Jake

This one took me a while to get through, but maybe that’s just because weekends will be hard for me to set aside the time to read a whole script. Is this venture already doomed to fail? We’ll see.

Blade Runner is one of my favorite movies of all time, and yet the script is my least favorite I’ve read (thus far). There are a lot of things in this script I want to call mistakes, but I don’t feel justified in calling them that because the script’s success is evident. I can say they are things I didn’t like though, and don’t want to repeat in my own works.

The writing of the script did not serve the story, and at times actively worked against it. I’d get more specific, but the writing fails in so many regards that it’s hard to get more specific without going into each facet. Don’t get me wrong, I am not commenting on the story. I’m commenting on the way the story is written.

First, it’s over-written. Every aspect of the language is bloated with needless excess. Take for instance this bit of action from Deckard’s encounter with Zhora. “...she kicks him in the ground, and he doubles over from the pain of it.” Doubles over from the pain of it?! Of course getting kicked in the balls hurts. You even told us that by him doubling over. But you had to go so far as to explain to us why he doubled over? As if we had never experienced pain in our lives?! Why is this sentence making me so angry?

The author takes three sentences to say something that should take one, tops, and the result is it makes the whole thing drag. Sometimes it even convolutes the scene the writer is trying to paint and makes it less clear.

 New commandment: Less is more.

The writer is also guilty of telling, not showing. So often, he uses adjectives that would not be readily visible to the audience, or he reveals a characters internal monologue or a bit of history that in no way could be visibly represented. If these revelations could be visibly represented, then write the visible representation. A screenplay is not a novel. You can only write what you see. 

And then there are times when characters say out loud what we have just seen. Of course these lines were cut from the film. I have to write down these commandments because I may be repeating myself, but here’s another one: Never state in dialogue what is clear to the eye.

The line I fucking hated from this script was “On Stage, Salome and the snake are into sexy stuff.” Fuck you! How dare you get vague now when you’ve over-written everything else. You’re supposed to be telling us a story through visuals. Describe the scene. Don’t be coy. We’re going to have to see this snake porn because of you anyways. If you don’t feel comfortable with it then CUT IT OUT OF YOUR SCRIPT. 

After reading Alien and Chinatown, I appreciate how powerful the choice of words and the structure of your sentences can be while telling your story. After reading Blade Runner, I appreciate how damaging it can be when the tone of your diction is at odds with the tone of the story. Every page there is a words or a phrase that takes me completely out of the work and ruins the atmosphere. For instance, did you know that Deckard “chug-a-lugs” liquor when Rachel comes to his apartment to confront him about being a replicant? Or when Roy shows up after Deckard has found J.F. Sebastian’s house, the writer actually included this sentence:

“A cluttered hallway filled with debris...spooky.”

Spooky? I mean, not only is that sentence over written (”cluttered” and “filled with debris” tells us the same fucking thing. If you’re so precious about it, at least write “A debris-cluttered hallway,”) but you added “spooky” after an ellipses. Why? WHY?! I didn’t realize I was being told a story about a haunted hay ride for children.

I’m getting irrationally angry about all of this. This isn’t a review Jake. Take a deep breath.

I have other complaints, but the take away is: Less Is More; Show, Don’t Tell; and that a screenplay is a story told through it’s visuals.

I chose Rushmore because I’m a fan of Wes Anderson and wanted to see what goes into his scripts. I only saw Rushmore for the first time less than two weeks ago, so I decided to go with this one since it was fresh in my mind.

Only need a sentence at most to describe a character. Only describe what’s visible.

Why is the scene with Max directing there? Should it be there? My gut tells me it works, and gut instincts are insights from our brains which has parsed out something meaningful about the way in which the world around us works that our higher cognitive functions have yet to articulate. So then what aspects of it make me think it works rather than not work? My guess so far is because it sets up the Serpico scene later, further cements Max’s character, and is a good contrast to the next scene, which is the more intimate one with his father. I’d say I listed those reasons in reverse order of importance.

Setting up the Serpico scene? It’s not integral to the story as much and if they just jumped right into the performance I don’t think the audience would second guess it.

Solidifying Max’s character? Possibly. Does it do anything that other scenes haven’t? You could make the case that we haven’t seen how intense he is yet outside of knowing that he likes these clubs. In this instance we see his passion for his extracurriculars. This is where he is alive, and thrives. 

