Submergence Page #2

There's no such

discipline as oceanography.

I'm a bio-mathematician.

It's the working of the science

to whatever is in the sea.

Or at the bottom of it.

Precisely.

It's quite rude,

just sitting there, watching me.

Insisting that

we eat something?

I know, it's entirely

unreasonable.

[LAUGHING]

So, what ocean is your favorite?

It has to be that one,

the Atlantic.

JAMES:
Okay...

Carry on.

- About?

- The sea.

I feel certain it's going

to tell me all about you.

All right, then, um...

close your eyes.

You're determined not

to let me eat, aren't you?

Close them.

The ocean has five layers.

- Five.

- Are you going to cooperate?

Mm-hm.

- I want you to picture this.

- Okay.

Yes, it has five layers

and the first one is epipelagic.

It contains all the plant

life and coral reefs.

Whatever memory

you have of baptism,

or any other form of submersion,

is there in the blue water.

The next layer,

is mesopelagic.

This is the twilight zone...

into which...

blue and all other

colors and light vanish.

[LAUGHING]

Everything under the

mesopelagic is night.

If you were with me

in a submersible,

that's like

a deep-sea submarine...

Is it yellow?

- Of course it is.

- Excellent.

If you were with me

in one of those,

you would have spent

two hours at least,

in the blackness you're

in now, to get down to...

You can open your eyes.

The hadopelagic,

which is what interests me.

Hadal from the Greek "Hades",

meaning unseen.

Doesn't it mean hell?

To some.

This is the other world

in our world.

It's just miles and

miles of blackness?

No one knows much

about the mantle.

They think it has no life,

and therefore no

possibility of reanimation,

and is so without

scientific interest.

I disagree.

It needs to be explored.

What? Excuse me,

what exactly is it that you do?

I... I study...

I collect samples,

from what I think is...

the living bit

of the mantle.

The first few kilometers

underlying the Hadal deep.

I believe that all life and...

regeneration in our world

belongs to it.

We refuse to value what's

down there because it's dark.

We want to forget there

is darkness in our world, and...

and to be on a beach

is to be lucky.

- [LAUGHING]

- We don't educate ourselves.

Our world is

firstly about power,

it's only secondly

about education.

[JAMES CLEARS THROAT]

- [LAUGHING]

- What?

No, don't worry about me,

just you carry on.

No, I'm just writing down

what you just said

- about power and education.

- Mm-hmm.

- Oh, wow, okay.

- I like it.

I'm actually going down on one of those

submersibles in a couple of weeks.

I've waited years

for this opportunity.

Come on, congratulations.

[LAUGHING]

- [GLASSES CLINK]

- Thank you.

What do you do?

I consult on water

projects in Africa, actually.

Hey, we've got water in common.

- You work for charity?

- The British government.

You live in Africa?

Nairobi.

Do you like it?

I do, most of the time.

Nairobi gets a bit

treacherous sometimes.

People say it's like

an African river,

you can't see into it,

you don't know where

the crocodiles are,

and you can't see the

rapids coming at you.

But, I tell you,

it's got its own...

luster.

I kinda miss it,

when I'm away too long.

Wonderful place.

I have a pool.

JAMES:
So, you're saying that...

descending to

the bottom of the ocean,

makes us challenge our sense

of self and where we came from?

And that we are not

interested in your work,

because we don't want to have

come from the scum in the ocean?

It kind of makes sense to me.

- Does it?

- Yeah.

DANI:
It's caused people

to fight over...

When I drop everything...

I wanna make a case for my

theory on life down there.

And having been down there

it gets more complicated.

What counts the most is

being published in Nature.

So, you're going

to go down there

and you're going to be

surrounded by water,

and infinite blackness

in what, a month?

Yeah.

Are you afraid

something might happen?

I try not to think about that.

Why?

What would happen?

If the submersible

would crack?

Mm-hmm.

Water would come in and

my lungs would seal off,

and I would die a dry drowning

by acidosis and hypoxia.

What would that feel like?

Well, if anything

were to happen,

it would probably just be us

getting stuck down there,

unable to move.

And there's only five days

of oxygen in the sub,

and no one can reach

you down there.

Why?

There's only one of those

deep sea submersibles in Europe.

So, I wouldn't drown,

I'd suffocate.

I'd have a lot of time

to think about things.

[WIND BLOWING]

DANI:
What's that

tattoo on your arm?

JAMES:
A mistake.

- You were a paratrooper?

- Yeah, I was.

I was very young, though. It was

just a short service commission.

This is what

I wanted to show you.

Now this is what

I came here for.

There was 5,000

Canadian soldiers,

and a thousand British soldiers

tried to take this beach.

The guns inside that bunker

killed every one of them.

It was an incredible sacrifice.

[WAVES CRASHING]

Hey, hey, hey!

[LAUGHING]

Ah!

Here.

That was cold!

What's got into you,

Mr. More?

You've been talking to me now

for a long time about the world,

and whales and the ocean,

and, Dani, you have barely

used the words I or me.

You've learned to listen

awfully well, haven't you?

Why did you have to

acquire that skill?

Why would you say that

I had to acquire it?

'Cause no one is an

expert at anything,

if there is not a burning need somewhere

to have that particular skill.

I have sisters.

Would you like

another drink?

- No.

- Okay.

DANI:
So, what's your favorite

water body, since you asked me?

The human body.

It's my favorite body,

It's mainly water.

- So much cleverer than me.

- I doubt that.

Africa?

Not really, I...

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

You're still wet.

And you're not...

wet.

You're chicken.

Chicken.

Are you cold?

[CHUCKLES] Yeah.

[DOOR CREAKING OPEN]

[DOOR CREAKING SHUT]

[WAVES CRASHING]

[RETCHING]

[GROANING]

[SHIP HORN BLOWING]

[SIGHS]

MAN:
[ON VOICEMAIL] The mobile

subscriber cannot be reached.

[REPEATING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

- Ready?

- All right.

[LAUGHING]

JAMES:
Today is the...

the 20th of May.

It's the 21st of May, and...

[GUARD BANGING]

GUARD:
[SPEAKING SOMALI]

Will you go and get the f***...

I will not be quiet!

[DOOR BANGING OPEN]

No! No!

[SPEAKING SOMALI]

Are you spy?

[GROANING]

[THUMPING]

[DOOR SLAMS, LOCKS]

F***.

I am myself still...

I'm still James More.

There's no moon.

There's...

only blackness,

like...

like the one that you know,

my Dani.

[BIRDS CHIRPING]

This is what

we found for you, J.

Yusef Mohamud al-Afghani

is now indeed

a forward commander

of al-Qaeda in Somalia.

He seems to be running

the show there.

If ever you see him,

you're close.

There's another guy,

James, Saif Al-Husni.

Was a suicide bomber.

Pulled the ring, but the

vest didn't detonate.

PTSD big time,

extremely violent, apparently.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes