The Physicist

7/27/2019 The Physicist

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BLACK SCREEN

Repeated SOUNDS of duct tape being drawn and cut, and a MAN BREATHING HEAVILY as he

exerts himself. The SOUND stops and is replaced by the sound of the MAN ascending stairs.

The SOUND of a tape deck PLAY BUTTON being depressed and the reels beginning to turn.

INT. HOUSE HALLWAY - DAY

The MAN emerges from the door to the basement and moves out of frame. The door swings shut.Linger on the door for a moment.

MAN (vo - he is vo throughout, speaking on the tape)

I am not me. I am the physicist, and I am an analyst

of feet and fish.

INT. DINING TABLE - DAY

The MAN places a roll of duct tape on the table and removes flowers one by one from a vase on the

table. He methodically removes flower petals from the flowers as if playing "she loves me, sheloves me not". On the table is a framed photograph of a young man in toga and mortar board,

holding a scroll. The photo, like all the photos shown, appears to be from the Victorian era and isaged.

MAN (vo)I am also a thief. I have been convicted. I have supplied

secrets of atomic research to the flowers, to the armiesof the little flowers.

The MAN gathers the petals carefully into his hand, the stalks in the other, and goes into thekitchen.

INT. KITCHEN - DAY

The MAN's hands place a small fresh fish onto a chopping board. The MAN proceeds to gut andclean the fish. He removes the fish's innards and then piles them neatly on a white plate. He chops

the head off the fish. He carefully removes the eyes. He places the head and the eyes on top of theentrails. He chops off the tail. He places the tail with the other offal.

MAN (vo)I am the son of the Founding Bass, the first fish. The deepest

fish of the deepest sea. He was the leader of furies of fish, myfather. I was born inside a kitten, inside a kitten by the sea.

Educated at the best schools for cats and kittens, by the salty sea.

I studied my entrails at Trinity College in Cambridge, and I readhepatomancy. I achieved a first. A first in liver-divination and in

the way that your blood pools in your feet.

The MAN, having completed his task, stands and stares at the kitchen clock as it ticks over to five

past the hour.

INT. BASEMENT - DAY


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A WOMAN is seated on a chair in front of a low coffee table. She is wearing old-fashioned, antiqueclothing and a long-outmoded headdress with a large feather. Her face is inexpertly made up, very

garish and heavy, and she has a large, untended and bruised wound on her forehead. She is

blindfolded, gagged, and duct taped to the chair.

MAN (vo)In your feet when you sleep.

INT. KITCHEN - DAY

The MAN sprinkles the flower petals over the offal and carefully places the stalks of the flowers, asif garnishing a gourmet dish. He throws the cleaned, edible portion of the fish into the trash.

CUT TO oatmeal being poured into a bowl. Then milk is poured in. Then the mixture is swiftlystirred together. CUT TO a latex glove being inflated and waggled. CUT TO the MAN's hands

spooning, with his fingers, the oatmeal mix into the latex glove until the glove is filled with the

mixture and holds its shape.

MAN (vo)I studied doctors, I became one. I studied doctoral studies under

the tables of Sir Owen's bones, and I studied his feet, where theblood is pooling. Fat meaty feet.

The MAN lays the rubber glove on the counter, palm upwards, and places the plate of entrails intothe palm of the glove.

INT. SITTING ROOM - DAY

The MAN scans a bookshelf. All of the books are children's books. He takes one out, a treasury ofchildren's verse or a compendium of fairy tales, or similar. He seats himself and idly pages through

the book, pausing occasionally to linger on a particular image or verse.

MAN (vo)

I joined the clitoris party. The Clitoris Party, which isthe supreme soviet of clitori. I lectured in London, once,

on clitori. On removing clitori and sauteeing them in theblood from the feet. I have been active in the National

Association of Cats and Clitori. Clitorises. I am a member.

The MAN snaps the book shut.

INT. BEDROOM - DAY

The MAN kneels beside a small locked kist. He unlocks it and takes out a plastic baby doll, thenreplaces the baby doll with the book he has just been reading. He carries the baby doll to the

bathroom.

INT. BATHROOM - DAY

The MAN perches the baby doll on the edge of the sink and runs water into the sink. He proceeds to

meticulously wash the baby doll, carefully cleaning the creases and folds, between the toes, under


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the arms.

MAN (vo)

During World War 2 I painted hake and plaice onto the sides of

people's faces. I was in demand everywhere. I was a celebratedshowman, with my brushes of paint, and my cat's feet, full of

blood. Cat's feet and a sack of clitorises.

EXTREME CLOSE UP of the MAN washing the crotch of the baby doll.

MAN (cont.)

Clitorisees.

The man dries the baby doll and then makes it up with blush, eye-shadow and lipstick. He is

attentive to detail and works with precision. He continues to speak:

MAN (cont.)