And also, since he is our main character, we should at least get some time to know him since this is such a character driven work. One of the first things I learned taking an improv class is the nature of creating a pattern. One or two data points aren’t enough to really establish a pattern. You need three or more. If a work hinges on character, perhaps you need to set up a few somewhat similar scenes in the beginning that establish who they are, even if it tells you information we may already know or have inferred.

Most importantly, though, I think it serves to juxtapose Max’s life in Rushmore and his life outside of Rushmore, and show how fractured his identity is. The Max he shows to the world is different from the real, damaged human being.

The more I think about it, it’s definitely option three.

Speaking of three, it tends to be a reoccurring number structurally for Wes Anderson. Often times, there will be three moves of something, like three instances of Max trying to meet with and impress Miss Cross, before moving on to the next beat of the film. No surprise. Three is a psychologically pleasing number, due in no small part to it’s ability to define patterns (can’t remember if I talked about it above, I started writing this post last night). More than three is almost always unnecessary, and Wes Anderson only makes structural moves that are necessary. 

I tend to think of stories in terms of bones, meat, and skin. The bones are the structural elements, like the inciting incident, first plot point, etc. As you can tell, I err on the side of the three act structure, which I think is a useful took in outline a story, and then again in removing superfluous scenes, but it’s just a tool that serves the story. The story should never serve its tools.

Then there is the meat. After the scenes are outline, this is the how it’s all done, at least the broadstrokes. This is dialogue, setting, parts of character that didn’t inform the above. This really fills in the story, and is how you tell your story. 

The skin is the final piece, usually saved for last. These are the specifics. Like how Max is the head of the beekeeper club, and then later torments Mr. Blume by funneling bees into his hotel room.

These layers go from general to specific, which is how I like to write. I bring these all up because when I say Wes Anderson only has what’s necessary in his movies and little else, people would likely challenge that immediately, site all of his well-known flourishes. 

But when you look at the structure, at the bones of it, where it really counts to not have anything superfluous, everything really is essential. You can pretty easily look at his works through the framework of the three act structure and see easy delineations between the movies. He doesn’t overcomplicate these moves, which is why I think they’re so psychologically satisfying.

He also doesn’t forestall the plot or moves with unnecessary bickering or hesitation. There are lots of pauses between character’s dialogue, yes, but those pauses are telling and that’s all part of the meat and skin. WHen it comes to the bones, no character stops question anything. They just say yes and move on. Like when Max comes to Mr. Blum’s steal mill to get movey for the aquarium, Mr. Blum doesn’t say no and then Max has to eventually win him over. Mr. Blum hears his sales pitch and says yes without a second thought. In may not seem plausible in the real world, but in the reality of the piece it’s consistent so we stop questioning it. 

Maybe that could be a commandment, you don’t have to operate by the rules of the real world, but you have to operate by the rules of the world you create. We’ll see.

Where Wes Anderson is superfluous of extravagant is in the area you should be: the skin. So many shitty movies and stories I see try to desperately make the story serve the structure, but then after they’ve slavishly put all the bones where they need to be on the skeleton, they put on a bare spattering of meat and connective tissue and call it a day. The skin is where you add flavor and life to your work! Indulge in it. Be creative. Add the details you want to write. The only time you’re ever wrong with the skin is when the skin doesn’t serve the story. 

What was I talking about again? Ugh, I can’t wait to stop being sick

I thought about reading a script for a movie I haven’t seen or didn’t like, but then I said “fuck that” and went with my all-time favorite comedy: Ghostbusters. Why kill my momentum when I’ve been good so far, right? Besides, at least it’s a different genre than Chinatown or Alien.

The differences between the script and finished product with this script is particularly informative. I’m told what works on the page doesn’t always work out loud, but there is one reoccurring thing that seems to have (arguably) worked on the page but was cut either behind the camera or the editing room:

The scenes and jokes drag on. Where the film cuts, the script goes on for just another moment, and it always seems the worst for it. Take for instance the introduction of Dana and Louis when she is making her way back into her apartment. In the film, dweeby Louis tries to hit on Dana, and after she dismisses him and slips into her apartment he attempts to open his door, only to realize he’s locked himself out. What a loser right? End scene with a big ole dumb expression on his loser face.

