Sleepwalk

“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

MARLEAU
(over)

To hell with exposition. Let me tell you about my one-and-only.

EXT. DESERT WASTELAND - ETERNAL NIGHT

A beautiful young woman in royal raiment approaches a mile high gate.

MARLEAU
(over)

Innana is the querulous queen of heaven. Dissatisfied with her lofty station, she decides to go to the underworld, the land of no return, the place of darkness and dust. She aspires to reign there in place of her sister.

INNANA
(calling to the Gatekeeper)

Open the gates, or I will break them down. I will cause the dead to rise and the living to die.

GATEKEEPER

Spare the doors; I will go to the queen and tell her of your arrival.

INT. QUEEN OF THE UNDERWORLD'S PALACE

Having delivered the message, the Gatekeeper backs away from the thorny throne. The hideously gorgeous hell queen Lilith (the ‘flipped’ side of Innana) springs to her feet in a fit of rage. Her wizened Vizier cautiously restrains her.

LILITH

What have I done that Innana should come here to interfere?

(the Vizier whispers
into her ear)

Very well. Go... and receive her.

EXT. PALACE MAIN GATE

The Gatekeeper admits Innana. As she enters the first door, he takes the crown from her head.

GATEKEEPER

It's one of the rules laid down by the queen. Hope you don't mind. Nothing personal.

INT. TUNNEL - SERIES OF GATES BENEATH THE PALACE

The Gatekeeper conducts Innana to the second gate, where he deprives her of her earrings. At the third he takes her necklace; at the fourth, the jewelry adorning her breasts; at the fifth, her waistband; at the sixth, her ankle and wrist clasps; and at the seventh, her clothes.

Lilith, the Queen of the Underworld, is gleefully waiting for her humiliated sister behind the seventh door.

LILITH

Imprison Innana in the palace and afflict her with the sixty maladies: the diseases of the eyes, ears, hands, feet, stomach, head.

EXT. WASTELAND

No signs of life across the desert, as the wind begins to howl.

MARLEAU
(over)

And so, Innana suffers the tortures of the damned. The earth loses its fecundity; the animals no longer mate and men no longer lay with women. Everything shuts down. The Head of Operations sends his best negotiator to the Queen of the Underworld.

A (Sumerian) warrior mysteriously appears in the distance.

INT. QUEEN'S PALACE - THRONE ROOM

The lone warrior in golden armour approaches the throne.

MARLEAU
(over)

He's got it all figured out. She would be pleased with his heroic appearance and irresistible charm. Somehow, he would persuade her to release the prisoner... to pacify the Queen. Then he would ask her for the water of life.

LILITH
(unimpressed)

You have requested something impossible. I curse you instead. Your food will be bread from the street and your drink will be that of the sewer. You shall have no place, except with the drunkards. Guards! Remove him from my sight.

The guards bind the warrior and drag him away from the throne room.

INT. QUEEN'S PALACE - DUNGEON

Of all the terrible places in the underworld, this cell is the worst. The warrior is stripped of his armour and chained to the wall.

MARLEAU
(over)

The liberator inadvertently becomes the substitute. Innana gets to drink the water of life instead. Then the gatekeeper conducts her through the seven gates to the upper world, returning her garments and jewels along the way, blah blah blah-

HYPATIA
(over)

Then what happenes?

MARLEAU
(over)

Uh... nothing? That's how it all ends.

EXT. ARBORETUM - DAY

This is not your garden-variety forest, and none of these are ordinary trees. They are all fantastic.

We've already heard Christophe Marleau's voice. Now we see him for the first time. [He doesn't look French at all. Significantly, he resembles Lee Marvin in his prime.] At this idyllic moment, in the midst of this warm, bright and verdant splendour, he's in shirtsleeves. Marleau is accompanied (or guided) by a comely older woman wearing a very long grey cloak. HYPATIA carries a large, weathered book wherever she goes.

HYPATIA

Quite a sad ending, isn't it?

MARLEAU

"The greatness comes not when things go always good for you. But the greatness comes when you’re really tested, when you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes."

HYPATIA
(beat)

I have no idea.

MARLEAU

Richard Nixon.

HYPATIA

Never heard of him.

(beat)

Let's delve a bit deeper, shall we?

To proceed any further through the woods, Marleau must pull a twisted network of broken branches away from the path.

MARLEAU

These saps over here must be severed members. What's your favourite limb?

HYPATIA

Recognize that one? That's the Cosmic Tree, from northern Asia. They used to say that it stood on the navel of the world and reached all the way up to the gods' dwellings.

