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Friday 20 March 2009

A Disappearance (1)

“Pleasure or business, so, our souls admit For their first mover, and are whirl'd by it.”
(John Donne, ‘Good Friday, 1613, Riding Westward’)

I.

A busy, noisy East End pub full of lunchtime sights and sounds -jukebox vibrating with Morrissey's 'Spring Heeled Jim', the clink of shot pool balls, numbered meals being called and the clamour of countless shouted conversations.

We focus on Danny seated in the round with his mates downing his pint. We hear the noise of their conversation and laughter without being able to identify any specifics.

Danny is a full head of steam, flash of greased lightening, hit the ground running kind of guy. He is fast, fleet, fly, up to speed. In his work, as a packer, he prides himself on earning the highest bonuses. In any relationship he makes the running. A hustler who forces the pace he has to be given his head. He rides a Harley, not as a purist, but simply to get a ton up. He is one of thousands, puffed up and preening in their macho struttings, little red roosters all.

We see Danny miming to the Morrissey vocal while his mates mime the speaking parts. In the style of a pop video we cut quickly to a series of scenes of the group at the pub at different times of day - arriving on their bikes, girlfriends riding behind - at the pool table - playing darts - dancing on a disco night - ogling a stripper. In each scene Danny is central and miming to the song.

As the song ends we return to the group in the pub, in the round, at lunchtime. We follow Danny's gaze as he scans his mates. He leans back on his chair - hands behind his head, perfectly content - and as he does so he glimpses the clock above the bar.

DANNY: Shit! I'm gonna be late again.

He graps his jacket, vaults across the lap of one of his mates, stops and reaches back to drain the dregs of his pint and vanishes out the pub door. We see him running down the street at high speed before turning a corner.

We catch up with him and view him from the side, his full profile framed, as he weaves in and out of the crowd. His face is flushed. He is clearly running at full pelt.

Suddenly, as he runs his feet disappear from under him. His momentum, for a second, carries him further forward before he falls. We see him sprawl, landing on one knee and flipping onto his back.

Through his eyes we see him grasp his knee with his hands and pull it towards his chest. We can see clearly that there is no foot at the end of his leg. A disbelieving, pained cry escapes from his lips. He pulls himself into a foetal position on his side but with legs extended so that he can see what appears to be his legs petering into nothing. His body jerks in an involuntary grimace as he attempts to physically remove himself from the horror. His legs drag after him and he finds himself unable to stand. He violently turns himself onto his front and is promptly sick. Not caring, he buries his head in his arms and lies prone, his vomit on his arms and in his hair. His mind fills with the picture of the void that had been his feet. He lies numb, his eyes closed shutting out all sight of the incomprehensible reality.

We hear the sounds of a crowd gathering - running footsteps, gasps, "over 'ere, look over 'ere", "don't believe it!", "'e 'ad a fit or what?". Danny glances up, sees a ring of various feet and legs and buries his head back in his arms. He begins to cry.

The sound of his tears is joined by the sobs of another. Someone has come from the crowd and joined him on the pavement. We see long auburn hair covering his face. A woman is bending over him, her dark hair shadowing the pale oval of his face. She has her hand under his arm, embracing him - her face against his - and weeping with him.

We begin to hear an ambulance siren sound in the distance. The sound grows in volume as we watch the woman cradle Danny's face. We hear the ambulance come to a rapid halt and the paramedics leap into action. The crowds part and a gleaming steel stretcher is wheeled alongside Danny.

Danny feels his nostrils twitch as they are teased by strands of hair. He opens his eyes and looks directly into the dark depths of her mahogany eyes wet with compassionate tears. It is a moment sensual with the naturalness of naked concern and restores hope to him.

Two paramedics tread on their poignancy. They hastily check him over for other injuries, lift him onto the stretcher and bundle him into an ambulance that seems to be pulling away even as they slide him in. The siren whirrs like the sound of a helicopter starting up.

Once inside the paramedics cannot not bear to watch a sight that confounds and confuses their knowledge of injury and they quickly cover his legs with a blanket and mutter platitudes to him. Arriving at the hospital they hurriedly wheel him down corridors, clearing patients and visitors out of the way before he is brought through into a private room.

A semi-circle of doctors lean menacingly forward to examine the areas of loss and stark-stare astonished before hurriedly anaesthetizing him. His vision blurs and fades.

He wakes in panic, thrashing his body about on the bed, hands covering his face.

DANNY: Gone, gone. My feet. Vanished. Where? Gone.

A nurse enters his private room, leans backwards out the doorway and calls for the doctor. The doctor arrives rapidly and comes in speaking efficient calmness.

DOCTOR: Now, Mr Sparkes, I'm glad to see you've come round. I can see you're disturbed but let's try to calm down, shall we? Let's try to talk things through rationally, shall we?

When Danny continues thrashing, moaning and begins to open his mouth to protest the sheets are dramatically thrown back and there are his feet, laughing at him as he moves them to and fro to try them out. On his face we see panic turn to amazement. They are undoubtably his feet. He examines them - there is the mole on the side of his right foot. That certainly belongs to him. He smells them - they even smell like his feet.

DANNY: What have you done? Have you sewn them back on?

He looks again - there are no stitch marks that he can see. Suddenly, relief and delight flood his face. He leaps off the bed and begins to dance. As his feet hit the floor and hold his body firm we distinctly here sighs of relief slip from the lips of doctor and nurse. Danny dances over to his shoes and while hopping slips them on. Then he skedaddles from the room. We see him from behind as he runs down the corridor. Before he reaches the end and turns the corner he leaps and punches the air.

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Morrissey - Spring Heeled Jim.

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