In the script after she closes the door, he is mumbling about how they should have keys to each other’s apartments in case of emergencies. He then tries his door handle, jiggles it, then adds a fucking god awful tag: “--like this.”

That tag is completely useless. We already had the punchline when jiggled the door handle. There is some other jokes and dialogue in the script that’s like this, and they’re all worse than the films’ version that cuts shorter. Maybe it was just the director or the actors that did that, and other directors or actors could have made the jokes written as is work just as well or better, but I doubt it.

The take away from this seems to be don’t overload your punch line, and that visual punchlines work so so so so much better than dialogue. Have faith that your audience is going to get it without spelling it out for them. I’m starting to think that is starting to become my second commandment: Trust your goddamned audience. 

Wow, I’m getting a little worked up. Maybe because this whole point isn’t just about jokes, but about the tension in a scene. Take, for another instance, what immediately happens after Dana talks to Louis in the hallway:

Dana’s kitchen scene. In the film weird shit like eggs frying themselves on a counter top happens. The creepiness builds until we see inside the fridge, where hell dogs, a ziggurat, and some Lovecraftian god is beckoning. Scene cuts away and we’re left wondering what the hell happened to poor Dana.

Well, in the script, she slams the kitchen door closed. She looks over, sees the eggs are back in the carton as if they’d never been broken, and then opens the fridge to find it’s back to normal. By dragging the scene on and not cutting away at the most tense part then whatever suspense was built was lost.

It makes me think of my improv education, that taught to edit the scene at the funniest point. As often happens with improv, I find that a little of truths with that medium find even greater purchase in others. Maybe we should edit every scene at it’s highest point. When editing, imagine a graph with X being time and Y being the intensity of whatever emotion you’re trying to evoke, then highlight + Backspace everything after it. I don’t feel confidently enough in that to make it a commandment yet, but we’ll see over the course of this year.

Gods, I’m writing a lot more for these posts than I thought I would.

Thinking about it some more, I’d say follow the improv rule of “don’t make jokes” with writing. Let the comedy come from the characters within the situation. Almost all of the throwaway jokes in the script were cut. The short scenes and bits that served no purpose to the story and were there just to make a joke were cut. It seems like jokes are meant only for stand-up and around water coolers.

The script also had a lot of problems with it’s tone. Like the infamous The Phantom Menace ending, there are moments where there is a dire, serious scene going on with one character, it then cuts to another character having something silly happen to them. Biggest offender was the moment where Venkman is with a possessed Dana and Egon+Janine are with a possessed Louis. In the film, there is a brief instant showing that Ray and Winston are driving over one of the bridges having a conversation about judgement day. They still have that conversation in the script, but then the film keeps jumping back to them going to an army barracks and Ray ends up getting a beej from a ghost. 

Him getting that beej serves no purpose other than making a joke. It doesn’t advance the plot at all, and if anything, sabotages the growing sense of tension from Venkman and Spangler’s scenes.

The scene is still kept in the movie, albeit edited. It’s in the early montage and I think it works there. Why? Two reasons. The first is because of a concept I read called Fun & Games, where you get to have fun in the story and deliver on the promise of the film. It usually happens in the first half of the second act if you’re a fan of three act structures. In Ghostbusters, the fun and games seem to be that little montage of them going around busting ghosts (and getting a ghost-beej). 

The second reason is because it works with the tone of that segment. This is a complaint I have for a lot of things I’ve seen. Some works just can’t keep their tone straight. I don’t think a movie needs a single tone throughout the entire film, but segments should. Sharp changes in tone can be very jarring for the audience and often undermines the emotion you were trying to evoke.

I’m probably using all these words incorrectly but I’m sick and want to be done.

I tend to think of the emotional tone of a piece to have momentum that tends to build. Every time you change or subvert the tone, it’s like slamming on the brakes of your car. I’ve done a lot of thinking about tone and how it relates to imrpov, and it always seems like the game of a scene has two tones (one for the base line reality and one for the game itself), and a strong game move almost always is accompanied by a sudden tonal shift. More authors and performers should be aware of this, because I’ve seen so many pieces that could have been made to work with tone shifts used well, or saved by not shifting the tone.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t always use humor within tense scenes. In fact, I think something like gallows humor can help reinforce the tone if that’s how the characters would respond to whatever they’re encountering. 

