Lars Shrike Walks the Night (2024) Movie Script
1
(Dramatic music)
(Whooshing sound)
- Analyze.
- (Woman on recording):
Analytic circuits impaired.
No threatening life form detected.
(Whooshing)
No power left. No power left.
(Screaming)
Damage alarm! Damage alarm! Damage alarm
(Breathing heavily)
- Where were you?
-I don't feel so good.
- You...
You piece of shit.
-I resent that.
- Fucking turdfish bird!
Ah!
Shit! Shit!
Shit!
Why didn't you warn me?
-It's not a life form I'm familiar with.
- (Lars): Facts.
What are the facts?
There are things that can hurt me.
There's a power grid on the meridian.
If I can get there, this
thing can beam me off.
That's an assumption.
Do I have amnesia?
Am I brain damaged?
Something is missing.
- (Man): Somethingismissing.
- Am I narrating?
- (Man): Don't assume anything.
That's how to survive.
Anything can change.
Everything will change.
- (Lars): Something feels fucked.
Everything is fucked.
I could be captured at any moment.
Another turdfish bird or something worse
could fly out of nowhere.
Do I have a wife?
Children? Parents?
All I have is a name.
And why Lars Shrike?
Mommy and Daddy Shrike?
And baby Lars?
- (Woman): Lars, good night.
(Static)
(Sighing)
- (Lars): If I dream, I don't remember.
Was I a test tube baby on a spaceship?
Was amnesia engineered into my genes,
and I awoke to selfhood?
Without the neuroses of parents
and genetically programmed
to navigate the world,
whatever that world or
planet or asteroid might be.
And somewhere along
the line, I failed to socialize,
or I was wrongly accused,
and I wound up on a prison planet
for a crime I forgot.
Or was I genetically
engineered to be a prisoner?
Because prisons need prisoners.
It could be a false memory...
a memory implant.
In this memory,
I was sent to a psychiatric
hospital on the Alfvn moon.
I was... am a manic depressive.
I am manic.
To avoid being depressed,
I was falsely accused
of industrial espionage
because the watchers
did not believe I could
invent so many things.
Lars Shrike...
the hero of his own story.
No.
Ah!
Fuck!
-Damage alarm! Damage alarm!
Damage alarm!
Ouch!
(Static)
- Ah, shit.
(Groaning)
-Damage report:
Barrel bent. Main circuit marginal.
Aim unreliable.
Navigation unreliable.
(Dramatic music)
(Insects chirring)
- You're awake.
It's OK, Lars.
- How do you know my name?
- You escaped.
You're famous.
Yes, I'm real.
- Can you read my thoughts?
- I can read your expression.
- Are you...
- A prisoner? Yes.
Lottie. I escaped too.
- Where are you from? What system?
- Seoul.
I have Earth parents.
Do you?
- I don't know.
- Don't know or don't remember?
- I don't remember.
So I don't know.
Where's my chrono-blaster?
- (Woman): Lars...
- (Lars): What are my options?
Number one, she might
not be what she seems.
She might be a threat, a double agent.
She might be anything.
I can kill her.
I have the element of surprise.
-Damage alarm! Damage alarm! Damage alar
-Two, I can kiss her.
Might be my first time,
because amnesia is a form of virginity.
Three, we can politely
go our separate ways.
I might double my odds of escape
if the pursuers have to split up
to pursue me and Lottie separately.
Four, I might find the duplicity
of her friendliness exciting
and have amazing sex with a double agent
because she is pretending
to be something she's not.
-Damage alarm!
-It's sex and death and self-loathing
all rolled into one.
Five...
There are probably an
infinite number of option,
but I'd just like to stop
thinking and kiss her.
It's so cold and you're so warm.
You're the nicest person
I've met on this planet.
Was there a Lottie?
Was there a chrono-blaster?
Did an imaginary Lottie steal
an imaginary chrono-blaster?
CB.
-Lars.
(Buzzing sound)
-Why a blue sky today?
I don't know the astronomy of this plane
I don't even know its name.
- (Man): Don't assume anything.
That's how to survive.
Anything can change.
Everything will change.
(Phone chiming)
- (Lars): Fuck me, they
got tracking devices.
Maybe they're calibrated
to a different life form.
Elite guards?
A native tribe?
(Static)
Ah, drinking cylinders.
Clever.
I need to wait for night.
How does an amnesiac entertain himself?
This is where I could relive memories.
Review the moments that got me here.
If I had memories.
Ah!
(Woman coughing)
(Groaning)
How does this work?
Is it heat activated?
By body heat.
Pressure sensitive.
Is there an access code?
A pattern that you tap.
(Can opening, soda fizzing)
Ah...
My first good day.
That I remember.
(Burping)
(Birds chirping)
Mmm. Mmm!
A four-wheeled device.
(Static)
Units for solitary confinement.
A penal colony.
Is he a guard?
Is this housing for the guards?
A tracking device and a communicator.
An evolved form of the chrono-blaster.
- (Woman): I'm highly evolved.
- Quiet!
-I'm very highly evolved.
(Insects chirring)
- Analyze.
-Nutritional value.
- Toxicity?
-Low-level toxicity likely.
- How low level? How likely?
-Analytic circuits
impaired. Power diminished.
Immediate power recharge advised.
- Where? How?
-That's your job, not mine.
- (Lars): A rat in a maze...
who thinks the maze is freedom.
(Door handle clicking)
(Dog barking)
(Breathing heavily)
Well?
- (Woman): No access to power source.
- Then how am I supposed to charge you?
-I don't know.
(Inhaling deeply)
(Vehicle approaching)
- (Lars): Prison guards on patrol?