MARLEAU

Now there's a tall sucker.

HYPATIA

Yggdrasil? Ah yes. The Nordic people thought it was the axis of the world. Odin hung there for nine days in order to receive the wisdom of the runes.

MARLEAU

"Wednesday's child is full of woe-"

Marleau marvels at the sight of an inverted fig tree, growing with its roots overhead.

HYPATIA

We still have a long way to go. The Hindus watch it flourish in the Upanishad, sitting down near something. The pure roots symbolize Brahma, always the world spirit.

Marleau finds another inverted tree.

MARLEAU

This looks the same.

HYPATIA

Similar. The Sephiroth of the Jews. We should all be walking to omniscience, Marleau.

MARLEAU

I'm only half awake.

HYPATIA

Here's the Bodhi tree, where Buddha sat to become enlightened. He taught us how to gain release from the two conditions, of fear and desire.

The buzzing of cicadas swells in the bg.

MARLEAU

You hear that maddening noise, that constant ringing? Buzzing?

HYPATIA

Tymbals. Some cicadas only sing at dusk.

MARLEAU

That's how they scare away the birds.

HYPATIA

There's nothing to worry about.

MARLEAU

I'm afraid you're right. Now we just say hello and look at the clouds, hoping for justice and reconciliation, waiting for our next cue.

HYPATIA

One man plays many parts.

MARLEAU

Um...

HYPATIA
(louder)

One man... plays many parts.

MARLEAU

Oh yeah. That's where I come in.

INT. MARLEAU HOME - NURSERY - DAY

[Throughout the 'Seven Ages' sequence we hear the song The Carpet Crawlers (as sung by Peter Gabriel) in the bg.]

A baby rolls across the rug, surrounded by toys - building blocks, letters and numbers.

There’s only one direction in the faces that I see;
It’s upward to the ceiling, where the chamber’s said to be.

INT. MARLEAU HOME - LIVING ROOM - DAY

A seven year-old boy practices tedious piano exercises.

EXT. RESIDENTIAL STREET - DAY (winter)

The same boy trudges along the sidewalk through the snow.

Like the forest fight for sunlight, that takes root in every tree.
They are pulled up by the magnet, believing they’re free.
The carpet crawlers heed their callers:

INT. MARLEAU HOME - LIVING ROOM - NIGHT

Marleau as a gangly teenager awkwardly serenades his giddy girlfriend as she sits beside him on the piano bench.

MARLEAU

We’ve got to get in to get out
We’ve got to get in to get out
We’ve got to get in to get out.

EXT. UNIVERSITY CAMPUS - DAY (autumn)

A disheveled young Marleau stumbles his way across the Ivy League campus in the midst of the scurrying crowd, pushing and shoving from one doorway to the next, battered briefcase in hand, kicking up dry leaves in the breeze.

Mild mannered supermen are held in kryptonite,
And the wise and foolish virgins giggle with their bodies glowing
Bright.

Fleeting yearbook images depicting Marleau's colourful university days, including lectures, trips to the pub, jam sessions with other musicians, and, most importantly, passionate clinches with the fashionable Sharon - as they perform on stage and in bed.

Through a door a harvest feast is lit by candlelight;
It’s the bottom of a staircase that spirals out of sight.
The carpet crawlers heed their callers:

INT. UNIVERSITY CAMPUS - RESIDENCE - MARLEAU'S ROOM

Marleau and Sharon are playing the board game Risk with Marleau's friend Dave and his girlfriend. (The entire floor looks like a battlefield.) Sharon rolls the dice and knocks Marleau out of Africa, bolstering her armies along the Mediterranean.

[This foreshadows events that are yet to come as the story unfolds.]

SHARON

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, Chris-

DAVE

And two straight lines can cross only once.

Clearly, the odds are against Marleau. He rolls the dice, loses what little he has left in Egypt and forfeits the game, tipping the board over in the process - sending the colouful pieces spinning off into infinity... or at least the carpet beneath the table.

INT. AUDITORIUM

Band equipment (drum kit, guitar amps, P.A. system, etc.) has been set up on the stage. Marleau is alone at the keyboards, experimenting with the sound levels on a new amplifier. He is directly in front of the speaker...

when the feedback explodes.

The silence is deafening.

INT. COURTHOUSE - DAY

The mood is hardly celebratory. Now partially deaf, Marleau has degenerated into a twitchy neurotic. He marries Sharon in a civil ceremony witnessed by Dave and his girlfriend (from the 'Risk' game). The bride nor groom exchange rings, then blank looks.