One last thing before I waste more time: I am so glad the molesting ghost scene was cut. When all hell breaks loose after the shut down the power grid, there is a scene of a molesting ghost in an office. It’s pretty gross and I think the movie would have been the weaker for it. Bad enough that every woman in the movie was described as young and that the words “love-slave” were written. 

I once heard that if you want to learn how to write a screenplay then watch Chinatown 100 times. To whoever said that, you’re not wrong.

I chose Chinatown as my second script because the film is my current favorite, and the story is the single tightest I’ve ever seen. Every detail is important, and they are all used so elegantly that you don’t realize just how important they are until it comes crashing down on you like a brick.

The script was phenomenal. The writing was both crisp and vivid, dense yet completely lean, not a single ounce of fat. The only scene I had issue with was one that was cut from the film: before he meets Cross, he takes a plane and has to sit with the pilot,who just happens to recall details on Mrs. Mulray after reading about her in a paper some fifteen years ago. It smacked too much of coincidence and strained by disbelief, and while it provided some detail about Mrs. Mulray, it was (as the movie proves) not critical. 

I guess there was a small bit of fat, and it was that scene.

It’s hard to glean much insight from the script because it’s just too good. I can’t write anywhere near that level, and maybe I never will. The author weaves together so intricately that it’s dizzying to try to pull it apart, and I’m left dumbfounded and in awe. This is going to sound disgustingly pretentious, but I even teared up at how marvelous it was for GIttes to tell Walsh “Yes, I know it’s in Chinatown,” after he reads Walsh Kyo’s address. 

Quick preface, when I post these entries I also want to write my thoughts on the scripts, both for my sake and I hope yours. I am not looking to review the scripts or spend much time comparing the script and the finished film (though I’ll be doing some of the later in this first post). Instead, I just won’t to jot down observations.

Let’s move right along then, shall we?

Alien is one of my favorite films of all time, and I can ramble about why. It’s one of the reasons I chose it as my first script, but the main reason is because of advice I received from my UCB sketch 101 teacher, Ari Voukydis. He recommended it to me as an example of action done well in screenplay form. More than five years later, I’ve finally followed his advice and read it.

First thing, all of the description and action is extremely economical. Precise, evocative adjectives like “oily” set the tone right off the bat. Since screenplays hinge on tell a story visually, it seems like the key to doing that effectively is powerful adjectives. Sounds basic, I know, but at this early stage of my education it seems important to state the obvious.

Back to how economical the language is, it borders on curt. Not sure how much of that is unique to this script compared to others since I don’t have a strong pool of works I’ve read to compare it to, but it set a harsh, unforgiving tone which is on point for the story.

Small thing I’ve had some trouble with when working on the novel I wrote was how to effectively capture the passage of time that rely’s on showing, not telling, and doesn’t drag the pacing on for a while. It struck me how Alien did it when Lambert, Kane, and Dallas went on the expedition towards the signal. They’d jump from the exterior expedition to the interior one, but show the passage of time in the interior ones by way of things like having Ripley be on one side of the ship, engineering, then walk onto the bridge on the other side of the ship later on. I also think at some point they jumped forward and showed Ripley now had coffee, which we can only infer took some time to brew.

Everything is present tense.

Movie only tells you the bare minimum of what you need to know right off the bat: character names, their jobs, the ship and it’s function, and where it’s going. No wasted time explaining the state of Earth, faster than light travel, and other minutia that bogs down other movies. Have faith in the audience.

I have a lot of thoughts on the characters. First, I loved how professional they were to each other. The dialogue, especially the use of jargon with each other, really solidifies their relationships as coworkers. I believed all of it.

The characters themselves start off a little flat. No wistful dreamers staring off at setting twin suns. Everyone is a cold and dispassionate as the ship is at first. Sure, Parker and Brett from engineering are more “human” than the rest of the crew, but their complaints about money and the rest of the crew not coming down to engineering are pretty typical proletariat complaints in a corporate environment. It would feel less corporate without their bitching. Their are glimpses of character, like the aforementioned bitching and Kane’s boldness, but they only just barely differentiate the characters.