Or maybe I crawled through a wormhole
that connects the
prison planet to this one.
Maybe the guards followed
me through the wormhole.
Or maybe I am an experiment,
gone awry or forgotten.
Mmm.
(Gasping)
(Vehicle approaching)
(Car door closing)
- (Woman): Lars. Lars. Lars.
Lars.
(Door creaking)
(Heart pounding)
(Breathing heavily)
- (Lars): My heart is racing.
My heart.
How do I know I even have a heart?
Maybe I'm bionic, but with
fake blood sacks to fool me.
Maybe I only think I'm warm-blooded.
- (Man): Don't assume anything.
That's how to survive.
Anything can change.
Everything will change.
- (Lars): What do they
eat on my home planet?
Or the space station, if
that's where I was born.
I can't remember what
or how I ate in prison.
Red wine vinegar.
Vinegar?
I can read.
Red is a color.
Wine...
Vinegar.
How do I know what these symbols mean?
(Spitting)
Ah...
I am Lars Shrike.
I can read.
And I do not like red wine vinegar.
I like apple juice.
When I know 10 or 100
or 200 things about myself,
will I know who I am?
How many facts does it
take to make me into a me?
A prisoner?
An outcast?
Scavenging.
What does scavenging mean?
- (Woman): To get food or other
objects from refuse or rubbish.
-Water.
Water.
(Static)
(Animal howling in distance)
Oh...
(Animal howling)
- (Woman speaking
slowly): My battery is dying.
There is less and less of me left.
(Chuckling)
- (Lars): Remotely piloting a craft.
Yes, it must be a prison,
with each one of them
imprisoned in their own cell.
(Dog barking)
Maybe this isn't a prison.
A family?
How do I know those words?
Did I have a family?
Did I have a father?
A brother? A sister?
A mother?
Have I lost all memory of my family?
- (Woman speaking
slowly): Cannot... access...
power... source.
(Grunting)
- Ah...
A tool...
For what?
Ah! A tool.
(Grunting)
(Grunting)
(Grunting)
(Clicking)
Ah!
(Crying)
This moment will pass.
Or will it?
Everything that happens happens now.
Now lasts forever.
Now...
is a present.
- (Woman): Good night...
Lars.
-Good night.
- (Man): So that's what you look like.
- (Lars): You.
-I...
-Good night...
(Static)
...Lars.
(Insects chirring)
-California.
That's on Earth.
Am I on Earth?
Or am I being tricked?
If I was an inventor,
maybe there are inventions
in my head they want access to.
Is my every move being watched?
Is all this an illusion?
There might be camouflaged
cameras everywhere.
(Voice overlapping): Maybe...
Maybe everything that
I see is a projection.
Some demigod flipped a switch.
That some demigod flipped a switch.
When the sky went from green to blue.
Maybe I'm a grand experiment.
Maybe I'm a grand
experiment facing budget cuts.
And tomorrow, there will be no sun.
Tomorrow, there will be no tomorrow.
(Birds chirping)
(Wheel creaking)
What planet is this?
(Phone dinging)
- Huh?
- What is that?
- It's a cell phone.
- From a prison cell.
- No.
- Why is it called a cell phone?
- I don't know. It just is.
- Is it a tracking device?
- Yeah, they can track you with this.
- Weapons function?
- No.
- Navigation function?
- Yeah.
- Can it connect to a power beam?
- A power beam?
- Transport beam to
transport off the planet.
- Huh?
- How can I get one?
- Money.
I get disability benefits.
- A disability is a benefit?
- Yeah.
They give you money
if you have a disability.
Or you can panhandle.
You can ask folks for money.
Or you can collect bottles
and take them to the recycling center.
But it'll take a hell of a lot of bottle
to get a cell phone with.
- I've learned a lot from you.
Thank you.
- What happened to you?
Why are you here?
- I escaped.
- To this?
(Vehicle approaching)
(Music blaring)
-Another four-wheeled device.
Are scavengers welcome inside?
(Woman talking, indistinct)
- Hello! Joshua Tree Library.
(Woman talking, indistinct)
(Computer beeping)
(Computer beeping)
- You need to sign up to use a computer.
- What's a sign up?
- See that lady over there?
Just go tell her you'd
like to use a computer.
- I'd like to use a computer.
- Do you have a library card?
- No.
- Um, an ID card?
Proof of address?
Something with your name?
That's not an ID.
- It is where I come from.
- Here.
Take this to any computer that's open
and use this username and access code,
and you'll have an hour of time.
You look like you have a question.
- What is the web?
- The worldwide web is the Internet.
- Internet?
I don't know what that word is.
- Well, the Internet connects
computers all over the world.
You can find out about
anything on the Internet.
Take that to any computer and log on.
(Computer beeping)
How are you doing?
- I... I don't know what to do.
- Well, you need to use the mouse
to get the cursor over the username box.
- Mouse?
- This is the mouse.
And the arrow is the cursor.
See it moving around on the screen?
So you get the cursor to
the spot where you want it,
and then you give the
mouse a little press, like that.
In this case,
over the box that says "username."
(Phone ringing in distance)
(Mouse clicking)
You've never used a computer?
- Not that I remember.
- Go ahead.
Use the keyboard...
to enter the username I put
down on that piece of paper.
And now enter the password I gave you.
(Keys clicking)
And hit "enter," this key right here.
Good.
You're learning fast.
- That's the web?
- Yeah. That's the web.
- Ah...
- What do you want to learn about?
- Me.
- OK. Uh, then...
Write your name in the search box.
- Ah...
That's me!
