The
Prophet
by
Russell
Heller
219 E. 28th St., Apt. 4D
New York, NY 10016
917/375-7431 - russheller@yahoo.com
- www.russheller.com
WGA #974464
BLACK
PHILIP
(v.o.)
The
second I got out there in the open I knew I shouldn't have gone.
Went? Gone.
-
DESERT
DAY
PHILIP,
23-28, not dressed for the desert faces out towards a wide depressing, dirt
colored desert. We see him from
behind, then:
CUT
TO:
PHILIP's
face as he passively surveys the desert.
CUT
TO:
PHILIP
walking, his feet pushing down into the sand.
PHILIP
(v.o.)
I'd
imagined the desert as some sort of glowing hum of golden sand with carts set up
selling locusts and honey. Maybe I
had to be in the Negev for that. I
saw lots of those tumbleweeds, though…
CUT
TO:
Tumbleweed
lazily drags across the screen.
PHILIP
(v.o.)
Warner
Brothers wasn't lying about those.
CUT
TO:
Tumbleweed
is spliced with a cartoon tumbleweed, a la the desert in Wile E. Coyote Cartoons
and continues off the screen.
CUT
TO:
PHILIP,
in profile, walking across dirt, rock and sand.
PHILIP
(v.o.)
I
was very excited when I found my first oasis.
CUT
TO:
Oasis,
ringed with weeds and reeds, a little scummy.
Water, looking like a mini-swamp, is of indeterminate depth.
CUT
TO:
PHILIP
walking on past oasis, leaving tracks in the sand.
PHILIP
(v.o.)
A
bit unimpressed by my first mirage.
CUT
TO:
Puddle
of water on the sand. PHILIP
looking down at it skeptically. He
reaches down and scoops up a handful of sand and pours it back to the ground. Looks around passively.
CUT
TO:
C.O.
PHILIP looking left and right passively.
PHILIP
(v.o.)
I
never should've left the road.
BLACK
-
DESERT
NIGHT
PHILIP
sleeping on sand and rocks at night.
VOICE
(SHARIF)
Hey!
Wake up Man!
PHILIP
looks up to see an Arab that looks like the great Omar Sharif.
PHILIP
Urrr….?
OMAR
SHARIF
Are
you lost?
PHILIP
I
don't think so.
OMAR
SHARIF
Then
what the hell are you doing out on the desert?
Get the hell out of here!
PHILIP
You
seem a little upset.
OMAR
SHARIF
Yeah,
I had compassion for the second, I didn't think you were some idiot dehydrating
for fun. Drink some water.
PHILIP
I
don't know if I want it.
OMAR
SHARIF
Drink
the water or I bury you in the sand.
PHILIP
drinks.
OMAR
SHARIF
Now,
where are you trying to go?
PHILIP
Nowhere
in particular.
OMAR
SHARIF
Okay,
where are you going now that I am going to bury you in the sand if you don't
come up with something better than that?
PHILIP
…East.
OMAR
SHARIF
There
isn't anything to the East.
PHILIP
Good.
OMAR
SHARIF
Now
I think about clubbing you on the head and dragging you to the closest gas
station.
PHILIP
Go
ahead.
OMAR
SHARIF
Look
Man, are you suicidal? You're
talking some pretty dumb shit.
PHILIP
No.
OMAR
SHARIF
Why
are you here?
PHILIP
I
don't really want to think about that right now.
OMAR
SHARIF
No,
Man, I'm asking you how you got here.
PHILIP
My
car overheated.
OMAR
SHARIF
And
you walked out here instead of calling for the tow truck?
PHILIP
…yes.
OMAR
SHARIF
Man,
they shouldn't let people like you go around unsupervised.
-
DESERT
MORNING
OMAR
SHARIF is pointing the way for PHILIP to walk, unbeknownst to PHILIP he is
pointing back north.
OMAR
SHARIF
Now,
you walk that way, you'll find what you want.
CUT
TO:
PHILIP
walking back across the desert.
-
DESERT
NOON
PHILIP
(v.o.)
Things
looked familiar.
CUT
TO:
The
Oasis. From the opposite side,
PHILIP's back as he looks at it.
