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Tag Archives: language
Is calling someone a student derogatory?
What’s in a word? A subtle shift. Perhaps we’ll come one day to consider the word ‘student’ derogatory – why? Because it’s a put-down that places the educator at a higher level. We’re in it together, learning always and often playing dual roles as learners and the learned.
I find I am as likely to be involved in social media policy for internal communications as external so need to find ways to facilitate ‘proactive serendipity’ – one approach is ‘Yammer’; the other is low tech and inspired by John Seely Brown – the better organisation of social spaces to engender multiple chance encounters with colleagues (such as the coffee-machine) and eating lunch together rather than at a desk! (working in France was a joy on this front).
Need to write an assignment or exam paper?
I bought this in 2000 when I was thinking about an OU course. In February 2001 I signed up for the Masters in Open and Distance Education. We used First Class, it was loaded from a disk I think. Using a Mac might have been a problem, I was rarely online to follow the independent, spasmodic asynchronous threads.
Anyway, a decade later I am heading towards the finish line.
2001 wasn’t a good year for many of us … I did the first TMAs but was made redundant a couple of months before the TMA would have been due and had by then decided that doing less for a couple of years rather than more would be a good idea.
Anyway … despite having successfully negotiated two modules and six-eight TMAs and a couple of ECAs I find myself turning to Chapter 10 of the above.
‘Writing essays and assignments’
I love the way the book is laid out. I reads like is was designed to be web friendly with short sentences and paragraphs and bullet points galore.
We may be floating around in cyberspace 12 years on from the last edition of this book (first edition 1970), but is remains relevant, not just for preparing for an ECA, but for writing at all.
I like lines like this,’ After we’ve read, heard and talked about a topic, our minds are awash with ideas, impressions and chunks of information. But we never really get to grips with this experience until we try to write down our own version of it. Making notes is of some help, of course. But there is nothing like the writing of an essay to make us question our ideas, weigh up our impressions, sort out what information is relevant adn what is not – and, above all, come up with a reasoned viewpoint on the topic that we can feel it our own’. (Rowntrree. 1999:170)
- I will be probing
- I will develop a critical argument
- I will start tonight and write 500 words a night over six nights, then revist/redraft and pull it all together.
- I will have the evidence
- I will have the references in place
- I will plan, weigh up and select from the work that I have done (and that has been done in my tutor group)
- These will back up whatever themes or viewpoints or arguments I am putting forward
- I WILL write and outline and stick to it
- I will not become bling to better approaches that suggest themselves (which happened for one ECA and had me heading towards a 40 mark)
- And I will ‘write like I talk’ (which is what I’ve always done)
(62435)
How should business schools rank in the minds of the business commmunity?
The views of a panel of experts and 2,000 professionals from across the UK have voted the Open University Business School one of the top five super-brands for executive education, training and development.
The survey recognises brands that have established an exceptional reputation in their sectors and offer customers significant emotional and/or tangible advantages over their competitors.
The panel ranked the Open University Business School ahead of Manchester Business School, Cass Business School, Warwick Business School, Said Business School at Oxford University and Cambridge Judge Business School.
The Centre of Brand Analysis compiled the The annual Business Superbrands on behalf of the Superbrands
The business school’s list runs like this:
- Cranfield School of Management
- London Business School
- Imperial College Business School
- The Open University Business School
- Manchester Business School
- Said Business School
- Warwick Business School
- Cambridge Judge Business School
- Cass Business School
Overall the top UK business brand was Rolls-Royce with Blackberry, Microsoft, Google, Apple and the London Stock Exchange in second to sixth places .
Words. A call for simplicity in language
‘Communication is essential to our lives, but how often do we stop to think about where the words we use have come from?’ Hutchings (2008)
The Secret Life of Words. How English Became English
Words matter to me very much
Their purpose is to communicate.
We are all prone to use jargon, and the first time we use it we feel we belong that tribe. Academic writers are prone to the greatest misdemeanours – they not only invent their own words, but they like to show off their command of words you/we have rarely come across, or they misappropriate words from other disciplines and force anew definition upon them.
Books on words appeal to me.
If Open Learning is to appeal to the broadest church, then clear, simple, language is required.