- Well, there are probably
lots of Lars Shrikes.
You need to use your mouse
to click on one of the links,
and it'll take you to the websites
where the words "Lars
Shrike" are referenced.
Go ahead. Try the first one.
- Huh, that's interesting.
He wroteThe Trouble with Dick.
We have that in fiction.
- (Man): Excuse me.
- Good luck, Lars.
If you need any more help, just ask me.
- Thank you.
- Yes, how can I help you?
- Hi, I called earlier.
- (Man): The Trouble with Dick
is a groundbreaking synthesis
of science fiction and autofiction.
Inner space and outer space fuse
as the fictional character
of Richard Kendred
struggles to write a potboiler SF story,
The Galactic Chain Gang.
Lars Shrike, Kendred's fictional alter e
undergoes all manner of Job-like sufferi
on an unnamed prison planet.
- (Lars): Did I read The Trouble with Di
Did I have a fever dream of
my own that I don't remember,
and then woke from the fever
dream brain damaged and deluded
that I was Lars Shrike?
"As the character of Lars Shrike exists
"within the context of Kendred's
seminal work of autofiction,
"he can be regarded as an expression
"of the author's masochism.
"How else to explain the
otherwise unmotivated episos
"of pain and suffering that
the character is subjected t?
"The Trouble with Dick
might instead be titled
The Three Stigmata of Lars Shrike."
The Trouble with Dick.
She said they had that book here.
Kendred.
Kendred. Kendred.
H-I-J-K...
Kafka.
Kendred.
- I looked on the web,
and that's the only Lars
Shrike I can find other than you.
You can take that home
with you if you want.
- I don't have a home.
- Well, you can take it out of the libra
I'll issue you a library card,
and you can use that to borrow the book.
- Can I borrow a map too?
- What kind of map?
- A map to 5730 Laverne Terrace,
Los Angeles.
- You'll have to print that map.
- On the computer?
- Copy it on the paper.
It's 10 cents a page.
I guess you're thinking:
"What is 10 cents?"
- Yes.
- And you don't have any money?
- Money?
- I'll print it out for you.
Go back to your computer and hit "print.
And the map will print on that printer.
You're my good deed for the day.
- You're the nicest person
I've met on this planet.
- I take that as a high compliment.
- Is this a prison planet?
- Only if you think of it that way.
Where did you get those clothes?
- I got them in prison.
Although I'm not so
certain about that anymore.
I have an inner voice that
tells me not to assume anything.
- Sounds like a pretty good inner voice.
(Door opening, closing)
-Baby buggy.
(Baby crying)
- Hey!
-Baby buggy.
Come on, baby. You can do it.
- (Woman): Cannot...
access...
(Static)
...power.
- Come on!
(Talking, indistinct)
(Sighing)
-I'm dying...
(Static)
...Lars.
(Static)
Lars,
I'm dying.
(Insects chirring)
(Siren wailing)
- Step away from the vehicle.
Step away from the vehicle.
Walking in the middle
of the road is dangerous.
Did you hear me?
- Yes.
- Have you been drinking?
- Yes.
- Public intoxication is a crime.
- I have not been drinking toxins,
unless they are tasteless toxins.
- Stop!
Back away.
Hands up, where I can see them.
What are you doing out here?
- I am walking to 5730 Laverne Terrace.
- Are you visiting friends?
Family?
Anybody?
Well, stay safe.
-A monument, or the king's guard.
The Burger King's guard.
(Horns honking)
-Lars...
- (Man): Turn around and go back.
You should go back to Lottie.
-Lottie...
-Or we could go back to the librarian.
-Maybe electromagnetic
waves are twisting my synapses.
(Dramatic music)
(Vehicle beeping)
-"There was a phone in the kitchen
"where Dick would have some privacy"
"for the call to Mr. Samsa."
"Mr. Samsa was his
best hope to sell a story."
- Mr. Samsa, hi, this is Dick Kendred.
- Well, you said to call
you if I had any other ideas.
-Well, I'll be glad to
read whatever you got.
Just send it on in.
- Well, I haven't actually written it ye
but I wanted to tell you my idea
to see if you thought it
was, well, commercial or not,
since you said that...
- OK, Dick. Well, give it to
me in a very quick nutshell.
- OK. The title is The Galactic Chain Ga
-Good title.
- It's about this inventor,
sort of a genius industrialist type,
who gets sent to a prison planet
where he maybe gets embroiled
in all these alternate realities.
- I... I plan on working in a
lot of desert stuff, you know?
Hostile creatures maybe escape
from the chain gang and can...
-Listen, kid, sounds promising,
but go easy on the desert stuff.
Maybe throw in some
mountains and a few oceans,
a little city action, whatever.
- (Lars): The Galactic Chain Gang?
Is this an alternate reality?
(Train whistling)
Or is all this something I imagined?
Or did some sadistic god or system engin
design me to suffer here...
forever?
Or as a way station to some
other place, some other time?
Or am I an android whose ocular input
is being watched by an alien species
that takes vicarious
pleasure from my suffering?
Did I imagine a book
called The Trouble with Dick?
Did I invent Richard Kendred...
and name myself Lars Shrike?
Why don't I imagine the
book out of existence?
Why don't I imagine
myself out of existence?
OK, I'm still here.
I think, therefore I still am.
The sun is setting.
If there still is only one sun.
Why assume that I'm able
to take another breath?
I breathe, therefore I am.
And if I shouldn't assume anything,
why should I assume
these marks on these pages
will take me to a place
that might not even exist?
(Dramatic music)
Cookies?
(Dramatic music)
"Waves of energy rushed through Dick.
"He'd finished his novel,
and that felt amazing.
"That his life would lead somewhere,
"and it would be a great adventure
"for as long as he lived it...
as an adventure."
Is this an adventure?
Not one I would pick
for myself, unless I did.
Will I ever know?
Are there other escaped prisoners here?
Secret police?
Is this place, are all these people,
all this suffering...
something Richard Kendred
concocted for me to see?
What kind of mind would imagine this?
Did the mind that imagined
this also imagine me?
- Can I help you?
-Does Richard Kendred live here?
- Who is asking?
-Lars Shrike.
(Door creaking)
Are you Richard Kendred?
- Yes.
Are you real?
- I don't know.
I hope so.
- How did you find me?
- I went to a library.
Someone helped me.
- Where did you get that jumpsuit?
- In the prison?
I don't remember anything except
what happened after I escaped.
- And your eye?
- Some sort of flying fish creature.
- A turdfish bird?
- Yes.
- That sounds like the
kind of idea I would have.
Please, come in.
Your things are safe.
- Don't assume anything.
That's what a voice
inside my head kept saying.
The voice sounded exactly like your voic
- I feel like I'm talking to me.
How about you?
Do you feel like you
are talking to yourself?
- I came here for answers,
not more questions.
- I'm being rude.
Please come in.
Come, come.
Are you hungry? Thirsty?
Do you want a smoothie? Some supper?
- You decide.
I do not know the names of Earth foods.
- May I?
Thank you.
It's exactly as I imagined.
- Why wouldn't it be?
- I'm having trouble with this whole...
situation.
Why...
Why do you exist?
How do you exist?
- Why do you exist?
- I was born.
- But why?
- I don't know why I was born.
- Then why should I know why?
- I knew my mother and my father.
I knew how I was born.
My father got my mother pregnant.
My mother gave birth to me.
- But why are you you?
How are you you?
How did that happen?
- Genetics. Experience.
- I readThe Trouble with Dick.
That was me.
That was my experience in that book.
- None of this makes any sense.
Characters in books
do not come to life.
- So I'm a character.
- And characters don't walk and talk,
not in the real world,
not outside the pages of the book.
- The voice, your voice
kept saying again and again,
not to assume anything,
and yet here we are
assuming so many things.
- Because you can't get
through a day or an hour
without assuming hundreds of things.
- But that's not what
the voice kept saying.
If it really was your voice I kept heari
- You can be quite logical.
Imaginative and logical.
- I'm very confused.
- I'm pretty confused too.
- That is not what I wanted to hear.
- How did you get here?
- Don't you know?
- You think I wrote this?
- You could be writing
this conversation right now,
for all I know.
- I'm not at a keyboard.
- In your head.
- I stopped writing this story.
I couldn't make it work.
- You put out my eye.
- I'm sorry about that.
I...
This is all quite a shock to me.
I could be hallucinating you.
- I could be hallucinating you.
- I wish that you were.
- My pain.
You gave me all my pain.
- You exist because of me.
- I didn't ask to exist.
- I didn't ask to either.
Are you glad that you do?
- What?
- Exist.
- I have mixed feelings.
- I get it.
You look very tired.
- I am very tired.
- I'll make up a bed for you.
- I can sleep in your dwelling?
- Yes, of course.
I'm not gonna throw my
character out on the street.
- You said I wasn't your character anymo
(Sighing)
- I'll go get the bedding.
Here we go!
I...
can't help feeling that
I have completely...
lost my mind.
- I've had that same feeling.
I've had it for as long as I can
remember, which isn't very long.
I was hoping for an explanation.
- I wish I had one.
I need one too.
Help yourself to...
whatever you'd like to eat or drink.
Do you need anything else?
- Where do you write?
- In...
another room.
- May I see it?
- Yes. Yes.
Come.
- Ah!
- So...
This is where I write.
I've had a lot of trouble
continuing your story.
I've been working on it for years.
I'm truly sorry for...
your suffering.
How could I have known?
What are you thinking?
I'm sorry.
That's not a fair question.
- I am thinking.
So, this is the room where I was born.
- Did it hurt to get that?
- I don't remember.
The things that I've seen.
The moon.
Light.
With no warmth.
Faith.
So much beauty.
I am...
grateful...
to exist.
(Sighing)
I am very tired.
(Sighing)
(Buzzing sound)
"Lars pushed his baby buggy..."
"away from the charging station."
"Every bone in his body,
"every synapse told Lars
that the desert was safety,
"the desert was his destiny.
"that he should turn left
"and retrace his steps
back to from where he came.
Lars knew now that his
existence depended on this."
(Keys clicking)
"Lars locked the chrono-blaster
onto the transport beam"
"that would lift him
off the prison planet."
"Ah, this was how it felt to leave."
"The end."
(Insects chirring)
(Wind howling)
Cold.
Lars!
Lars!
Lars!
(Breathing heavily)
Don't assume anything.
That's how to survive.
Anything can change.
Everything will change.
- (Lars): Yes, everything will change.
This is perfect.
To have a complex and troubled character
and to not yet have any idea
where he will go or what he will do.
What worlds he might visit,
what prisons he might escape.
How about this?
One alternate reality opens into another
A universe of infinite regress,
or better yet, infinite egress.
This is gonna be great.
- Are you writing me?
-This will write itself.
- You escaped. You're famous.
-Why are you here?
- There are probably lots of Lars Shrike
-Are you visiting friends, family?
-You think I wrote this?
-There's less and less of me...
left.
(Sinister music)
(Footsteps on gravel)
(Music fades out)
Don't assume anything.
That's how to survive.
Anything can change.
Everything will change.
