SHORT STORY MONDAYThis is the final segment of the treatment I wrote for the screen play Pause Button. The numerals, if curious, were intended to indicate how far along the film has travelled. It's not a short story in the proper use of the term, but it is a work of fiction. Enjoy.
Pause Button
ACT III
Buzz convinces Zoomer that it might be best to wait until Uncle Rollie comes back. They talk about his intelligence and wonder if they are as smart because they come from same lineage. They wonder what college he went to to learn everything he knows. Buzz and Zoomer decide to visit their dad. (80)
Judy, Edith, Rollie and Rhonda make a plan. They will visit every casino on the boardwalk and meet back at the Convention Center. They remind themselves that they have all the time in the world. (82 min.)
Buzz and Zoomer at their dad's place. They poke around through his things, trying to get to know him. They find a suicide note in the waste basket. It is a letter to the boys expressing his feelings of having failed them. He always felt he was no good because he dropped out of high school and wasted his life. He wanted them to know they had been given good brains, but they shouldn't waste them. The boys have an epiphany and hug their dad. (87 min.)
After a whirlwind tour of Atlantic City, Judy, Edith, Rollie and Rhonda meet again at the Convention Center. The go inside to see the empty auditorium where the annual Miss America Pageant is conducted. Lisa, looking especially tiny in this mammoth hall, is curled up there, napping. (89 min.)
All characters make it back to the Michaels' house and enjoy a happy reunion.
The whole group assembles in the inventor's studio. Rollie thinks he can undo the damage that's been done -- the wrecked car, stolen property, etc. -- by rewinding a moment, then fast forwarding to the same moment in time where they'd gone sideways. Fingers crossed. Suddenly...
Lisa screams out: They can't start without Birdey, the Cat. Rollie says it's too bad. Big fight, and Lisa's tears win out. They all exit the room to search for the cat. (93 min.)
They finally find the cat lying inside the neighbor's fenced yard with the frozen pit bull. (95 min.)
At last, they are gathered together in the studio. TIME is returned to normal, the damage undone. Edith and sons exit to go visit their father, Donald. Rhonda heads for the phone to call her boy friend. Lisa walks out with Birdey. And Rollie vows to dismantle his dangerous contraption and destroy all record of his research. (97 min.)
But Judy has other designs on this moment in time, and before Rollie can stop her, Judy has pushed the Pause Button again. With Time once again put on hold, Judy reminds Rollie of how romantic he used to be before they all got so busy. The movie ends with Judy leading Rollie up the stairs past their frozen children for a timeless romantic interlude. (99 min.)
THE END
NOTE: To understand Rollie Michaels' Basic Premise of How Time works, take an accordion and squeeze it together so that the edges are all flush. Turn the accordion so that it is viewed from either the bottom or the top. Our experience of Time/Reality/History is as a sequence of points, represented by the topmost line of points which are all adjacent... Rollie Michaels proposes, and discovers it so, that if you pulled the accordion apart, there are spaces between each point of time, that if one were to travel sideways in time, one could return to the next point in time and not be missed. The Pause Button concept allows Rollie to Stop Time's Duration and take a sideways trip, to have experiences in that period between two successive points in time.
Judy, Edith, Rollie and Rhonda make a plan. They will visit every casino on the boardwalk and meet back at the Convention Center. They remind themselves that they have all the time in the world. (82 min.)
Buzz and Zoomer at their dad's place. They poke around through his things, trying to get to know him. They find a suicide note in the waste basket. It is a letter to the boys expressing his feelings of having failed them. He always felt he was no good because he dropped out of high school and wasted his life. He wanted them to know they had been given good brains, but they shouldn't waste them. The boys have an epiphany and hug their dad. (87 min.)
After a whirlwind tour of Atlantic City, Judy, Edith, Rollie and Rhonda meet again at the Convention Center. The go inside to see the empty auditorium where the annual Miss America Pageant is conducted. Lisa, looking especially tiny in this mammoth hall, is curled up there, napping. (89 min.)
All characters make it back to the Michaels' house and enjoy a happy reunion.
The whole group assembles in the inventor's studio. Rollie thinks he can undo the damage that's been done -- the wrecked car, stolen property, etc. -- by rewinding a moment, then fast forwarding to the same moment in time where they'd gone sideways. Fingers crossed. Suddenly...
Lisa screams out: They can't start without Birdey, the Cat. Rollie says it's too bad. Big fight, and Lisa's tears win out. They all exit the room to search for the cat. (93 min.)
They finally find the cat lying inside the neighbor's fenced yard with the frozen pit bull. (95 min.)
At last, they are gathered together in the studio. TIME is returned to normal, the damage undone. Edith and sons exit to go visit their father, Donald. Rhonda heads for the phone to call her boy friend. Lisa walks out with Birdey. And Rollie vows to dismantle his dangerous contraption and destroy all record of his research. (97 min.)
But Judy has other designs on this moment in time, and before Rollie can stop her, Judy has pushed the Pause Button again. With Time once again put on hold, Judy reminds Rollie of how romantic he used to be before they all got so busy. The movie ends with Judy leading Rollie up the stairs past their frozen children for a timeless romantic interlude. (99 min.)
THE END
NOTE: To understand Rollie Michaels' Basic Premise of How Time works, take an accordion and squeeze it together so that the edges are all flush. Turn the accordion so that it is viewed from either the bottom or the top. Our experience of Time/Reality/History is as a sequence of points, represented by the topmost line of points which are all adjacent... Rollie Michaels proposes, and discovers it so, that if you pulled the accordion apart, there are spaces between each point of time, that if one were to travel sideways in time, one could return to the next point in time and not be missed. The Pause Button concept allows Rollie to Stop Time's Duration and take a sideways trip, to have experiences in that period between two successive points in time.
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