I mention this because one thing I keep dwelling on with my writing is how do you make an audience care about a main character. After all, who cares if a bunch of detached, corporate nobodies we’ve never seen before start getting killed? Yet Alien doesn’t go out of it’s way to make your care for these characters. They don’t tell you so and so has a family back home waiting for them, or they have to get back to fulfill X promise they made by people. The only thing the characters are fighting for in this movie is their survival. You grow to like the characters based solely on the trials they go through and the decisions they make. That’s all it takes. Suffering.

Are there character arcs or growth in here? Nothing spelled out, nothing obvious. If anything, they go from being cold, detached professional to becoming terrified Humans fighting for their survival. All nonsense about jobs and money prove to be meaningless in the face of death.

I found it interesting that they kept Brett from slipping into the background as a character by having him say “right” all the time. It’s a fun, easily little quirk that works better than giving him more lines and slowing down the dialogue with more chatter.

Ash and the power of secrets: We have no idea what Ash is keeping secret or why he’s doing it, but the fact that he keeps a secret adds a sudden layer of danger to everything. Seems like a quick, easy trick to heighten the tension for things I write in the future. Something Something....mystery box....something something...JJ Abrams.

Some of the scenes didn’t work for me, and they were all ones cut in the movie:

- I hated the cheap jump scare of Kane’s body banging against the window (what are the odds?), it was my least favorite thing in the whole script.

- There is a segment where Parker just happens to catch the alien by the airlock and they almost flush it out, but Ash triggers an alarm ans scares it off. Besides showing the alien, which I think the film was right to keep mostly hidden until the end, this scene failed for me because it relies so heavily on coincidences. The alien just happened to be near the airlock while Parker just happened to be walking by and Ash just happened to turn on the alarms right before the alien was about to be blown out the airlock. Coupled with the above example, it sets up something I am going to start as a rule or commandment for my writing: COINCIDENCE IS THE BANE OF GOOD STORYTELLING.

- Another scene that didn’t work for me was Ripley coming across Brett and Dallas in cocoons. It relied on Ripley just happening to hear Human moans while walking down a hallway, then finding them. In addition, Dallas’s line “That’s Brett,” seemed necessary, and was too “telling, not showing” for me.

- Final thing, right along with the “telling, not showing” was Ash’s ramble about the alien being the perfect organism..It felt too explicit for me.

Final note, the alien in the screenplay seems to rely too much on it’s acid blood to get it out of jams. Seems almost one note. I like better in the movie that it’s tenacity is the key to its survival in the film since it seems more on-theme.

I’ve decided to learn as much about screenwriting as I can this year. One part of my plan to do that is to read a script a day, every day, for 2016. I’m going to post my thoughts for each script I read, and with any luck something worthwhile will come of it.

Hello my fellow improvisers,

Some of you know me, and for many of you we don't know each other but we've watched each other perform. I want to write to you about an incident that recently happened to me at a show at the Triple Crown.

My team and I were mingling before our show. I don't typically drink all that often, and while my fellow improvisors were enjoying drinks they bought from the bar, I was having water out of my water bottle. I was in a good mood, excited to try out the renovated basement and redeem myself from a lackluster performance on my part earlier in the day, when suddenly a bar manager approached my while I was sitting on a bench and said "You have to leave."

I was confused, "Excuse me?"

"No outside food or drinks," he said, pointing to one of the new signs on the door. "Now come with me. You're leaving."

"But I'm in the show. Can I just put my water away?" I asked.

"I don't care if you're a performer or not. We're tired of improvisors bringing in outside food and drink. Get out." I tried reasoning with the man. I offered to give him my water bottle, but he wouldn't budge.

Now, I completely understand the policy of not allowing food or drink inside. I've hosted a twice-monthly show at the Triple Crown for years now, and have discouraged people from bringing outside food and drink in before. The irony of the situation is I had my water bottle filled at the bar.

When I grabbed my bag to leave the show host and my fellow improvisors came to my defense, trying to reason with the man. "How do I know there isn't vodka in there?" he challenged us, to which he was offered the water bottle to check, but no matter what was said he wouldn't back down. In fact, the manager cancelled the whole show and kicked us out (when the show host went to see what the exchange was about he immediately threatened to cancel all her shows going forward, but he eventually decided he'd only cancel that night's performance).