(Airy atmosphere)
(Dramatic music)
(Whooshing sound)
- Analyze.
- (Woman on recording):
Analytic circuits impaired.
No threatening life form detected.
(Whooshing)
No power left. No power left.
(Screaming)
Damage alarm! Damage alarm! Damage alarm
(Breathing heavily)
- Where were you?
-I don't feel so good.
- You...
You piece of shit.
-I resent that.
- Fucking turdfish bird!
Ah!
Shit! Shit!
Shit!
Why didn't you warn me?
-It's not a life form I'm familiar with.
- (Lars): Facts.
What are the facts?
There are things that can hurt me.
There's a power grid on the meridian.
If I can get there, this
thing can beam me off.
That's an assumption.
Do I have amnesia?
Am I brain damaged?
Something is missing.
- (Man): Somethingismissing.
- Am I narrating?
- (Man): Don't assume anything.
That's how to survive.
Anything can change.
Everything will change.
- (Lars): Something feels fucked.
Everything is fucked.
I could be captured at any moment.
Another turdfish bird or something worse
could fly out of nowhere.
Do I have a wife?
Children? Parents?
All I have is a name.
And why Lars Shrike?
Mommy and Daddy Shrike?
And baby Lars?
- (Woman): Lars, good night.
(Static)
(Sighing)
- (Lars): If I dream, I don't remember.
Was I a test tube baby on a spaceship?
Was amnesia engineered into my genes,
and I awoke to selfhood?
Without the neuroses of parents
and genetically programmed
to navigate the world,
whatever that world or
planet or asteroid might be.
And somewhere along
the line, I failed to socialize,
or I was wrongly accused,
and I wound up on a prison planet
for a crime I forgot.
Or was I genetically
engineered to be a prisoner?
Because prisons need prisoners.
It could be a false memory...
a memory implant.
In this memory,
I was sent to a psychiatric
hospital on the Alfvn moon.
I was... am a manic depressive.
I am manic.
To avoid being depressed,
I was falsely accused
of industrial espionage
because the watchers
did not believe I could
invent so many things.
Lars Shrike...
the hero of his own story.
No.
Ah!
Fuck!
-Damage alarm! Damage alarm!
Damage alarm!
Ouch!
(Static)
- Ah, shit.
(Groaning)
-Damage report:
Barrel bent. Main circuit marginal.
Aim unreliable.
Navigation unreliable.
(Dramatic music)
(Insects chirring)
- You're awake.
It's OK, Lars.
- How do you know my name?
- You escaped.
You're famous.
Yes, I'm real.
- Can you read my thoughts?
- I can read your expression.
- Are you...
- A prisoner? Yes.
Lottie. I escaped too.
- Where are you from? What system?
- Seoul.
I have Earth parents.
Do you?
- I don't know.
- Don't know or don't remember?
- I don't remember.
So I don't know.
Where's my chrono-blaster?
- (Woman): Lars...
- (Lars): What are my options?
Number one, she might
not be what she seems.
She might be a threat, a double agent.
She might be anything.
I can kill her.
I have the element of surprise.
-Damage alarm! Damage alarm! Damage alar
-Two, I can kiss her.
Might be my first time,
because amnesia is a form of virginity.
Three, we can politely
go our separate ways.
I might double my odds of escape
if the pursuers have to split up
to pursue me and Lottie separately.
Four, I might find the duplicity
of her friendliness exciting
and have amazing sex with a double agent
because she is pretending
to be something she's not.
-Damage alarm!
-It's sex and death and self-loathing
all rolled into one.
Five...
There are probably an
infinite number of option,
but I'd just like to stop
thinking and kiss her.
It's so cold and you're so warm.
You're the nicest person
I've met on this planet.
Was there a Lottie?
Was there a chrono-blaster?
Did an imaginary Lottie steal
an imaginary chrono-blaster?
CB.
-Lars.
(Buzzing sound)
-Why a blue sky today?
I don't know the astronomy of this plane
I don't even know its name.
- (Man): Don't assume anything.
That's how to survive.
Anything can change.
Everything will change.
(Phone chiming)
- (Lars): Fuck me, they
got tracking devices.
Maybe they're calibrated
to a different life form.
Elite guards?
A native tribe?
(Static)
Ah, drinking cylinders.
Clever.
I need to wait for night.
How does an amnesiac entertain himself?
This is where I could relive memories.
Review the moments that got me here.
If I had memories.
Ah!
(Woman coughing)
(Groaning)
How does this work?
Is it heat activated?
By body heat.
Pressure sensitive.
Is there an access code?
A pattern that you tap.
(Can opening, soda fizzing)
Ah...
My first good day.
That I remember.
(Burping)
(Birds chirping)
Mmm. Mmm!
A four-wheeled device.
(Static)
Units for solitary confinement.
A penal colony.
Is he a guard?
Is this housing for the guards?
A tracking device and a communicator.
An evolved form of the chrono-blaster.
- (Woman): I'm highly evolved.
- Quiet!
-I'm very highly evolved.
(Insects chirring)
- Analyze.
-Nutritional value.
- Toxicity?
-Low-level toxicity likely.
- How low level? How likely?
-Analytic circuits
impaired. Power diminished.
Immediate power recharge advised.
- Where? How?
-That's your job, not mine.
- (Lars): A rat in a maze...
who thinks the maze is freedom.
(Door handle clicking)
(Dog barking)
(Breathing heavily)
Well?
- (Woman): No access to power source.
- Then how am I supposed to charge you?
-I don't know.
(Inhaling deeply)
(Vehicle approaching)
- (Lars): Prison guards on patrol?
