CONVERSATION WITH A DEAD MAN
BY
BRIAN FOSTER
05/05/2005
FADE UP
INT. HALLWAY:
The hallway looks run down and dingy. A man enters from far end of the hallway and walks up to the door close to camera.
CUT TO:
CLOSE UP DOOR
The Door number is 917
The man knocks on the door.
CUT TO:
WIDE SHOT HALLWAY
The man looks around pauses and then knocks again.
EXT ROOM HALLWAY:
The door opens.
The room is dark. The only light comes from a window on the far side of the room. The light coming covered window is just enough to light the old man. All we see is an outline of him sitting at a cheap card table. The rest of the room is void of future except for the cheap card table and two metal chairs.
YOUNG MAN
Hello? This is the right place? I’m....
OLD MAN
I know who you are.
(pause)
Please come in.
The Young man enters the room.
INT. ROOM:
OLD MAN
Are you afraid of the unknown?
YOUNG MAN
No. Are you Mr. ... ah, Mr. Delevega?
The old man isn’t amused one bit.
OLD MAN
It’s pronounced DelaLaVega.
YOUNG MAN
Ok, this is cool. The mood of this place is awesome.
The desolate Hotel. The late hour. The mysterious man
with an exotic name. It’s all very interesting. Like it
was all ripped right out of an old pulp novel or
something. Ah, can I turn on the lights Light.
OLD MAN
Darkness is very comforting. One can loose who they are
in it. Everyone at one point in their lives have that
need to shed who they are. To feel different. The
Darkness does that for me.
YOUNG MAN
Ya right.
The young man switches on the lights for the room. A sole light hangs right above the cheap card table. For the first time we see the old man’s face. He looks like he has the worlds probmem etched into his face.
The young man enters the room and closes the door behind him. He sits at the only other chair in the room.
YOUNG MAN
I thought you would be older.
(Uneasy pause)
Well, I want to thank you fir all the E-mails and Phone
Calls. It’s given me the basic groundwork for my
history thesis. I can’t explain how wonderful it was
when I found you on the internet. To think you and I
have the same interest in possible alternate world war
two out comes. Until I met you, I thought I was biggest
nerd about the subject. I was getting the feeling that
that no one else takes the subject as serious as I
have.
The Young man starts to take a laptop out of his back pack
OLD MAN
You mean... DO. The one thing I’ve learn is knowing the
differences between present tense and past tense.
YOUNG MAN
At times I get so rapped up in the subject that I loose
all sense of grammar. Sometimes passion does that.
OLD MAN
History is my passion, my curse.
(pause)
You came here on your own free will. I didn’t force you
to come, Thank you.
YOUNG MAN
The ideas you touched on in our last phone call... it’s
like nothing I heard before. If there is one thing I’ve
learn is when my gut tells me I will learn something, I
go with it and I’ve never been wrong before.
OLD MAN
Theories. You like my theories.
YOUNG MAN
But before I get ahead of myself... I need to get this
thing up and running.
The Laptop hums to life.
YOUNG MAN
Why all the secretcy? You know how hard it was to find
this place? It’s in the middle of nowhere.
OLD MAN
Really? Your passion for history must not concern
neighborhoods. At one time this hotel was at the middle
of a thriving neighborhood. People cared about this
neighborhood because of their homes, because of their
loved ones.
YOUNG MAN
There, all ready.
OLD MAN
I fully understand that some things aren’t of interest
to you.
YOUNG MAN
No, not at all. So this place was once special. Doesn’t
look like it anymore.
OLD MAN
You said you have a passion for history. This place has
history.
YOUNG MAN
My interests for history are theories about World War
Two. Not some old building.
OLD MAN
There is where you will fail. History is not just a
single event. This building was built before World War
Two.
(Takes a deep breath)
I can get sidetracked, sorry. You need to know that
everything has a history... These chairs we that we sit
in, that computer, and this building have all have a
center, a starting point, a history. The chairs we sit
in where built and have a story how they got into this
room. This building was assembled one brick at a time.
And every brick has a story. Even you, my young scholar
have a history. It started when you where born,
correct?
YOUNG MAN
I’m not sure where you’re going with this…
OLD MAN
History. You’re sitting there as I am here. You have a
starting point called being born while myself, I’m here
and I haven’t yet. You grew up, went through school had
man torrid love affairs, found a love of history and
became a history major and this brings you to interview
me.
YOUNG MAN
Did you say you haven’t been born yet?
OLD MAN
With the current time line as it flows, I was never
born.
YOUNG MAN
How is that possible?
OLD MAN
I’m here am I not? Let me explain myself. Remember you
like my theories about time.
YOUNG MAN
I rather talk about theories about world war two not
theories about time.
OLD MAN
That’s it, TIME, it’s all about time. TIME IS
EVERYTHING. It was brought us together. It’s what holds
everything together. It binds everything. It keeps
everything in order.
In truth, that is what time is for, to keep everything
in check. Time is the ultimate task master. Time is a
fickle thing. It’s like playing with fire it. It maybe
unstoppable, but it has its weakness.
YOUNG MAN
Sounds like Star Wars Mumbo Jumbo to me.
OLD MAN
How can I tell a caveman about surfing the internet? To
me, time is only a means to an end. Not that there is
an end. It’s Endless but not unattainable.