PHILIP
sits on the edge of the water. His
face has a slight sunburn. A man
(CAL) appears in the distance, coming from the West.
The man is sandy and dirty, 30-35 Caucasian, an Ad Exec type. CAL falls about 20 yards from the oasis and crawls to the
edge, leaving tracks behind him back to where we first glimpsed him.
PHILIP doesn't move. CAL
looks at PHILIP briefly before cupping his hands and drinking. CAL chokes and
coughs some of the water up, then drinks more and rubs his face with it, then
his hair, then he pulls himself forward until he's submerged.
Presumably, the water is deeper than we thought.
Silence, the ripples die away. PHILIP
watches the spot where the man disappeared.
After a minute a reed pierces the surface of the water and water spouts
out of it. Time passes.
The reed retracts. CAL's
head emerges from the water.
CAL
Which
way is the road?
PHILIP
points to the north.
CAL
I
was way off.
CAL
and PHILIP look north.
-
DESERT
AFTERNOON
CAL
dries off on the sand; Philip hasn't moved, he is more sunburned.
CAL turns his head towards and addresses PHILIP.
CAL
Plane.
PHILIP
looks at him.
CAL
Plane
crashed, little Cessna. Crashed at
night. Guess I'd gone farther than
I thought. Name's Cal.
PHILIP
keeps looking at him.
CAL
I
took off from El Paso. I guess I
ran out of gas somewheres south of Lordsburg.
I thought I was west of it.
PHILIP
keeps looking at him. Philip looks
at the tracks he's made in the sand on his progress toward the Oasis.
CAL
Can't
keep my head on straight. Shouldn't
trust that fuel gauge.
CAL
plucks up a handful of the weeds around the oasis and stuffs them in his mouth,
he chews them for a long time, cups some water in one hand and pours it into his
mouth then, with a little difficulty, swallows it all.
PHILIP
Do
you exist?
CAL
smiles a Cheshire Cat smile, his tracks vanish and he vanishes.
Maybe the smile stays for a second.
PHILIP
My
second mirage was more impressive. Or
was he my third?
PHILIP
grabs a handful of weeds and reeds, tears them up and puts them in his mouth,
adds water, chews for a while and swallows, looking where CAL was.
-
DESERT
NIGHT
BLACK
OMAR
SHARIF.
Hey
stupid Man.
PHILIP
(v.o.)
Nope,
"Cal" was just second.
P.O.V.
PHILIP's eyes flickering open to show a night desert and an annoyed OMAR SHARIF.
OMAR
SHARIF
Stupid
Man wake up.
CUT
TO:
PHILIP,
eyes open, lying back from the spot where he was sitting all day.
OMAR
SHARIF
I
tell you go this way. I come back,
you're still here.
PHILIP
I've
been seeing things.
OMAR
SHARIF
Brain
farts. Get out of the desert, you
don't belong here.
OMAR
SHARIF takes out a small trail cake.
OMAR
SHARIF
Eat
this. Now.
PHILIP,
dazed, starts eating it slowly.
OMAR
SHARIF
These
things you see. They come from your
head. Like dreams.
Lot of room up there, lot of things to see, but they come from up there,
not from nowhere else.
PHILIP
I
liked them. I don't remember my
dreams.
OMAR
SHARIF
That's
healthy. You don't remember them is
healthy. You're sick, you remember
them, that should tell you something. You're sicker, you see them when you're
awake. Now get off the desert.
It doesn't want you here; it doesn't want anything to do with you.
Go talk to people now, stop talking to yourself.
OMAR
SHARIF helps PHILIP up. PHILIP is
unsteady, balancing with one hand, munching the cake in the other.
OMAR
SHARIF
Start
walking now.
OMAR
SHARIF points north, gives PHILIP a guiding push.
PHILIP starts walking.
-
DESERT
NIGHT
PHILIP
walking, stumbling, walking.
-
DESERT HIGHWAY
SUNRISE
PHILIP
approaches his car on the side of the deserted Highway.
It is rusty and dusty. He
gets into the car and turns the ignition and it starts up with a roar. He sits there for a second, then looks in the rearview mirror
and gives himself a Cheshire Cat smile. Then
he pulls away and starts driving off to the west.
FADE
TO BLACK.