Or maybe I crawled through a wormhole
that connects the
prison planet to this one.
Maybe the guards followed
me through the wormhole.
Or maybe I am an experiment,
gone awry or forgotten.
Mmm.
(Gasping)
(Vehicle approaching)
(Car door closing)
- (Woman): Lars. Lars. Lars.
Lars.
(Door creaking)
(Heart pounding)
(Breathing heavily)
- (Lars): My heart is racing.
My heart.
How do I know I even have a heart?
Maybe I'm bionic, but with
fake blood sacks to fool me.
Maybe I only think I'm warm-blooded.
- (Man): Don't assume anything.
That's how to survive.
Anything can change.
Everything will change.
- (Lars): What do they
eat on my home planet?
Or the space station, if
that's where I was born.
I can't remember what
or how I ate in prison.
Red wine vinegar.
Vinegar?
I can read.
Red is a color.
Wine...
Vinegar.
How do I know what these symbols mean?
(Spitting)
Ah...
I am Lars Shrike.
I can read.
And I do not like red wine vinegar.
I like apple juice.
When I know 10 or 100
or 200 things about myself,
will I know who I am?
How many facts does it
take to make me into a me?
A prisoner?
An outcast?
Scavenging.
What does scavenging mean?
- (Woman): To get food or other
objects from refuse or rubbish.
-Water.
Water.
(Static)
(Animal howling in distance)
Oh...
(Animal howling)
- (Woman speaking
slowly): My battery is dying.
There is less and less of me left.
(Chuckling)
- (Lars): Remotely piloting a craft.
Yes, it must be a prison,
with each one of them
imprisoned in their own cell.
(Dog barking)
Maybe this isn't a prison.
A family?
How do I know those words?
Did I have a family?
Did I have a father?
A brother? A sister?
A mother?
Have I lost all memory of my family?
- (Woman speaking
slowly): Cannot... access...
power... source.
(Grunting)
- Ah...
A tool...
For what?
Ah! A tool.
(Grunting)
(Grunting)
(Grunting)
(Clicking)
Ah!
(Crying)
This moment will pass.
Or will it?
Everything that happens happens now.
Now lasts forever.
Now...
is a present.
- (Woman): Good night...
Lars.
-Good night.
- (Man): So that's what you look like.
- (Lars): You.
-I...
-Good night...
(Static)
...Lars.
(Insects chirring)
-California.
That's on Earth.
Am I on Earth?
Or am I being tricked?
If I was an inventor,
maybe there are inventions
in my head they want access to.
Is my every move being watched?
Is all this an illusion?
There might be camouflaged
cameras everywhere.
(Voice overlapping): Maybe...
Maybe everything that
I see is a projection.
Some demigod flipped a switch.
That some demigod flipped a switch.
When the sky went from green to blue.
Maybe I'm a grand experiment.
Maybe I'm a grand
experiment facing budget cuts.
And tomorrow, there will be no sun.
Tomorrow, there will be no tomorrow.
(Birds chirping)
(Wheel creaking)
What planet is this?
(Phone dinging)
- Huh?
- What is that?
- It's a cell phone.
- From a prison cell.
- No.
- Why is it called a cell phone?
- I don't know. It just is.
- Is it a tracking device?
- Yeah, they can track you with this.
- Weapons function?
- No.
- Navigation function?
- Yeah.
- Can it connect to a power beam?
- A power beam?
- Transport beam to
transport off the planet.
- Huh?
- How can I get one?
- Money.
I get disability benefits.
- A disability is a benefit?
- Yeah.
They give you money
if you have a disability.
Or you can panhandle.
You can ask folks for money.
Or you can collect bottles
and take them to the recycling center.
But it'll take a hell of a lot of bottle
to get a cell phone with.
- I've learned a lot from you.
Thank you.
- What happened to you?
Why are you here?
- I escaped.
- To this?
(Vehicle approaching)
(Music blaring)
-Another four-wheeled device.
Are scavengers welcome inside?
(Woman talking, indistinct)
- Hello! Joshua Tree Library.
(Woman talking, indistinct)
(Computer beeping)
(Computer beeping)
- You need to sign up to use a computer.
- What's a sign up?
- See that lady over there?
Just go tell her you'd
like to use a computer.
- I'd like to use a computer.
- Do you have a library card?
- No.
- Um, an ID card?
Proof of address?
Something with your name?
That's not an ID.
- It is where I come from.
- Here.
Take this to any computer that's open
and use this username and access code,
and you'll have an hour of time.
You look like you have a question.
- What is the web?
- The worldwide web is the Internet.
- Internet?
I don't know what that word is.
- Well, the Internet connects
computers all over the world.
You can find out about
anything on the Internet.
Take that to any computer and log on.
(Computer beeping)
How are you doing?
- I... I don't know what to do.
- Well, you need to use the mouse
to get the cursor over the username box.
- Mouse?
- This is the mouse.
And the arrow is the cursor.
See it moving around on the screen?
So you get the cursor to
the spot where you want it,
and then you give the
mouse a little press, like that.
In this case,
over the box that says "username."
(Phone ringing in distance)
(Mouse clicking)
You've never used a computer?
- Not that I remember.
- Go ahead.
Use the keyboard...
to enter the username I put
down on that piece of paper.
And now enter the password I gave you.
(Keys clicking)
And hit "enter," this key right here.
Good.
You're learning fast.
- That's the web?
- Yeah. That's the web.
- Ah...
- What do you want to learn about?
- Me.
- OK. Uh, then...
Write your name in the search box.
- Ah...
That's me!
- Well, there are probably
lots of Lars Shrikes.
