20,000 Days on Earth

---

(BABY CRIES)

(BABY CRIES)

(CACOPHONY OF SOUNDS)

(SILENCE)

(CLOCK TICKING)

(SEAGULLS CRYING OUTSIDE)

(CLOCK TICKING)

(ALARM RINGS)

(RINGING STOPS)

NICK:
At the end of the 20th century,

I ceased to be a human being.

That's not necessarily a bad thing.

It's just a thing.

I awake, I write, I eat.

I write, I watch TV.

This is my 20,000th day on earth.

(WATER DRIPPING)

Mostly I feel like a cannibal,

you know, a cartoon one -

with the big lips and the funny hair

and the bone through its nose,

always looking

for someone to cook in a pot.

You can ask my wife, Susie,

she'll tell you...

...because she's usually

the one that's getting cooked,

cos there is an understanding

between us...

...a pact...

...where every secret, sacred moment

that exists between a husband and a wife

is cannibalised

and ground up and spat out

the other side in the form of a song,

inflated and distorted...

...and monstrous.

(TYPEWRITER TAPPING)

NICK:
Mostly I write,

tapping and scratching away,

day and night sometimes.

But if I ever stop for long enough

to question what I'm actually doing,

the why of it,

well, I couldn't really tell you.

I don't know.

It's a world I'm creating...

...a world full of monsters and heroes,

good guys and bad guys.

It's an absurd, crazy, violent world...

where people rage away

and God actually exists.

And the more I write, the more detailed

and elaborate the world becomes

and all the characters that live and die

or just fade away,

they're just crooked versions of myself.

Anyway, for me, it all begins in here

in the most tiniest of ways.

(PIANO AND SYNTHESISER PLAYING)

(PIANO AND SYNTHESISER PLAYING)

NICK:
Can you do a beat for that?

- Huh?

- NICK:
Can you do a beat for...

(PLAYS PIANO)

WARREN:
Yeah.

(PLAYS SYNTHESISER)

(PHONE RINGS)

WOMAN:
Hi, Nick. Just to remind you,

your meeting with Darian's

at midday today.

Also, don't forget you need to drop in at

the archive at some point this afternoon.

They need to check a few things with you.

I'll text Darian's address, but if you

need anything else, let me know.

(CLICK AND BEEP)

F***.

NICK:

And when I come out of that world,

I always feel startled

by the so-called real world...

(DOOR SHUTS)

- (SEAGULLS CRY)

- ...and I eat and I watch TV

and I play with the kids

and I torment my wife

and I gather up experiences

and then head back on in.

(ENGINE STARTS)

(# KYLIE MINOGUE:

Can't Get You Outta My Head)

(MUSIC STOPS)

(PHONE RINGS)

(BEEP AND CLICK)

NICK:

What were we doing on that yesterday?

WARREN:
Yeah, you had a...

you...you played a thing on it.

You sang it and it sounded really good.

NICK:

Yeah, we had something, didn't we?

- WARREN:
Yeah.

- NICK:
To go with. Hey, that's cool.

NICK:
I wonder what it was.

I do this all the time these days.

- WARREN:
Ah...

- NICK:
Cool.

(CLICK AND BEEP)

NICK:
Places choose you.

They can take hold of you

whether you wish them to or not.

I used to come down to Brighton years ago,

and what I remember most is that it was

always cold and it was always raining...

...with a glacial wind

that would blow through the streets

and freeze you to your bones.

But you gotta drop anchor somewhere

and somehow here I am.

Brighton, with all its weather,

has become my home

and, whatever hold this town has on me,

well, it's been forcing its way

violently into my songs.

(SEAGULLS SQUAWK)

(CLOCK TICKING)

(SEAGULLS CRY OUTSIDE)

NICK:
Do you wanna know

how to write a song?

Songwriting is about counterpoint.

Counterpoint is the key.

Putting two disparate

images beside each other

and seeing which way the sparks fly.

Like letting a small child

in the same room

as, I don't know, a Mongolian psychopath

or something...

..and just sitting back

and seeing what happens.

WOMAN:
Sorry, it shouldn't be long.

NICK:
Then you send in a clown,

say, on a tricycle,

and again you wait and you watch...

...and if that doesn't do it...

you shoot the clown.

(CRASHING IN HIS HEAD)

WARREN:
An Americano

with a splash of milk in it.

NICK:
And I want a small, one-shot latte

with one sugar.

# I'm gonna go out

# Today

# Stray

# By the river... #

(HUMS TUNE)

WARREN:
There's something when you

sing that that reminds me of something.

- NICK:
Er...Tim Buckley?

- WARREN:
No, it's, um...no.

No, um...um...no. It's actually, um...

All Night Long, Lionel Richie.

Does that sound like that to you?

Just sing what you were singing.

(CHUCKLES)

NICK:
# One day I'm gonna go out... #

Now I'm singing a Lionel Richie song.

- # And baby

- # Baby

# Yeah... #

WARREN:
Is that just

my Lionel Richie kind of...

(NICK HUMMING TUNE)

WARREN:
Americano

with a splash of cold milk.

NICK:
Maybe I'm singing it

like Lionel Richie.

- (WARREN LAUGHS)

- # Oh, Lionel... #

MAN:
What's Nick having? A latte?

WARREN:
A latte with...a one-shot latte.

What is it? One-shot latte and a...

# One-shot latte... #

WARREN:
Half a cup, one-shot latte.

# Lionel Richie... #

- WARREN:
Lionel latte.

- # And a one-shot latte. #

NICK:
Oh, f*** it. He's totally

blown my mojo over that one.

(VOICE ECHOES IN HIS HEAD)

WOMAN:
Darian's ready to see you now.

- (SEAGULLS CRYING)

- (CLOCK TICKING)

(TICKING)

What's your earliest memory

of a female body?

Huh?

What's your earliest memory

of a female body?

Um...

um...the first major

sexual experience that I had...

Yes.

...was with, er...a girl,

um...that I...who had black hair

and a very white face.

- Mm-hm.

- She'd put on make-up,

and she put make-up on

over her lips as well

so it was all just this...sort of

almost this kabuki-like kind of thing,

and I was...I don't know,

15 or something like that.

I'd told my mother

I was staying somewhere else,

and I slept with this girl.

- Hm.

- But we didn't have sex.

But there was something

about the shifting of her...

- She turned her back on me.

- Hm.

But I could see this face in...

in the sort of half-light,

this white face...

and, um...that had

quite a big effect on me, that.

The thing about this girl

and her friend Janine...

- Julie, her name was.

- Mm-hm.

They used to like to dress me up

in, er...in kind of...

they liked to dress me up

in women's clothing.

- Hm.

- At the time I'd do anything, you know,

and...I remember sort of having to

sort of toddle out of the family home

in my high heels and hot pants when...

(THEY CHUCKLE)

Kind of, you know, "Off to..."

"Where are you going, darling?"

"Off to a fancy dress, Mum."

And kind of going out the door,

and...and eventually my father...I

remember my father, er...coming upstairs

and, obviously, my...my mother had...

- had told him about this...

- Mm.

- ...cos it was so out of character...

- Mm.

...and him sitting down,

like you're sitting there, and saying,

"Now, son, there's a time

when we all become men,"

and giving me this talk about, um...

(CHUCKLES) ...about, er...

wearing women's clothing,

cos they were... I think they were

worried that I was a transvestite.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes