a reasonable hypothesis

"A Reasonable Hypothesis" by Jack Ferry (c) 2002, All Rights Reserved Title Card - "England. 10 years from now." BLACKNESS. Quietly, a slow irregular rhythm of electronic beeps ring out. LOUD - the steady ringing of a heart monitor gone flatline. VOICES, muffled and almost unintelligible: Two medics in a hospital, rushing to someone’s aid. NURSE ...Three One-Thousand, Four One-Thousand, Five One-Thousand... DOCTOR CLEAR. BOOM. Blinding light, two indiscernible shapes, then... BLACKNESS again. FLATLINE ringing. Muffled voices. DOCTOR (CONT'D) CLEAR. BOOM. Blinding light, two blurry figures of the medics, then... BLACKNESS again. FLATLINE ringing. Muffled voices beginning to fade out. NURSE ...Four One-Thousand, Five One Thousand... DOCTOR CLEAR. BOOM. Blinding light, two distorted faces, mutated demons surrounded by needles, machines, tubes. The blinding light intensifies... QUICK FADE TO WHITE. LOUD FLATLINE slowly fades out as the white screen... FADES TO BLACK. BLACKNESS. SILENCE. Slowly, a steady BEEP BEEP BEEP fades in until it’s a strong healthy rhythm. An EYE shoots open. Everything is blurry and blazing in white. The eye shoots its glance around the room at the nightmarishly distorted shapes of the machines and jagged instruments. MICHAEL, 18, on a table slat, tries frantically to pull himself off the bed. His movements are restricted to small violent spasms. He’s nearly paralysed, and appears to be tied down by wires puncturing his skin, charging his muscles like batteries. The monitor above his head beeps loudly with the same intensity of his convulsions. He begins to choke on the tube down his throat. Blood spits out of his nose. The beeping quickens, like an alarm. Fingers grasp for the edge of the bed. Irregular hissy breaths, struggling to pull oxygen through the miles of tube. Eyes tear, blood red. A person enters the room now, wearing a white lab coat. It exists as a silhouetted figure. It approaches MICHAEL. Suddenly, into the light, IN CLOSE, and through the blur: NURSE HELLO THERE! A gaunt cockney woman with big crooked teeth. This sends MICHAEL into a blind panic, though he can barely move, captive to his paralysis. NURSE (CONT’D) Let’s get this out, shall we? See if we can’t do it on our own, ey? The NURSE grips the tube that is down his throat and slowly slides it out of his mouth with a fluid violence. MICHAEL chokes as he tries to catch his breath. The room spins. Panic beeps so quick they blend together like machine gun fire. This activates an automated IV. Versed slugs down a tube into MICHAEL’s arm. NURSE (CONT’D) Uh oh. Nighty night. Blurry peace. Eyes close. FADE TO BLACK... (c) 2002, John F. Ferry, All Rights Reserved.