You need to use your mouse
to click on one of the links,
and it'll take you to the websites
where the words "Lars
Shrike" are referenced.
Go ahead. Try the first one.
- Huh, that's interesting.
He wroteThe Trouble with Dick.
We have that in fiction.
- (Man): Excuse me.
- Good luck, Lars.
If you need any more help, just ask me.
- Thank you.
- Yes, how can I help you?
- Hi, I called earlier.
- (Man): The Trouble with Dick
is a groundbreaking synthesis
of science fiction and autofiction.
Inner space and outer space fuse
as the fictional character
of Richard Kendred
struggles to write a potboiler SF story,
The Galactic Chain Gang.
Lars Shrike, Kendred's fictional alter e
undergoes all manner of Job-like sufferi
on an unnamed prison planet.
- (Lars): Did I read The Trouble with Di
Did I have a fever dream of
my own that I don't remember,
and then woke from the fever
dream brain damaged and deluded
that I was Lars Shrike?
"As the character of Lars Shrike exists
"within the context of Kendred's
seminal work of autofiction,
"he can be regarded as an expression
"of the author's masochism.
"How else to explain the
otherwise unmotivated episos
"of pain and suffering that
the character is subjected t?
"The Trouble with Dick
might instead be titled
The Three Stigmata of Lars Shrike."
The Trouble with Dick.
She said they had that book here.
Kendred.
Kendred. Kendred.
H-I-J-K...
Kafka.
Kendred.
- I looked on the web,
and that's the only Lars
Shrike I can find other than you.
You can take that home
with you if you want.
- I don't have a home.
- Well, you can take it out of the libra
I'll issue you a library card,
and you can use that to borrow the book.
- Can I borrow a map too?
- What kind of map?
- A map to 5730 Laverne Terrace,
Los Angeles.
- You'll have to print that map.
- On the computer?
- Copy it on the paper.
It's 10 cents a page.
I guess you're thinking:
"What is 10 cents?"
- Yes.
- And you don't have any money?
- Money?
- I'll print it out for you.
Go back to your computer and hit "print.
And the map will print on that printer.
You're my good deed for the day.
- You're the nicest person
I've met on this planet.
- I take that as a high compliment.
- Is this a prison planet?
- Only if you think of it that way.
Where did you get those clothes?
- I got them in prison.
Although I'm not so
certain about that anymore.
I have an inner voice that
tells me not to assume anything.
- Sounds like a pretty good inner voice.
(Door opening, closing)
-Baby buggy.
(Baby crying)
- Hey!
-Baby buggy.
Come on, baby. You can do it.
- (Woman): Cannot...
access...
(Static)
...power.
- Come on!
(Talking, indistinct)
(Sighing)
-I'm dying...
(Static)
...Lars.
(Static)
Lars,
I'm dying.
(Insects chirring)
(Siren wailing)
- Step away from the vehicle.
Step away from the vehicle.
Walking in the middle
of the road is dangerous.
Did you hear me?
- Yes.
- Have you been drinking?
- Yes.
- Public intoxication is a crime.
- I have not been drinking toxins,
unless they are tasteless toxins.
- Stop!
Back away.
Hands up, where I can see them.
What are you doing out here?
- I am walking to 5730 Laverne Terrace.
- Are you visiting friends?
Family?
Anybody?
Well, stay safe.
-A monument, or the king's guard.
The Burger King's guard.
(Horns honking)
-Lars...
- (Man): Turn around and go back.
You should go back to Lottie.
-Lottie...
-Or we could go back to the librarian.
-Maybe electromagnetic
waves are twisting my synapses.
(Dramatic music)
(Vehicle beeping)
-"There was a phone in the kitchen
"where Dick would have some privacy"
"for the call to Mr. Samsa."
"Mr. Samsa was his
best hope to sell a story."
- Mr. Samsa, hi, this is Dick Kendred.
- Well, you said to call
you if I had any other ideas.
-Well, I'll be glad to
read whatever you got.
Just send it on in.
- Well, I haven't actually written it ye
but I wanted to tell you my idea
to see if you thought it
was, well, commercial or not,
since you said that...
- OK, Dick. Well, give it to
me in a very quick nutshell.
- OK. The title is The Galactic Chain Ga
-Good title.
- It's about this inventor,
sort of a genius industrialist type,
who gets sent to a prison planet
where he maybe gets embroiled
in all these alternate realities.
- I... I plan on working in a
lot of desert stuff, you know?
Hostile creatures maybe escape
from the chain gang and can...
-Listen, kid, sounds promising,
but go easy on the desert stuff.
Maybe throw in some
mountains and a few oceans,
a little city action, whatever.
- (Lars): The Galactic Chain Gang?
Is this an alternate reality?
(Train whistling)
Or is all this something I imagined?
Or did some sadistic god or system engin
design me to suffer here...
forever?
Or as a way station to some
other place, some other time?
Or am I an android whose ocular input
is being watched by an alien species
that takes vicarious
pleasure from my suffering?
Did I imagine a book
called The Trouble with Dick?
Did I invent Richard Kendred...
and name myself Lars Shrike?
Why don't I imagine the
book out of existence?
Why don't I imagine
myself out of existence?
OK, I'm still here.
I think, therefore I still am.
The sun is setting.
If there still is only one sun.
Why assume that I'm able
to take another breath?
I breathe, therefore I am.
And if I shouldn't assume anything,
why should I assume
these marks on these pages
will take me to a place
that might not even exist?
(Dramatic music)
Cookies?
(Dramatic music)
"Waves of energy rushed through Dick.
"He'd finished his novel,
and that felt amazing.
