.

CODY (HASH INFUSED)

You mean the Hindu symbol for “peace”?

CODY

Don’t play dumb, man.

Another long drag off the joint, with a wistful (suspicious?) glance over the shoulder.

CODY (holding in smoke)

Why d’you think Q stopped posting, man?

CODY (HASH INFUSED) (exhaling)

Pssssh, man, how much time you got?

short film for exhibition in a broom closet

INT. OFFICE CUBICLE – DAY

CODY sits at his desk, typing. He pauses briefly to put his head in his hands before looking up again at the computer’s monitor. Onscreen is the text of some bullshit he doesn’t care about.

CODY

The fuck am I supposed to post about on a blog, anyway. Who gives a shit, right? I don’t even read blogs.

More keystrokes, then rapid-fire depression of the BACKSPACE key until the text field is blank.

CODY

What, like, I’m supposed to lay out my beliefs about art, politics, ethics, philosophy? Tell you what I had for lunch? Give juicy details about my sexual proclivities? Explain what Mercury going retrograde in Libra means? Write poems? Share photographs? Tell jokes? Burn bridges? Dramatize my life for the sake of Art while risking my reputation and potentially hurting people? Lie?

The text cursor blinks against a white field. Cody checks the time. Still too many hours left in the day. He sighs.