YOUNG MAN
Again can we get back to theories about world war
two...
OLD MAN
Allow me one more idea.
(pause)
Do you know that your world’s level of technology is to
the point of obtaining the gift of a time path. Only
your era is too arrogant and will over look it. Even a
poor marksmen will hit the target at some point.
For every action, there are consequences. Ripples. And
like ripples in a pond, you can never map out where the
ripples will go. How they will collide with each other.
How they change the surface of the water.
You want theories about the war. Let’s try that old
theory about traveling back in time and killing Hitler.
The young man starts to type in his book. The man fronds.
OLD MAN
Would you go back and kill the man that caused the
deaths of six million Jews?
The Young man looks up from his laptop.
YOUNG MAN
Well, given the theory of a machine could travel back
in time, yes.
OLD MAN
Good. And what is your theory of how time will react to
your action? Will that stop the killing of sixty
million souls?
The Young man thinks.
YOUNG MAN
It’s possible, with that theory, it would either stop
world war two or worse case scenario would delay the
war.
OLD MAN
Your theory is flawed. Time will laugh in your face.
For me, that old theory about traveling back in time
and killing Hitler isn’t a theory. It’s a fact.
The boy slows his note taking but continues.
Young Man
How is it a fact?
OLD MAN
Here me out. I need you to hear this. I went back but I
didn’t kill that man himself
(pause)
I felt that I needed to go further back and I killed
his father while he was still a teen.
YOUNG MAN
Retro Abortion?
OLD MAN
You’re a smart young man. I hit my mark but the
ripples… I didn’t… couldn’t expect would lead me to
this room and you. I removed one man, one evil
despicable man and fate wouldn’t let me save anyone.
YOUNG MAN
Under Different leadership, Germany would have been a
different country.
OLD MAN
No, after world war one; nothing could have changed
Germany’s fate. When I removed the devil I knew, fate
replaced him with another devil.
The Devil I knew was named VonStine. Not Hitler. I had
the chance to meet General Hitler in 1947. He has a
wicked sense of humor.
YOUNG MAN
1947? But...
OLD MAN
I met him in German Occupied New York.
The man you’ve read about and the one I know are the
same, only there was a greater evil that Hitler and his
name was VonStine. Erik VonStine rose though the ranks
of the National Socialist German Workers party, he
forced his way into the level of Further on Germany.
YOUNG MAN
Alternative worlds with alternative players, good.
OLD MAN
What you know about Hitler and his brutal dictatorship
is Childs play compared with VonStine his wrath.
Germany by 1935 had invaded most of Europe. In 1939
Germany had declared war on and won victory over The
United States of America. It only took two years....
YOUNG MAN
Ok Ok, How does that theory pan out?
The old man thinks. His eyes show nothing of what he is thinking.
OLD MAN
VonStine is considered the great communicator. His ties
to the Russian higher archery is legendary. This lead
to Russia to enter the War on Germany’s Side.
YOUNG MAN
Is?
The old man looks at the young man.
YOUNG MAN
You said is as in present tense. You mean "did".
OLD MAN
Past tense, Future tense, all depends on when you are
on the time line.
YOUNG MAN
Ok, there has to be more details that one man’s ability
to sway a foreign nation.
OLD MAN
The devil is always in the details. That’s a story for
another day.
YOUNG MAN
So you go back and kill the father of this VonStine guy
that changes the course of the war to what I know as
what happened?
OLD MAN
You have a good hold of the facts. The ripples that I
started with that murder altered facts that I knew
about the world. The very fact that my knowledge of the
time path in and of it’s self survived the ripple is
something I didn’t expect. I was foolish. I found
myself in a bubble created by the time path radiant
Energy. Because of my actions I became a man with out a
past. With out a family, with out a history.
YOUNG MAN
By changing history you caused something to affect your
birth? But how...
OLD MAN
The time bubble created by the time path protected me.
Like a womb.
YOUNG MAN
I don’t know if that theory can hold any water. It’s
like saying you traveled back in time to kill your
Grandfather. You should just pop out of existence.
OLD MAN
"Plummeting downward for an eternity, my silent screams
decry the happiness of yesterday’s child. While the
nemesis of my tomorrow peers cruelly, from behind drawn
curtains of time..."
YOUNG MAN
What is that from?
OLD MAN
Something only I know from a world that doesn’t exist.
The Young man writes in his laptop.
OLD MAN
You find this all fascinating?
YOUNG MAN
Yes. Talking with you is always interesting. First the
E-mails where fascinating. Then talking with you via
the phone was out of this world. Now having you and I
face to face is well worth my time. Pardon the pun.
OLD MAN
I’m sorry to hear that. I will have to say that our
chats have helped me greatly.
YOUNG MAN
That’s good. I like the idea of helping people... Why
are you sorry?
OLD MAN
I’m human. I’ve needed to talk about what I’ve done. I
don’t get to "DO" this that often. You think what I’ve
told you are theories, they are not. They are the
truth. Do you think I can just talk to just anyone
about the things I’ve told you.
YOUNG MAN
I guess not. That must mean I’m really special then?
OLD MAN
In many ways, you are.
YOUNG MAN
Why me?
The old man takes out a hand gun and aims it point blank at the young man’s forehead.
OLD MAN
I can only have this conversation with a dead man.
The old man fires the gun.