If you spot any polysyllabic bibble-babble, please do share.
Or is that me committing this very crime?
One long word, and another long word that might be of my own invention. My apologies.
So why use one word with many syllables which few people understand, when a sentence of short words would do a far better job?
Obfuscation or communication?
Showing off or joining the throng, who are your students.
And have I just done it again?
What I mean to say is, ‘it cannot help learning if a writer puts in a long word that they and their colleagues understand that the majority don’t.
Clear English, is simple English; anything more can be unnecessarily confusing.
Why I worry more about Web 4.0 than understanding Web 2.0
I’m on training journey … we left Web 1.0 at the platform, I’ve been through Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. The view from the window is confused and dark. By morning all will be clear and the wonderful world of Web 4.0 will show itself. This is the excitement of the journey, NOT knowing what will come next and not having to care too much went before.
Who saw Google or Facebook coming? Who’d have known it from roots in Netscape and Tripod.
Who saw the rebirth of Apple with the iTouch and iPad?
Where Sony now? Or should I not even ask given the events of the last few days.
Are metaphors relating to oceans, waves and techntonic shifts no longer PC?
For an H800 WK 5 activity I’m contemplating the transition from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0.
Meanwhile I’m reading a book that wants to move me on from Web 3.0 to Web 4.0.
Is this akin to the Neanderthal form of teaching that was Modern History at Oxford, ending I think around 1702. My daughter is styding Modern History and takes in the Second World War – this feels like yesterday (though my parents were children during that war).
Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 is starting to feel ancient.
Web 3.0 is where it’s happening.
Web 4.0 is where it’s going … until and only if we coin a different term to trump it.
Never has my head hurt so much, I feel like all the Dr Who’s in one … a person from each era contained in the same being, loyal to each, while desperate to be embraced by the latest think, very conscious that the religion of tomorrow is of more value that the beliefs of the distant past of … well twenty years ago.
Dion Hinchliffe does it this way:”
I’m uncertain which or what analogy to use, but if you are studying ‘innovations in e-learning’ how can what is going on right now not be far more relevant to the thinking of a decade ago, let alone a few years ago?
It’s as if this is 1911 and we’re style unsure (as they were) if heavy-than-air machines would get off the ground. H.G.Wells had his heroes in dirigibles.
Woe-betide the Geordie linguist trying to learn in the English speaking world
The meaning of words and learning, from how we learn to speak via Hitchings, John Seely Brown and the Open University MAODE module H800.
I like that thought that ‘All knowledge is, we believe, like language’.
Whether we are educators or not, we all have experience of acquiring or possibly learning a language. I was brought up in the North of England by aspirational Geordies who between them wanted to instil ‘correct’ spoken and written English. Woe-betide the child who spoke with a hard ‘a,’ spilt an infinitive and sprinkled their conversation with ‘sorts of … ‘ or ‘you know.’ I’m surprised none of us came out with a stammer. Could this be why my brother bit his nails all the time? He held onto his Geordie accent despite his parents best (or worst efforts). Which has me thinking, we’ve had a Royal who stammered, is there one who used to bite their finger-nails?
Language, and our choice of words and the words that are coined and come into common used are vital. I STILL get into conversations over whether it is ‘E-learning’ or ‘online learning’, and as they are the client you can imagine which way I tip.
‘Its constituent parts index the world and so are inextricably a product of the activity and situations in which they are produced’. Brown et al (1989)
This indexing of the world makes for a fascinating book. Hitchings on the English Language gives a wonderful insight not only into the way ‘English’ developed, has changed and is changing … and why words matter.
‘A concept, for example, will continually evolve with each new occasion of use, because new situations, negotiations, and activities inevitably recast it in new, more densely textured form. So a concept, like the meaning of a word, is always under construction’.
Think of conceptual knowledge as similar to a set of tools.
‘People use tools actively rather than just acquire them, by contrast, build an increasingly rich implicit understanding of the world in which they use the tools and the tools themselves’. P33
I like this idea too, that we can equate words with tools and vice-versa. They are components that enable communication. And communication facilitates learning.