I attempted to use photography to detect fish and cats andclitorises, in my feet. But my feet were too small. One can

never find one's feet. Can one? Faster than the blood infeet, are the atomic flowers. Radioactive decay. I found

this out, as the son of the Founding Bass of atomic flowers.

INT. BASEMANT - DAY

The WOMAN in the chair is struggling, trying to wrestle herself free, but she is very weak. An

old-fashioned speaker is visible behind her head: the source of the voice.

MAN (vo)

And for my discovery I was recruited. To work on what ispossible.

INT. BEDROOM - DAY

The MAN places the baby doll in a seated position on the bed, leaning against the pillows. On thebedside table is a framed, battered, grainy, black and white photo of the MAN posing in the attitude

and attire of a Victorian gentleman.

MAN (vo)I was brought in by people. To work on these things. In heavywater.

INT. TOILET - DAY

The MAN washes his feet in the toilet. He washes and dries them with great care.

MAN (vo)Under the heavy water. As the only cat son of the first

fish. In the water. I was part of a team of British bottom

feeders. I was their director. I ran the directorate. I checkedtheir feet daily for the blood in their feet and for concealed

fish. Congealed flesh. Clitorises. Some had them.


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INT. BATHROOM - DAY

The MAN washes his hands in the same basin where he washed the baby doll. The fluid in the basin

is green and sludgy, containing visible solids. The MAN washes his hands and dries them with thesame attention to detail as he washed his feet.

MAN

I built a large reactor made of blackboard chalk. It was the

first of its kind. Fish lauded it. It was applauded. Thisoccurred in Montreal. It happened there. I then left. And went

back to lecture. I lectured upon minutiae and trivia. I lapsed.

CUT TO a view of the MAN staring blankly at the wall for several seconds.

MAN (cont.)

My memory lapsed.

CUT TO the MAN in the bath. He is fully clothed but washes over the clothes as if he were naked,

scrubbing himself thoroughly. CUT TO the MAN lying fully clothed in the bath, staring at nothingwhile the tap drips. There is no voice-over on this sequence.

CUT TO the MAN's hands squeezing out the wet clothes and throwing them into the laundry

basket.

MAN (cont.)

My membership lapsed.

CUT TO the MAN wearing a towel, watching a small clock on the basin counter. He waits for it to

tick to the complete minute, as if he is on a schedule. Then he raises his arms in turn to applydeoderant, but he applies the deoderant to the image in the mirror. CUT TO the man spraying

shaving cream onto the image in the mirror and shaving it.

MAN (cont.)

I ceased to be a member, although I became one again, of thegreat rhenal cat soviet, and clitoris intelligentsia. The

cognoscenti of the pescatores. I ceased to participate but nowI am participating again. I have relapsed.

CUT TO the MAN brushing his teeth with a black liquid, blackening his teeth completely.

MAN (cont.)I saw one spy among us dirtying a bomb. A bomb made out of his

own flowers. He dirtied the bomb by the application of painted haddock

disguised, cleverly, as clitorises.

INT. BASEMENT - DAY

The WOMAN is struggling harder, trying to turn her head, rip her hands or legs free. She struggles

violently and shifts the chair out fo alignment with the table.

MAN (vo)


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I was approached then. That was when I was approached by the

intelligentsia, the militia, the cognoscenti. The council forlecturers in dark matters and strange attractors and the

small whiskers that tickle men in the armpits of their minds.

INT. BEDROOM - DAY

The MAN enters the bedroom. He sits on the bed beside the baby doll and strokes its head gently.

Then he kisses the doll chastely. On the other bedside table is a different framed photograph of a

group of stiff-looking men, some with monocles, pocket-watches, arranged. The MAN is seated inthe centre of the group.

MAN (vo)

Clitorises. Walruses. They approached me from behind, for

information, you understand. Only for the information, not forthe flowers or the feet or the blood of the feet or the cats

or the clitorises. They had their own.

The MAN cradles the doll in his arms, like a baby, stroking its head and staring with a look of

tremendous love, approaching rapture, at nothing. The man closes his eyes and rocks gently.

MAN (cont.)Secretly, I supplied them with the microscopic feet of cats.

I became their source for this and other gimcrack. Bats, at

times. But mainly cats, and their tiny feet. Sometimes blood.Sometimes the liver of the cat, still full of blood. But

mainly feet.

The MAN opens his eyes.

CUT TO the MAN inserting his feet into high-heeled shoes. His legs appear bare.

MAN (cont.)

Blood-filled feet that leave their footprints on the water,

where the cats walk.

The MAN gets into a t-shirt. He is wearing underpants and high heels, with the t-shirt now coveringhis torso. He speaks as he dresses.

MAN (cont.)They paid me in whisky bottles. And in the clitorises of footless

cats. I burned the cats. I burned their clitorises and I brokeand burned the bottles. I never accepted any money. I would have

burned it too.

He wraps a pair of silk stockings around his neck like a scarf.

