Comic Script Excerpt: Stygian Theater's Rose
STYGIAN #1 ROSE / Page One
CAPTION BOX HEADER: Prologue
PANEL ONE: Frame box with gothic curling ironwork looking box. Cast the box mostly in black with dialogue in white, Mr. Black’s suit in white, outline of his mouth and faint nose, eyes and the outline of his face. Background is a study: furniture in white, books, candle sticks, no windows, seen from waist level and up. Black is seated at the desk a pair of dog tags dangling from one hand, the other touching the bottoms gently. A large book set in front of him with a photo lopsided on a blank page.
CAP 1 BLACK: The mind is such a delicate instrument: recording, categorizing just as a machine would. The play back is never quite exact though. Never a perfect reproduction of the past.
PANEL TWO: Close in on the tags spinning slightly reading ‘United States // J L MacKrieg // two more lines of skritch illegible’ over a much closer scene of a soldier kneeling down next to a dog.
CAP 2 BLACK: The heart changes what the eyes sees, making looking back a challenge to be overcome if one is to ever move forward.
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STYGIAN #1 ROSE / Page Two
CAPTION BOX HEADER: Jupiter, FL – Lawrence S. Milton Memorial VA Hospital
PANEL ONE: Pan out of a hospital room devoid of any personal touch. Dripping IV. Patient in a bed innocuous in his stillness. Monitor showing base readings only.
CAP 1 [Boxed]: War hero: I've come to hate that phrase. It's what they call the dried up old men that waste away in veterans' hospitals.
CAP 2 [Boxed]: Decorated, congratulated, forgotten..
PANEL TWO: Wider pan of a nurse standing next to the bed, making notes. Again impersonal. No attention to the figure in the bed.
CAP 3 [Boxed]: If you were the lucky ones there was someone waiting for you back at home.
CAP 4 [Boxed]: Someone who loved you.
PANEL THREE: Nurse sets a basin on the edge of the bed filled with water and a rag. No response from the patient who appears to be sleeping. Mouth is open slightly, tubes in nose.
CAP 5 [Boxed]: Someone who took care of you when your legs itched and twitched and you hurt too much to get out of bed in the mornings.
PANEL FOUR: Nurse wipes down the old man’s face, rag curling under his chin. Dog tags rest on his withered chest.
CAP 6 [Boxed]: Heck, I had a girl but she wouldn’t stay.
CAP 7 [Boxed]: And the only other gal I had..
CAP 6 [Boxed]: I left behind in the jungles of Vietnam..
CAP 7 [Boxed]: Out of all my memories I can see her the clearest.
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STYGIAN #1 ROSE / Page Three
PANEL ONE: Young man with a fresh buzz cut looking down at the dog tags around his neck.
CAP 1 [Boxed]: I was drafted at eighteen. Scared witless..
PANEL TWO: Group of young soldiers in a helicopter all squeezed together shoulder to shoulder nervously. A stern-faced sergeant is on the end trying not to pay attention to their discomfort by hunching forward and chewing on his cigarette.
CAP 2 [Boxed]: Shaved, geared and loaded on a chopper with a bunch of other guys in the same predicament
PANEL THREE: Outside view of a chopper cutting through a tropical sky over the brush and scraggy trees. Hazy tendrils of signal smoke drift upwards.
CAP 3 [Boxed]: I can't tell you what it felt like when they dropped us off in that humid little clearing.
PANEL FOUR: Soldiers stepping off the chopper hesitantly as others head towards it bearing stretchers between them.
CAP 4 [Boxed]: Meeting up with the homeward bounds..
CAP 5 [Boxed]: Some wounded, some catatonic, some covered in sheets.
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STYGIAN #1 ROSE / Page Four
PANEL ONE: New and old soldiers on the scene pass by each other. The new curious, the old impassive, tired, some appear lost in their own world.
CAP 1 [Boxed]: The one thing assured was that they were going home changed
PANEL TWO: End of the pass by train is another stretcher borne by two dead-eyed soldiers. The stretcher is covered by a sheet.
CAP 2 [Boxed]: 'cause those eyes weren't the eyes of boys anymore.
PANEL THREE: Sarge in the background calling all his kids together by body language. Hand raised to beckon them over. Others gathering reluctantly.
CAP 3 [Boxed]: The Sarge said it was the creeps that everyone got thinking that someone was gonna jump out at 'em any minute to attack.
PANEL FOUR: MacKrieg is one of the last to join up, looking over his shoulder nervously.
CAP 4 [Boxed]: but I knew it was different.
CAP 5 [Boxed]: There was something evil out there.
PANEL FIVE: Heavy lined tree scene with deep shadows, massive high grass and underbrush and oddly placed highlights that could be glowing eyes in the underbrush.
CAP 6 [Boxed]: It knew we were here somehow.
CAP 7 [Boxed]: And it was coming for us.
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STYGIAN #1 ROSE / Page Five
PANEL ONE: MacKrieg laying in his bedroll, eyes open, gun held across his chest. Bunked down outdoors.
CAP 1 [Boxed]: I don't think I slept the first few nights. Every noise startled me.
CAP 2 [Boxed]: Every flicker of movement had my finger on a trigger.
PANEL TWO: MacKrieg scrubbing his face with his hands while sitting up in his bedroll, over his shoulder another of those strange eye shine highlights in the trees beyond him.
CAP 3 [Boxed]: I was a nervous wreck 'cause I could feel it hunting us.
PANEL THREE: MacKrieg sitting in the middle of camp on a sandbag with his weapon across his knees, tense and watchful while the others slept.
CAP 4 [Boxed]: Eventually the Sarge put me on night watch because he knew I'd be up,
CAP 5 [Boxed]: Sweatin' and cursin'
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STYGIAN #1 ROSE/ Page Six
PANEL ONE: Movement in the underbrush has MacKrieg on his feet, weapon ready and aimed.
CAP 1 [Boxed]: I didn't think I'd ever make it out of there alive
CAP 2 [Boxed]: and I almost didn't
PANEL TWO: Small monkey goes tearing across camp. MacKrieg just misses shooting where it broke cover.
CAP 3 [Boxed]: If it wasn't for Rose
PANEL THREE: MacKrieg is sweating bullets, shame faced. The others are sitting up in their bedrolls laughing or glaring.
CAP 4 [Boxed]: I'd have never made it past the first week
SOUND EFFECT BAR: Hahahaha
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