I want to be mad and bitter, I want to use my comedy acumen to belittle him, but I can't do it in good conscience. The Triple Crown has been a great venue for improvisors for years, graciously offering up their basement to our community free of charge. The space has become a regular part of my life since I started hosting shows there years ago, when the only alternative I knew of for regular indie improv shows was the Creek. I have many great memories, and I thank Triple Crown for them.

But things have changed. If the Triple Crown is going to continue this zero-tolerance policy then I think it's time we, as a community, started supporting other venues. There are so many great theaters and venues now, created by improvisors for improvisors. There's the Queens Secret Improv Club and This Theater. There's also Brit Pack, and many more that I am sure are out there but haven't heard of yet. If you host a Triple Crown show, I ask that you reach out to these places and consider moving your shows there. Let's support our own.

Thanks for the time to read this. It feels so silly and dumb to get up on a soap box about this, but the whole incident was silly and dumb.

Another writer and I had to go head to heard, seeing who could write the better 720-word story in 72 hours. We had to write with the theme "pack mentality". He wrote about an anthropomorphic backpack, I wrote this. Enjoy.

Hey everyone,

I have been doing a weekly short story writing competition. This week I had to write a story story that was 750 words or less and was inspired by a Lego set of my choosing (I went with my childhood favorite: the Monorail Transport Base) and the Earth Defense HQ.

  I had from Wednesday to Sunday at midnight to write, and this following story is my final result.

Keep Going

The Io Reseach Base team stood in silence and watched the first transmission they'd received from Earth since the communications blackout. Dr. James Avalon, mission commander, did everything he could to maintain his poise in front of his men.

“This can't be real...” muttered Dr. Hansen, whose daughter's birthday had come and gone during the weeks of Earth's silence.

“The transmission is quite real.” solicited STAN, the station's android.

Banks of computers played the same scene simultaneously. As Volgogrod burned in the background, a squad of Russian soldiers were making their last stand against hulking green beings with technology unlike anything they had ever seen. One by one the Russians fell, until all that remained was the scientist who was recording the footage. The aliens quickly cracked open the mobile command station he was sheltered in, and the transmission died with him screaming “inostranets” as a green, gelatinous creature affixed itself to the man's head.

“Inostranets?” Avalon looked to Levchenko, the other man on his team.

“It means aliens.” Levchenko stared blankly into the distance.

***

“I have a plan to return to Earth.” Avalon stood before his assembled men, hands on his hips.

“Is that even possible?” Hansen asked.

“STAN's calculations confirm it is.” The men looked to the android. The android hesitated while servos whirred beneath his translucent helmet.

“Dr. Avalon is correct.”

“We'll have to cannibalize a lot of the station's parts and systems, but with enough effort we can piece together a ship that will take us back home. I've forward the blueprints to your terminals, your orders are to begin working immediately. Dismissed.”

Hansen filed out but Levchenko lingered at the door for a moment. He studied Avalon with bloodshot eyes, but whatever he thought he kept to himself.

“Why did you have me lie to them, sir?” Stan asked.

“They need something to keep them going.”

“And you, sir?”

***

“Levchenko, are you listening?” Avalon shook the Russian. Levchenko blinked and glanced around the tram car.

“I dozed off.”

“You've been riding the monorail for hours.”

“Oh.” he muttered.

“What were you doing?” Avalon looked at Levchenko, but the Russian didn't meet his eyes.

“I was...” he didn't bother finishing.

“We're going to get home.” Avalon said.

“Okay...”

***

“Have you seen Levchenko?” Avalon asked.

“I haven't seen him all day.” Hansen said, crawling out from underneath the makeshift fuselage. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, everything is fine.” Avalon tried to say casually, but there was something in his voice that Hansen noticed. When Avalon went to security to try to track down Levchenko, Hansen followed.

The two men poured over the station's security footage

“There!” Hansen exclaimed, but his excitement quickly turned to dread. Avalon dashed over to Hansen's terminal. He watched as Levchenko donned his spacesuit with ritual deliberateness before taking one of the rovers out into Io's desolate wilderness.

“When was this?” Avalon felt his heart sink.

Hansen looked up at him with wide eyes, “Ten hours ago.”

Avalon spun and sprinted towards the vehicle bay. He was half in his own suit by the time Hansen caught up to him.

