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TITLES EXPLODE TO WHITE

FADE TO:

EXTREME CLOSEUP ON ROB, WAKING UP AT HIS DESK, IN HIS APARTMENT

Rob is an intense young man who wears a perpetual frown. He lives in a small apartment which is crowded with machine parts all intertwined into a single, haphazard computer. Rob effectively lives inside this computer.

Rob fixes coffee and goes immediately back to work. He uses a power screwdriver/drill to attach new, unlikely parts to the ever expanding machine.

Back at his desk, facing the machine, Rob goes to work on the computer. Monitors flicker in response. He uses several keyboards, switching back and forth at a manic pace.

One component of the machine is something that looks a lot like a microwave oven. Rob takes random objects from a pile on the floor and places them in the microwave, then hits some buttons.

The microwave fills with light. The monitors pulse. The computer kicks out a printout which Rob studies grimly.

From OS we hear a knock on the door. Rob looks out the peep-hole and sees DEBBIE, a very pretty girl of about ROB’s age. She is smiling expectantly. Rob leans against his side of the door.

After a beat, Rob changes his mind and starts frantically undoing the locks on his door. By the time he gets the door open, DEBBIE is gone.

EXT. CHINATOWN. DAY.

ROB walks along briskly, clearly uncomfortable in the presence of crowds.

INT. GROCERY STORE.

An aisle crowded with strange products, garish packaging. ROB shuffles along, overwhelmed.

EXT. PARK. DAY.

ROB is on his way home laden with plastic shopping bags. From OS we hear a honking sound. ROB turns and sees SULLY, a clown, sitting in front of a checkerboard.

Rob stops to play checkers with Sully.

The checker game is over. ROB gets up to leave. As he walks away we hear SULLY’s horn. ROB turns to find that the checkers have been arranged on the board in the shape of a smiley face. ROB hurries away.

In beat with the word “pattern” ROB glances down and sees trash on the street arranged into a smiley face.

In beat with the word “Pattern” ROB sees an ashtray with the cigarette butts arranged into a smiley face. ROB is approaching the entrance to his building, a dingy ex-hotel.

In beat with the word “God” we hear, from OS, a woman’s voice.

Debbie is walking toward the camera covered in smiley-faces: a smiley face t-shirt, smiley-face hand-bag, seductively licking a smiley-face lollipop. Rob stares; stunned, appalled, baffled, then scurries into the building.

INT. ROB’S APT.

Rob snaps all the locks, makes coffee, is preparing to get back to work on the computer when his attention is arrested by the computer printout, abandoned on the desk.

INT. A CLUTTERED CLOSET

Rob takes a microscope down from a top shelf. We see through the microscope: random letters on the printout. Switch to a higher and higher magnification. The letters are made up of hundreds of tiny smiley-faces.

ROB’S POV

We see PLATO, the computer. Up until this point we have only seen parts of the machine. Now that we see it entire we see that with monitors for eyes and keyboards arrayed in a grin it forms a giant smiley face. Rob tries to tear the smile apart. In the process he dislodges the power drill which he was using earlier to build the computer. It falls from a top shelf.

EXTREME CLOSEUP ON ROB’S FACE, LOOKING UP

EXTREME CLOSEUP ON THE DRILL, FALLING TOWARD HIM

FADE TO WHITE

THEN FADE TO:

Rob and Sully sitting in the park. Rob has a bandage on his head and an enormous, vacant smile on his face.