EGO DEATH (short film)

EXT. THE BACKYARD -DAY

The girl sits on the ground in her backyard with a glass of water beside her and several shroom pills. One of her hands holds a weed pen that she slowly takes a long drag of before setting down.

The girl grabs the glass of water and one of the pills. Slowly and intentionally, she begins to swallow down each pill, one at a time, each accompanied by a large swallow of water. When she runs out of pills she tosses the rest of the water back, letting her head fall back onto her shoulders and allowing some of the excess water to spill out of her mouth and down her neck.

After draining the glass the girl sits up. She swipes away the droplets of water with a careless swipe of her hand as she rises and crosses to the corner of the yard where her phone and ipad rest on the outdoor end of her AC unit. She carefully sets the empty glass down next to the devices before picking up the ipad to turn on music. Renee Rapp’s “Snow Angel” album begins to play. Smiling to herself she sets the ipad back down before grabbing her phone.

Holding her phone the girl slowly walks back to the patch of ground she started in. When she gets there she lays down on the ground, face turned upwards towards the sky.

Time passes as the girl lays on the ground watching videos on her phone. Renee Rapp continues to play in the background throughout the rest of the scene. At some point a visible shift begins to come over the girl. The girl begins to get restless, moving around, and shifting positions on the ground.

She eventually makes her way to a seated position, setting the phone down beside her and taking a long moment to stare at the plants and the metal garbage can before her. The girl’s stare becomes more intensely focused the longer she remains seated there staring at the trash can. She begins to grow visibly agitated, looking around and shifting, drawing her knees in towards her chest and rocking.

As the song playing reaches it’s crescendo, the girl too seems to hit a peak. She begins to cry, at first her grief and pain seem to be releasing in a rather small and “contained” manner; however things quickly escalate. The girl ends up sobbing, her body wracked with pain and heaving with her grief, reduced to her most primal and raw, animalistic state.

While on all fours, gasping for breath, the girl looks up and her eyes once again lock on that same focal point on the trash can that she was fixated on before. With her eyes locked on that focal point, the girl takes a slow and deliberate breath. Her body stills and settles, the restless twitches of her fingers and toes pausing. She takes another breath, this one is even bigger than the first and she holds it for a long moment before releasing it with a loud sigh.

Shifting her way back to her seated position in front of the trash can, the girl keeps her eyes locked on that focal point with a slight smirk on her face. Once settled into her seated position, the girl proceeds to take several more deep breaths. As she does so, she begins to move her body, arching and curving her spine in conjunction with the movement of breath in her body. She continues this until the current song reaches it’s end, at which point she stills, once again fixated on that trash can’s focal point that only she can see.

A smirk stretches across her face as the next song begins to play. Still seated she turns her head, catching a glimpse of her reflection in the house’s windows. She smiles at her reflection as her body begins to groove and move to the music.

The music seems to overtake her body now, causing the girl to rise up from the ground. She blows a kiss to the trash can as she stands up while already free flowing dancing and moving to the music.

The girl winds up spinning and dancing around in the backyard while songs from Renee Rapp’s “Snow Angel” continue playing. She interacts with her reflection in the dirty window and the various plants she comes into contact with while she dances and plays freely.

“Swim” by Renee Rapp comes on and the girl begins excitedly dancing. She strikes silly and playful poses and jumps around while making flirtatious and silly faces at her reflection. She winds up spinning around in circles, laughing and twirling her arms around her like a young child. As she’s spinning and laughing the energy begins to slowly change in her. She eventually comes to a complete standstill, staring at her reflection in the window.

LIZZIE

“I’ll spend my entire life trying to recapture and explain this one moment and everything it encaptured and explained”

After speaking to her reflection her energy visibly shifts again, returning to the playful childlike energy she started the song with. The girl takes a moment and grins at her reflection before resuming her playful dancing.

The songs continue and the girl continues moving around to the music. Her energy varies from moment to moment as she visibly is ruminating on things while interacting with the music and her environment.

A spark, a burst of energy lights her up out of seemingly nowhere, causing her to suddenly dive for her phone. Grabbing her phone she throws herself onto the ground. At first she sits, hunched over her phone and furiously typing away, but as time goes on she winds up on her back in a more relaxed pose. Her arms above her holding the phone and still typing away but now at a more leisurely pace. She reviews, rereads and makes edits and adjustments to what she’s written, smiling and muttering under her breath as she reads what she’s written aloud.

When she’s finished with her impromptu writing session, the girl sets her phone down beside her and takes a moment to stare up at the sky above her. Rolling over onto her side she finds herself face to face with that trash can focal point she was fixated over with before. As she curls her body into a relaxed fetal pose she stares calmly and dispassionately at the trash can.

As the current song slowly begins to reach it’s end, a smile stretches across the girl’s face

FADE OUT.

THE END