But of course ‘How a tool is used will vary by context and culture’. Brown et al (1989:33)
Wherein lies the inherent problem with language, whether it is translated, or especially if you think you are talking the same language … but are not because your take and comprehension of a word or set of words is different: should, would, will, can, maybe, perhaps … all words that combined with a look, and body language may make someone believe they mean ‘yes’ or they mean ‘no’. So do you, in such situations act or do nothing? Language can have us sitting on the fence. Is this what academics do? Forever transitory between the commercial world where decisions are paramount?
‘Enculturation is what people do in learning to speak, read, and write, or becoming school children, office workers, researchers and so on’. Brown et al (1989:32-33).
I loathe the word ‘enculturation’ as I only ever come across it in reports/conversations such as these. As all learning, in all its stages becomes readily available and transparent I wonder if such words, indeed any jargon or acronyms are justified? It is possible to be intelligent without cluttering your sentences with ‘big words’ or sounding patronising. Try it; it’s habit forming. Like all education.
‘Given the chance to observe and practice in situ the behaviour of members of a culture, people pick up on relevant jargon, imitate behaviour, and gradually start to act in accordance with its norms’.
I read, unless you are born into a middle class family of snobs who deny their roots.
Ambient culture over explicit teaching
‘When authentic activities are transferred to the classroom, their context is inevitably transmuted; they become classroom tasks. The system of learning and using (and, of course, testing) thereafter remains hermetically sealed within the self-confirming culture of the school’. Brown et al (1989:34)
Wherein lies the discord in many school classrooms
The students’ lives are so far removed from the school experience that they cannot behave. They could and will only learn if they do so within the context of their family lives. How many families sit around together, in front of the piano, or radio, or TV, let alone at the dining room table? Children don’t sit still, physically or mentally. They occupy their own space both online and off. No wonder they take laptops into lectures. And can they blog, and send messages while sitting through a lecture? Probably. They could even stream it live to someone who can’t make it … or just record it for later consumption (or not). Not being the operative word, what they can grab of it in transit is probably as much as they’ll take in first time through. Just plain folks (JPFs)
I love the idea of JPS
‘Just plain folks’ (JPFs),’ we are told, ‘learn in ways that are quite distinct from what students (in the classroom) are asked to do’. (Jean Lave’s ethnographic studies of learning and everyday activity 1988b). (Weren’t JPS a brand of cigarette, famously branded gold and blank on Forumula 1 Racing cars of the 1970s?)
JPFs are best off as apprentices rather than having to make qualitative changes in school. Brown et al (1989:35)
This is what we do. We label, we index, we give things names. We categorise whether or not there is truth behind the category. I debunk ‘digital natives’ and ‘digital immigrants’ as concepts wherever I can as false, yet we know what is meant by it, as with ‘Generation Y’ or the ‘Facebook Generation.’ We cannot have a conversation without such terms.
What as a teacher do you make explicit and what implicit?
The problem is that to overcome difficult pedagogic problems you make as much as possible explicit – this is not the way to teach.
Indexical representations which ‘gain their efficiency by leaving much of the context underrepresented or implicit.’ Brown et al (1989:41)
i.e. what you leave out is perhaps more important than what you put in.
Which explains the problem with Wikipedia – it aims to be universal, comprehensive and definitive.
It wants to be the last word on everything, even if the last word is always the next word that is written. From a learning point of view I’d like to launch a moth-eaten version of Wikipedia, the Gouda cheese version that leaves stuff out, that is nibbled at and full of holes.
Why?
Because this will get on your goat and prompt you to engage with the content, to correct it, to fill in the gaps. Can someone write an app to do this?
To go in and remove sentences, replace the right word with the wrong one, a wrong date/place with the facts currently given?
‘Communication is essential to our lives, but how often do we stop to think about where the words we use have come from?’
Henry Hitchings poses this question on the flyleaf of his gloriously informative and entertaining book on the History of English ‘The secret life of word. How English became English.’ Hitchings (2008)
REFERENCE
Hitchings, H. (2008) The Secret Life of Words. How English Became English.