“Jim, it's too late. He must have run out of oxygen four hours ago.”

“It's not too late!” Avalon furiously tugged at a stuck zipper. He felt Hansen's eyes on him as his trembling hands fumbled with his suit, but no matter what he did the suit wouldn't give.

“Levchenko's gone.”

That night, Avalon insisted they have a service for Levchenko. He read a poem by Dylan Thomas while Hansen stood in silence.

***

“It's over.” Hansen said.

“It's not over.” Avalon said.

“This shuttle is hopeless, and even if it wasn't what then? We haven't heard from Earth in months.”

“We have to keep fighting.”

“There is nothing left to fight for. Earth's gone. My family is gone. I've accepted it, now it's your turn.”

“I won't.”

When Avalon woke the next morning he discovered he was the last man alive.

***

“I can't keep going.” Avalon sobbed.

“You must.” STAN said.

“Why? What's the point?”

“Without you, I serve no purpose. You need to persist...”

“...For you.” Avalon whipped away his tears.

“For me.”

I woke in the middle of the night to the sound of my phone vibrating. As I blinked away sleep, I saw the clock on the night stand read 3:52pm. Who is calling so late? I thought. I glanced over next to me to see that my fiance, Steph, was still asleep.

I groped around for my phone on the night stand. By the time I found it the phone had stopped vibrating. I slid my finger across the screen to unlock it and discovered that I had 6 missed calls and dozens of text messages. I clicked to see who was calling.

Steph.

Confused, I glanced over to her. Her back was to me, but I saw her chest move up and down as she took shallow breaths. "Steph?" I called to her, but she didn't stir. I clicked on the text message icon and saw a wall of texts, all from her.

"Jake?" "Jake! Pick up ur phone!" "Jake! Call me! Please!!!" "Where are you?!" They all read like that, desperate and frantic. As I read them, another text message popped up.

"GET OUT OF THERE NOW!"

The hairs on the back of my neck suddenly stood on end. I glanced over at Steph and realized something had changed. It was her breathing. It was not longer the slow, shallow breaths of someone who was asleep.

"Steph?" I called to her. There was now tremble in my voice.

"Jake." it said in her voice. It turned its head slight, and in the dark a glimpsed a face that was too pale and a mouth that stretched the entire way across its jaw. My heart started to pound in my chest, but I was frozen in place. As slowly reached a hand towards me, an envelope in its inhumanly elongated fingers, it said... 

For some reason I can't go back to sleep until I say a few words to my Facebook friends that have posted Sandy Hook Truther statuses and photos. So, if you even have the slightest suspicion that Sandy Hook was a hoax then this message is for you:

You are a fucking idiot.

Seriously? Seriously? Just apply your critical thinking skills to this conspiracy theory for five minutes. Do it. Don't be afraid. Its not hard, and once your done you can go back to the comfort being a fucking idiot with the rest of your opinions.

So you actually believe the Obama Administration faked a school shooting using a pool of "crisis" actors the government recycles each tragedy to play the family of victims of this tragedy in an effort to create stricter gun control laws? Like, this isn't some in joke I am not in on? This is something you honestly believe?

The plot is so goddamned convoluted that even George Lucas would have had the presence of mind to hire an editor if he had written in a draft of the prequels.

Is it because Obama wants to take away our guns so that he can become Supreme Emperor Super Allah? If he wanted to do that he doesn't need to take away our guns. You know why? He has an army of fucking drones that can kill you from the atmosphere. He can literally rain death from the sky. Good luck hitting a drone with that automatic weapon you bought because you liked using it playing Call of Duty.

Five minutes of critical thinking is all I am asking right now. What would the people who organized this "conspiracy" have to gain, and is that gain really worth the risk? The possible benefits of this conspiracy are minimal at best, and the risks are astronomical. If it really was Obama, he would risk a fall from grace that would not just leave his reputation ruined worse than Super Nixon's, but he would likely spend the rest of his life in prison. And even if he was pardoned, someone would definitely try to assassinate the monster.

Obama is a pretty clever guy. He played the Game of Thrones and won, you guys. He would know that the plan was pretty dumb, and even if he thought it was worth the risk, he wouldn't be so lazy about it he'd take photos of himself with the "actors" after the shooting.

I am going back to bed, but if I see another truther post....