TRANSCRIPT:APARTMENT ■ 00/00/00 ■
The building’s exterior is lit by weak halogen lights and the last blue smear of dusk. A prefab block with metal siding, boxy balconies, and a cheap tin roof that rattles in the wind. It should be condemned.
Conrad climbs the narrow stairs. Each footstep rings loud against the metal grating.
...
Unit 3F. She knocks Once. Then again.
click. A chain slides. The door opens halfway.
Michel’s face fills the gap. Gaunt. His eyes are rimmed with red. The smell of smoke wafting out.
[14]
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MICHEL [AWOL]
:
You don’t bring this kind of business to a man’s house.
[15]
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CONRAD [CLEANER-CONTRACTOR]
:
You’re the one who brought it here.
He pauses
[16]
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MICHEL [AWOL]
:
[Sighs] Yeah. Guess I knew someone’d come after it eventually.
He unlatches the chain and lets the door drift open.
...
Inside is dim and suffocating. Airless. A fan spins without wind. Ashtrays overflow on the table. Gore of multiple types is scattered atop a sheet of cardboard - disassembled weapons, B-Nerves, syringes.
A small kettle boils on the stove, hissing to itself.
...
Michel leans by the balcony door, lighting another cigarette with hands that tremble. His left is steady. His right, however, (wrapped in gauze, half-unwrapped at the wrist) shakes subtly.
[17]
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CONRAD [CLEANER-CONTRACTOR]
:
Still smoking?
[18]
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MICHEL [AWOL]
:
...only thing I can hold right nowadays.
[19]
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MICHEL [AWOL]
:
That thing still freeloading in you?
He bites down on the filter, lips tight, while his hand fumbles through his breast pocket. The lighter sparks once. Twice. The third flick catches.
When he exhales, the smoke trails like a leash from the corner of his mouth.
...
Conrad looks around at the clutter. Michel watches her for a beat, then blinks. like he’s just now remembering she’s there.
[20]
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MICHEL [AWOL]
:
Right.
He exhales smoke, slow, then turns away and starts rummaging through the clutter on the counter with his free hand. The other, his bad one, twitches uselessly at his side.
The cigarette is clamped at the corner of his mouth as he talks around it.
...
[21]
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MICHEL [AWOL]
:
Anya’ll drain you if you let er’. Th’t’s how it works. One job turns into two, then ten…
He takes the cigarette off his lips
[22]
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MICHEL [AWOL]
:
by the time you notice, your hand’s holding a gun and you don’t remember saying yes.
She doesn’t reply. Her eyes drift to the shelf.
...
There it is: a yellow, Pelican-style hard case, but the right latch is off just slightly, as if closed in a hurry. a faint residue of… something at the edge, thin, but just barely visible under the light.
...
Michel’s still facing away, silent now, smoke curling up past his ear. His posture’s off.
[23]
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CONRAD [CLEANER-CONTRACTOR]
:
You used it.
He doesn’t turn around.
[24]
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CONRAD [CLEANER-CONTRACTOR]
:
Michel.
Silence
[25]
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MICHEL [AWOL]
:
...Once. To remember something I forgot. Or maybe to forget something I remembered. Same diff.
[26]
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MICHEL [AWOL]
:
This thing-
He slightly lifts the hand.
[27]
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MICHEL [AWOL]
:
-it doesn’t stop. Not when I sleep. Not when I try to breathe. It jerks like it’s still in the field. Like there’s always something left to shoot.
Click.
[28]
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MICHEL [AWOL]
:
Even when I dream, it pulls the trigger first.
He crushes the cigarette in one of the several ashtrays scattered about the apartment and immediately lights another. The flame catches a sheen across his fingers.
...
The parasite in his hand shifts. Something sliding under the gauze, an eye that doesn't blink. The shape of a barrel outlines his palm like sculpted scar tissue…and just for a second, it turns.
like it sees her.
[29]
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MICHEL [AWOL]
:
You ever think maybe I wanted out?
She doesn’t answer. Michel just exhales smoke and silence.
[30]
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MICHEL [AWOL]
:
I’m tired, Conrad.
He walks to the case, stares at it like it’s a mirror, then picks it up. Heavy in his hand.
[31]
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MICHEL [AWOL]
:
Take it. Before I change my mind.
Conrad picks it up and holds it for a moment. Pauses.
Then turns, starts walking toward the door.
Halfway there, she glances back over her shoulder.
[32]
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CONRAD [CLEANER-CONTRACTOR]
:
You gonna be okay?
He lets out a tired, bitter scoff. Not a reply
His eyes glaze over, exhaustion worn thin.
[33]
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MICHEL [AWOL]
:
lucky. Your own hands haven’t strangled you yet.