Brown, J.S., Collins.A., Duguid, P., (1989) Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning. Educational Researcher, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Jan. – Feb., 1989), pp. 32-42 American Educational Research Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1176008 . Accessed: 05/03/2011 13:10
On reading a book cover to cover – it can be an e-book, it is the extended and consistent voice that matters
I have no doubt that habit has something to do with it. My reading list before going up to Oxford perhaps. A stack of second hand books, a pen and notebook. I like reading a book cover to cover.
I am on my third MAODE module. You are pointed at a chapter here, a chapter there, loads of reports too, but no longer a book. We had books in 2001, a box of them and a CD-rom.
I have bought and read three topic related books. Do they now clutter up shelf-space? They are like oranges I have squeezed dry, for pulp, juice and pips.
I have bought eight e-books and have devoured two of these.
It was reading Vygotsky’s ‘Educational Phsycology’ that made me appreciate the value of reading a single author cover to cover. What is more, I enjoy the limitations of his own reading. This is 1926. How many people is he going to read and reference. Not that many, John Dewey stands out so will be my next read. There has to be value in engaging with a flow of argument from one mind over many thousands of words. Perhaps it is a relief where so much of my reading is prompted by Linked In Forum Messages, OU Tutor Group Forum Messages and feeds from blogs.
‘Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age’ is a compilation piece.
The K-tell album of e-learning authors.
All our favourites get to sing their song.
I enjoy how the editors introduce each new chapter, at least there is some attempt to bind the contributors to a theme. I wonder from amongst them if I have heard a voice I am interested in hearing again? i.e. once again, this suggestion that you tune into a person’s way of thinking and expressing themselves and by doing so surely speed up the learning process?
What counts though are my highlights and notes.
Having read each cover to cover I am now going through the 350 highlights/notes on EACH. This gives me the chance to expand, delete, add and reflect. And for those poor people who Friended me on Facebook by accident rather than design, Tweet-like updates directly from the Kindle. I need to find a better way to manage these … sending them here would be an idea, at least there’s some relevance.
I am reading no fewer than FOUR what we might term ‘popular’ books on e-learning, the DIY books primarily aimed at teachers. One is brilliant, two are also-rans, but one is dreadful: Prensky gets headlines for his headlines (Digital Natives) … there is no substance to him and I heartily wish the OU would drop him as a point of discussion.
Or is this the point?
You know you’ve learnt something once you’ve gone from nodding along with all he says to consigning him to the bin?
REFERENCE
Vygotsky, L.S. (1926) Educational Psycholgy.
Beetham, H., Sharpe, R (eds) (2009) Rethinking E-learning Pedagogy.
Johnny Depp was my line manager
And if real learning occurs, is it no longer ‘virtual?’
Where does reality end?
What part of your subconscious is real?
It happens after all, if yo think it or dream it. We distinguish between learning and e-learning; should we ? Did we distinguish a different reality after the train, after the telephone, after television or a man on the moon?
I am often online, I speak to people through Skype and Elluminate.
Yesterday I likened an Elluminate ‘tutorial’ with seven or eight fellow students as wearing a blindfold in a meeting; yo have to be alert to the presence of others, be sensitive to their interest (or lack of), their hand going up, or not. You are dependent on your only sighted person present – the tutor or moderator.
Over the last month I have been interviewed for a job on Skype. Producers have discussed my work on Skype.
I have been set task to show what I can do, somehow my body of work, the videos and scripts not real enough. Can I still fill a blank sheet of paper with pertinent and persuasive ideas; that’s what they want to know.
My blend of learning uses the conscious and subconscious.
I consciously go to bed with a book, now on Kindle, currently reading through my extensive highlights and notes on two books: Education Psychology (Vygotsky 1926) and ‘Rethinking Pedagogy for the Digital age (Helen Beetham & Rhona Sharpe eds. 2007). As I drift away I may close the Kindle, may slip it safely to one side .. may not. I matters not a jot. I’tll look after itself.
No wonder I find myself dwelling on all matter of things.
Earlier I woke thinking about one of these job interviews: it may be to work on contrast, it may be to work freelance, there are even a couple of full-time posts. All want to know what I have done recently. What they really need to know is what can I do for them next week or month. Or now.
As I return to consciousness I reflect on the interview that was on my mind, only to realise that it is highly unlikely that my future boss Is Johnny Depp. I’ve been duped by my own mind. No worries. The thoughts relate to the real opportunities, not this peculiar mash-up in a virtual world.