MAN (cont.)

I was meant to meet them.

INT. BATHROOM - DAY


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The MAN makes himself up while the made-up baby doll perches nearby attentively. He applies

mascara to his lips and the lipstick to his eyelids. He outlines his cheekbones with eye-liner. Hedoes everything meticulously and carefully, as accurate as a beautiful woman making herself up for

an evening out. At the end he places a large red clown's nose on his own nose.

MAN (vo)

They set up our rendezvous. In the museum. I don't, I can't, Inever shall recall it, that museum. The museum of modern warts.

Instructive. I met them and they defected. Each of them,

defected en masse, into my feet. I carried them from the museumconcealed in my feet, where there was an ocean of blood and

heavy water.

The MAN clips on a pair of out-dated, granny-like ear-rings and puts a string of pearls around his

neck, over the stocking he is wearing as a scarf. He admires himself expressionlessly in the mirror.

MAN (cont.)

They disembarked among the flowers and ran away with little cat'sfeet, full of blood, to seek their fathers, the fishes.

The MAN holds a pink showgirl's wig in his hand, and snips random chunks out of it with a pair of

scissors, then puts the wig on his head. He turns his head from side to side and then looks at thebaby doll, looking back at him.

INT. BASEMENT - DAY

The WOMAN in the chair is exhausted, having managed to disarray herself to some extent and shiftthe chair, but not free herself. She breathes heavily, her head lolling to one side. The voice has

ceased temporarily and there is the SOUND of a NEEDLE SCRAPING against the end of a vinyl

record.

INT. HOUSE - CORRIDOR - DAY

The MAN walks down the corridor on his heels, in his outlandish get-up. He cradles the baby doll

in one arm. He passes, on the wall, a framed old photograph of the MAN and a woman, perhaps hiswife, posing in a studio.

MAN (vo)

I was arrested. I was tried. I was convicted. I don't complain. Iconfessed before and will again.

He walks past another room with a mirror on the wall, in line with the door. He stops to reviewhimself in this mirror also.

MAN (cont.)I am confessing now.


The MAN walks through the sitting room.

MAN (vo)


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I was sentenced to hard labour, but released. They liked my

feet and once my blood was finished they could not use meany more.

INT. KITCHEN - DAY

The MAN gives furious cunnilingus to the baby doll, holding it up to his face.

MAN (vo)

I had to grow new blood inside a cat to put back into myfeet.


The MAN returns from the kitchen. He walks ceremoniously with his shoulders back and his headheld high. He bears the stuffed glove with the serving plate. The baby doll is stuffed ignominiously

under one arm.

MAN (vo)

I did it to preserve our species. I was a soldier for peace. Forgetthe flowers and the cats and the blood on the flowers from the cats

and the clitorises.

INT. HOUSE HALLWAY - DAY

He arrives back at the door to the basement and pauses to look at a clock over the door. He waits for

the clock to tick to the next minute, then manipulates the handle with an elbow, then passes throughthe door, which swings shut behind him.

MAN (vo)Yes, forget them. It was for peace.

INT. BASEMENT - DAY

The MAN descends the stairs.

MAN (vo)For human peace, and the peace of cats and flowers and even fish. I

hate those fish, my father's fish. But for their peace, I pray. Idid it all for peace and fish.

At the bottom of the stairs the MAN sets the serving plate down on a low table. Also on the lowtable is a framed Victorian-era death portrait of the same woman from the previous photo. He sets

the doll and the glove aside and pours paraffin over the fish offal. He sets fire to it and it bursts into

extravagant flames.

MAN (cont.)The fish are dear to cats.

The MAN stares at the flames for a while, then carefully picks up the baby doll and the glove,moving now as if in the throes of a dream or some sort of psychotic, disconnected state. He looks at

the flames again and looks through them at the WOMAN in the chair.


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MAN (cont.)I am working on some new research now. Solid new research. A state

of grace. The whiskers that a cat has. What has been dragged in by

it. Six feet under. The blood of my blood is calling me. From theground. And it is the blood of cats and flowers, saith the Lord.

The MAN re-aligns the chair with the table of burning fish offal, acting without emotion or

agitation.

MAN (cont.)

I have made some new scientific instruments for the purpose ofexamining the feet of cats who swim in blood, cats born of fish.

I have discovered new isotopes, new tropes, new ways of seeing

altogether. And, at last, *I* am building a museum.

The MAN places the oatmeal-stuffed glove on the WOMAN's crotch. He holds the baby doll next

to her head and leans to whisper in her other ear.

MAN (cont., whispering, not vo)Which is why you are here.

The MAN removes the WOMAN's blindfold. Her eyes blink furiously and then skitter over the

incomprehensible scene - the photo on the table, the burning fish offal, the made-up baby doll, the

freakish man leaning over her.

CUT TO BLACK

SOUNDS of grunting and struggling as the WOMAN attempts to scream into the gag.

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