Altered State I

PAGE ONE (5 panels)

Panel 1. A 65-year-old man (Douglas Jones) is pushing a trolley of mail through a busy office. He does not look pleased but is smiling an empty smile. He looks smart but “gone-to-seed” and he has large bags under his eyes. Everyone else in the office is impeccably dressed and far too busy with his or her own lives to notice how depressed Doug is.

NARRATOR:
Meet Douglas Jones. He is 65 years old and has spent the last 25 years stuck in the mailroom of a lucrative law firm in Re-London.

Panel 2. Doug is sitting at the kitchen table in a very small apartment. The apartment is tidy but not clean. The washing up is neatly stacked but not clean; the bin has some trash sticking out of the top. The last pieces of a pizza are lying on Doug’s plate in front of him. Doug is drinking a large glass of whiskey.

NARRATOR:
Doug has lived alone since the death of his wife 10 years ago… She worked at one of the largest hospitals in Re-London. He’s dangerous…

Panel 3. Doug is sitting up in his bed holding a picture of his wife. He is crying. There is a pot of pills on the bedside cabinet and some of its contents have spilled onto the top. The TV is casting light into the darkened room.

NARRATOR:
She contracted radiation poisoning. She died painfully. He blames the Government, they say it was an “industrial accident” but there’s no proof either way.

Panel 4. Doug is lying in bed looking at the alarm clock at the side of his bed. It reads: 02:34. Doug’s eyes are blood-shot from crying.

NARRATOR:
He can’t sleeping these days, even with all the drugs and booze.

Panel 5. Three men, dressed in black and all bearing the same “branding” – Altered State - are smothering Doug. One has a cloth over Doug’s mouth; the other two have guns aimed at him.

NARRATOR:
His life has just changed…