"That his life would lead somewhere,
"and it would be a great adventure
"for as long as he lived it...
as an adventure."
Is this an adventure?
Not one I would pick
for myself, unless I did.
Will I ever know?
Are there other escaped prisoners here?
Secret police?
Is this place, are all these people,
all this suffering...
something Richard Kendred
concocted for me to see?
What kind of mind would imagine this?
Did the mind that imagined
this also imagine me?
- Can I help you?
-Does Richard Kendred live here?
- Who is asking?
-Lars Shrike.
(Door creaking)
Are you Richard Kendred?
- Yes.
Are you real?
- I don't know.
I hope so.
- How did you find me?
- I went to a library.
Someone helped me.
- Where did you get that jumpsuit?
- In the prison?
I don't remember anything except
what happened after I escaped.
- And your eye?
- Some sort of flying fish creature.
- A turdfish bird?
- Yes.
- That sounds like the
kind of idea I would have.
Please, come in.
Your things are safe.
- Don't assume anything.
That's what a voice
inside my head kept saying.
The voice sounded exactly like your voic
- I feel like I'm talking to me.
How about you?
Do you feel like you
are talking to yourself?
- I came here for answers,
not more questions.
- I'm being rude.
Please come in.
Come, come.
Are you hungry? Thirsty?
Do you want a smoothie? Some supper?
- You decide.
I do not know the names of Earth foods.
- May I?
Thank you.
It's exactly as I imagined.
- Why wouldn't it be?
- I'm having trouble with this whole...
situation.
Why...
Why do you exist?
How do you exist?
- Why do you exist?
- I was born.
- But why?
- I don't know why I was born.
- Then why should I know why?
- I knew my mother and my father.
I knew how I was born.
My father got my mother pregnant.
My mother gave birth to me.
- But why are you you?
How are you you?
How did that happen?
- Genetics. Experience.
- I readThe Trouble with Dick.
That was me.
That was my experience in that book.
- None of this makes any sense.
Characters in books
do not come to life.
- So I'm a character.
- And characters don't walk and talk,
not in the real world,
not outside the pages of the book.
- The voice, your voice
kept saying again and again,
not to assume anything,
and yet here we are
assuming so many things.
- Because you can't get
through a day or an hour
without assuming hundreds of things.
- But that's not what
the voice kept saying.
If it really was your voice I kept heari
- You can be quite logical.
Imaginative and logical.
- I'm very confused.
- I'm pretty confused too.
- That is not what I wanted to hear.
- How did you get here?
- Don't you know?
- You think I wrote this?
- You could be writing
this conversation right now,
for all I know.
- I'm not at a keyboard.
- In your head.
- I stopped writing this story.
I couldn't make it work.
- You put out my eye.
- I'm sorry about that.
I...
This is all quite a shock to me.
I could be hallucinating you.
- I could be hallucinating you.
- I wish that you were.
- My pain.
You gave me all my pain.
- You exist because of me.
- I didn't ask to exist.
- I didn't ask to either.
Are you glad that you do?
- What?
- Exist.
- I have mixed feelings.
- I get it.
You look very tired.
- I am very tired.
- I'll make up a bed for you.
- I can sleep in your dwelling?
- Yes, of course.
I'm not gonna throw my
character out on the street.
- You said I wasn't your character anymo
(Sighing)
- I'll go get the bedding.
Here we go!
I...
can't help feeling that
I have completely...
lost my mind.
- I've had that same feeling.
I've had it for as long as I can
remember, which isn't very long.
I was hoping for an explanation.
- I wish I had one.
I need one too.
Help yourself to...
whatever you'd like to eat or drink.
Do you need anything else?
- Where do you write?
- In...
another room.
- May I see it?
- Yes. Yes.
Come.
- Ah!
- So...
This is where I write.
I've had a lot of trouble
continuing your story.
I've been working on it for years.
I'm truly sorry for...
your suffering.
How could I have known?
What are you thinking?
I'm sorry.
That's not a fair question.
- I am thinking.
So, this is the room where I was born.
- Did it hurt to get that?
- I don't remember.
The things that I've seen.
The moon.
Light.
With no warmth.
Faith.
So much beauty.
I am...
grateful...
to exist.
(Sighing)
I am very tired.
(Sighing)
(Buzzing sound)
"Lars pushed his baby buggy..."
"away from the charging station."
"Every bone in his body,
"every synapse told Lars
that the desert was safety,
"the desert was his destiny.
"that he should turn left
"and retrace his steps
back to from where he came.
Lars knew now that his
existence depended on this."
(Keys clicking)
"Lars locked the chrono-blaster
onto the transport beam"
"that would lift him
off the prison planet."
"Ah, this was how it felt to leave."
"The end."
(Insects chirring)
(Wind howling)
Cold.
Lars!
Lars!
Lars!
(Breathing heavily)
Don't assume anything.
That's how to survive.
Anything can change.
Everything will change.
- (Lars): Yes, everything will change.
This is perfect.
To have a complex and troubled character
and to not yet have any idea
where he will go or what he will do.
What worlds he might visit,
what prisons he might escape.
How about this?
One alternate reality opens into another
A universe of infinite regress,
or better yet, infinite egress.
This is gonna be great.
- Are you writing me?
-This will write itself.
- You escaped. You're famous.
-Why are you here?
- There are probably lots of Lars Shrike
-Are you visiting friends, family?
-You think I wrote this?
-There's less and less of me...
left.
(Sinister music)
(Footsteps on gravel)
(Music fades out)
Don't assume anything.
That's how to survive.
Anything can change.
Everything will change.
(Airy atmosphere)