MARLEAU
(over)

Then the bells began to ring - perpetually. I was summarily disowned by my father after a cool reception. It was a difficult pregnancy, sleepless and brawling.

INT. HOSPITAL - DAY

Marleau waits... and waits. (Sharon loses the baby.)

MARLEAU
(over)

The baby was stillborn. She blamed me, of course. After this failed experiment, she counselled for Planned Parenthood while I crammed for finals.

EXT. OFFICE BUILDING - DAY

This black monolithic skyscraper is cold and foreboding.

INT. OFFICE BUILDING - INFORMATION SYSTEMS

A typical corporate Information Systems facility. It has all the warmth of a wasp nest.

INT. MARLEAU'S OFFICE

Marleau (now thirty something) is the new IS manager, trapped behind his computer screen while anxious functionaries swarm around his desk.

HYPATIA
(over)

And then the justice, in fair round belly with good capon lin'd, with eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
full of wise saws and modern instances; and so he plays his part.

MARLEAU
(over)

My beloved didn't care about the promotion. She was too busy realizing her childhood dream: dressing the hapless nation for the dance floor and creating gaudy business suits for overachieving cheerleaders.

INT. HOTEL ROOM

These are luxurious accommodations. Dishabille, Sharon undresses her client - a much older man than her husband, ostensibly a man of 'substance'.

MARLEAU
(over)

She was definitely a 'frequent flyer', and with those formidable assets of hers she never failed to close a deal. There was simply no competition.

Sharon guides her lover to the bed and they do what comes naturally.

INT. MARLEAU'S OFFICE

Marleau ploughs through a stack of spreadsheets while he talks on the phone.

MARLEAU
(over)

And no contest. I rejected her 'open marriage' proposal and wrote off the seven year affair as a bad investment.

EXT. UNIVERSITY - FACULTY OF APPLIED MATHEMATICS - NIGHT

The prodigal Marleau returns to his alma mater.

INT. FACULTY OF APPLIED MATHEMATICS - COMPUTER ROOM

Marleau is greeted by his old friend Dave, who can barely contain his enthusiasm. Surrounded by walls of data processing equipment, the two mathematicians conspire.

DAVE

The fifth generation is here, Chris.

MARLEAU

May I-

DAVE

It's already been tested.

MARLEAU
(transfixed)

The third breakthrough.

DAVE

This is even better. The Eagle has landed, old chum. Now it's our turn to fly.

MARLEAU

R and D should always be at least ten steps ahead of the market.

DAVE

Consume... or be consumed. In a few years, they'll all be hopelessly hooked on this frequency. Remember what Blakemore said?

Marleau watches Dave's program 'unfold' on the CRT.

[These are 3-D representations of multiplying fractals - the infinite variations of The Koch Snowflake.]

MARLEAU

"The dream... The dream of every leader, whether a tyrannical despot or a benign prophet, is to regulate the behaviour of the people."

DAVE

We used to be radicals, constantly wary of bureaucratic interference. But now we are the bureaucrats.

MARLEAU
(with a twitching eye)

This new magic of yours could easily be implemented to delete dissent.

INT. OFFICE BUILDING - INFORMATION SYSTEMS

A procession of suits and security people marches across the elevated floor to Marleau's office, where they must literally break down the door to get at him.

MARLEAU
(over)

Under deadlines, beneath the wheel and behind schedule, I prudently withheld this perilous information from my corporate handlers.

HYPATIA
(over)

Not all men are so easily regulated.

INT. MARLEAU'S OFFICE

Marleau calmly reformats his PC before his superiors can stop him.

MARLEAU
(over)

Then the omniscient Watchers went over my head and pulled the plug. That was the fun part.

INT. OFFICE BUILDING - LOBBY - DAY

Security people escort Marleau out of the building. He is smiling all the way across the marble floor, past the mall storefronts (full of garish advertising) to the revolving doors.

MARLEAU
(over)

These were the Children of the Last Revelation... and what they were about to witness was nothing less than the collapse of all Logic. All the symbols were merging into one meaningless Logo.

EXT. OFFICE BUILDING - DAY

Marleau stands directly in front of the entrance to the black monolith - and looks up at the azure. Billowy clouds begin to gather as the sky quickly turns to grey.

MARLEAU
(over)

Their accusations sounded like gibberish to me. Never again would I bring knowns together to match a known quantity. I decided to spend the rest of my life playing games.