User:Guido/Wishlist/Part 2
WISHLIST PART 2
(back to a close-up on konoko’s face, as she stays defiant)
- TEXT
- One year before
- OLDMAN (from off-panel)
- -- Fear got the best of you, Konoko.
- (As we zoom out we see there are many other individuals around her, they look like an assortment of thugs: they are a grey mob in a brown sloppy square. KONOKO shares their
samewretched color. They are all panting, after a first blunter. Most of them are turning their backs in our direction.) - KONOKO
- Won’t you ever stop cheating me? (grinning, beaten up)
- I am sick of this! (is this a brawl or a training?)
- OLDMAN (stolid face – mid 50s)
- I can only show you a path: you are free to follow it, or to reject it as usual.
- --You simply cannot carry with you this little girl.
- She can’t get anywhere your way.
- KONOKO
- I know what the men like you can do--
- (coughs ! as a kick smashes into her belly.)
- (spits out)
- (raises her head, she gazes directly at OLDMAN 's eyes)
-
- (By now I can’t help figuring him as a combination of traits from Liam Neeson and Hugh Laurie)
--I found her! -- she was still alive! She needed to breathe and I gave her the air, and she needs your water now! (growing upset) She deserves my help, not yours!�?
- The place appears something like a former rail depot area in the middle of nowhere.
- There are several containers left, and probably a number of barracks or few improvised buildings.
- The anonymous plain fades out into a dusty mist a mile away from the brawl.
OLDMAN (he is perched on a small container –the small girl sits on his side. She is clearly afraid, as she knows no one but Konoko. Oldman observes the mess below in silence, then he rouses suddenly--) Gentlemen! I said not one by one! Hit her all at once. She is starving: I know the lady, she cannot dodge forever everything you throw her way.
KONOKO: (she finally manages to knock down her first man, but she receives in turn a whole range from behind)
OLDMAN: (LOUDLY)You can teach me how to confront fifteen men, Konoko, but I can show you how to fire their motivation.
KONOKO: (…too busy to reply) (enraged) --
OLDMAN (he calmly looks at the small girl: she looks terribly ill)- Cloe, this is your name, isn’t it? (his speech overlays Konoko’s curses) Well -- Cloe, are you afraid of us?
SMALLGIRL: (shakes her head, she’s unconvincing)
OLDMAN: (now apprehensive) Hasn’t she been telling you all those stories about bravery and courage?
SMALLGIRL: (nods very slowly, with hesitation)
OLDMAN: Bravo! Do you see? There’s nothing to be ashamed of when you say the truth. -- Now, has she been kind with you?
SMALLGIRL: Yes -- but she seems so distant, sometimes.
(the brawl has just ended: KONOKO and five opponents lay on the ground. (exhausted, groaning).
- (small hiatus, Oldman has probably ordered his men to clear the field)
- (SMALLGIRL stands apart but from her distance she cannot hear their words)
- (We see the other ones helping their pals and carrying away the two of them who cannot stand up. Konoko is breathing deeply, closing her eyes- she looks as miserable as ever in defeat)
OLDMAN (laughs, as he approaches to her) (he is sincerely amused, there is no malevolence in his voice) No-- Emery, let her be -- (EMERY forgoes taking his “compensation�? for a broken lip)
EMERY: “-- Sir.�?
- (In the background)
MR. FAULKERS (cannot conceal his disapproval to EMERY, as they go away): “Shouldn’t we end it?�?
- (in the foreground)
OLDMAN: (to KONOKO, after a pause) You are a freak. (still amused) The more you want to seem serious to me, the more you make yourself funny.
KONOKO: Why —(groans) why don’t you stop haunting me!?
(takes another breath, her nose is bleeding)
OLDMAN: Have you asked yourself why I am so respected even by people I’ve never seen before?
-- No… it is not the money they are given --
our governments only want us to remember why we need them –but now at edge of oblivion--many have realized that a promise of order and peace is no more enough, and there are no more protectors we can commit our obedient consent.(This one will go in another scene... it is redundant here: guido)
- KONOKO (painfully raises on her knees)
- Return to your Syndicate nest, instead of wasting your time after me!
- I’ve never been your puppet!!!
- OLDMAN
- Oh... (crouches) in the matter of company, your choices have been (getting equivocal) a bit questionable…
(thoughtful) (leaning over) take this and clean your face…
(very short pause)
- OLDMAN
- (lowers his voice) honestly, I am not bothering you any more
- But these eyes remember you
- standing in front of that mech.
- The anger that drove you…
- (a nightmarish vision of Konoko confronting and taming Gerion)
- (Seeing KONOKO hesitate)
- Now, how do you think you can persuade me,
- By saying you’d like to be a paramedic?
- I can’t let yourself rot here,
- or protect forever a child.
- V.O.
- You are crafting a place where nothing more can happen.
- Well, do you want to bring her with you? (emphasizing) Is it because she reminds you of someone you have lost? Keep her, then! But, when will you decide she is ready to go, heh?
- Why do I fail you?
- OLDMAN
- Look at yourself, you can barely stand. And what you get every day is people biting your face.
- Injustice?
- Take it for yourself!
- Now give your farewell to that girl.
- (small hiatus)
- OLDMAN
- ... (sweetly, taking SMALLGIRL 's hand, and drawing her close to Konoko) Come here, Cloe. Tell your friend where I promised you to go.
- (SMALLGIRL stands right in front of KONOKO, who remains on her knees. KONOKO slowly plunges her face in the thick coat of SMALLGIRL.)
- SMALLGIRL
- Why are you weeping? After all, he offers us to stay in a nice flat.
- OLDMAN
- (to KONOKO) She is not leaving you, if you wish.
- (pause)
- But this place is slowly poisoning her.
- Consider this even.