Monday, March 10, 2008

The One About The Storm

INT.  SUNNYSIDE SHOPPING CENTRE.  DAY.
It's the morning and the place is relatively quiet.  AMADEUSZ, late 20s, a cleaning operative at Sunnyside, is watching the TV in Currys. He's not far from the entrance, and beside him is his janitorial trolley, with vinyl bag, bucket and wringer, duster and so on.  Catching the breakfast news on a 57-inch Toshiba LCD TV is part of his morning routine.  Keeping him company is his mate BERTRAM SHI, a Currys sales assistant, mid-20s.

On the TV, a woman REPORTER in so'wester is standing on the sea-front at Portsmouth Harbour in torrential wind and rain.  Her face is hardly visible whilst behind her, monster waves crash into the sea wall.

NEWS TV REPORTER
"Travellers faced delays and thousands
of people woke to find they were without
electricity this morning as the worst storm
of the winter batters Wales and southern
England.  The unusually intense storm
fronts came from Canada, hurtling across
the Atlantic at 200 miles an hour.  The
combination of gale force winds, low
pressure and a massive tidal surge has 
brought coastal flooding in many areas."

Cut to VT: we're up a hill somewhere, at a road junction and traffic lights.  Trees are swirling around in the winds and driving rain, the traffic lights are shaking.  On the junction, we can see a Nissan Micra which appears to be in two pieces.  The area has been cordoned off with police tape, and there are police, ambulance and fire brigade in attendance.  An American woman, GAYLE, in her early 60s, is being interviewed in the foreground as all this is going on behind her.

TV NEWS REPORT - GAYLE
"We were sitting there, waiting at the 
stop. We saw three trees being up-
rooted, we saw the power lines coming
down before our eyes, next thing we
know, the car's been clean cut in two,
 straight through the top and the hood
(she turns around to look at the scene
behind her)  like a cheese-wire through
Monterey Jack.  (A moment) I never
saw anything like it in my life."

BERTRAM
That's global warming, that is.

AMADEUSZ
That's Japanese engineering.
  

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