I have multiple presences in cyberspace with ‘faces on’ that may be anything from a week to 15 years old. Indeed, I ought to attach an image of the six year old me to a collection of ‘earliest memories.’
I have a couple of existences in Second Life too, though I’ve yet to run with these.
Would I not get more confused over where reality ends?
If it is becoming less easy to distinguish reality from the virtual, how are we supposed to differentiate between learning and e-learning? Is it not the case that both could be going on … but a student, or the students are doing no learning in either situation? That they are elsewhere? That they are not engaged? Yet hours later, consciously or otherwise, a recollection of a ‘lesson’ may produce a learning moment, may generate ‘stuff’ a learning object in that person’s consciousness?
The Contents of my Brain – A screenplay
‘The Contents of My Brain’
FADE IN:
I/E. AN OLD CAR/A BUSY MAIN ROAD – NIGHT
JAKE (early twenties) is driving an old banger along a busy main road. POPPY (early twenties) in a pea-green coat and jeans is at his side. There is light rain.
POPPY
Bacon.
JAKE smiles. This is a familiar game. There is a sexual overtone in every word they speak.
JAKE
Eggs.
POPPY
Mine.
JAKE
Wine.
POPPY
Drink.
JAKE
Swallow.
POPPY
Video.
JAKE
Photographs.
POPPY
Album.
JAKE
Store.
This gives POPPY an idea. She stops the game to try to get something out of her jeans pocket. JAKE takes his eyes off the road.
POPPY
Diary.
JAKE
Scrapbook.
POPPY
Two words!
JAKE
Not so.
POPPY struggles to remove something from her trouser pocket. JAKE tries to give a hand as he drives. Scene set to Public Image Ltd ‘This is Not a Love Song.’ JAKE does his best, the car jerks from side to side on this fast main road. JAKE’s fingers get stuck in POPPY’s jean pocket. He gives up. POPPY has a go. Her jeans are tight. Her seatbelt is getting in the way. POPPY unbuckles the seatbelt, raises her hips, gets a hand into the pocket of these ultra-tight jeans and pulls out some pieces of paper.
JAKE glances at what POPPY has found, then gets his eyes back on the road ahead. JAKE comes up behind a bus; there’s little chance of overtaking. POPPY puts the overhead light on and then carefully sorts out the scraps of paper she has found: chewing gum wrappers, receipts, cheque book payment slip … She smooths each one of them out. JAKE glances at what she’s up to. ‘Bonkers.’ We read on his face.
JAKE is distracted by what is going on in the bus. They must be rugby players (all early twenties) in the bus coming back from a game. Some of the young men in the back of the bus make crude jerking actions with their hands. One holds up a rugby ball and uses his tongue to play with its tip before throwing it down the bus. The bus sways left to right as if the driver has just been distracted. JAKE backs off.
POPPY leans into the foot-well and takes from her bag a hard-back note book and pen. She carefully places each scrap of paper she has sorted/collected between the pages of the notebook/diary and writes a note to go with it. JAKE worries about her but it doesn’t stop him taking his right hand from the steering wheel to reach into the side of the driver’s door to get an old parking ticket. POPPY is grateful when he hands it to her and she sees what it is. She finds a place for it in her note book and jots something down to go with it. It makes her giggle. JAKE wonders what her memory could be. They exchange a glance. These too are close and their relationship is fresh and loving.
Then a driver comes up hard behind JAKE and flashes his lights. It’s ANDY (early twenties) in a black Mercedes soft-top. JAKE is distracted by the antics in the back of the bus ahead as the rugby ball makes its return, hitting the window in the back of the bus and resulting in a scramble over the back seats. The car behind then makes a move to overtake, thinks twice and drops back.
A mobile phone rings. JAKE wants to take it. POPPY’s expression shows that she disapproves of JAKE’s taste in ringtones. POPPY grabs JAKE’s mobile instead. ‘Not in the car’ she tut-tuts. It is a text. She thumbs a quick reply. She then starts to thumb through the ring-tones. These irritate JAKE. Snapping, JAKE takes the mobile off POPPY, and turns it off. Annoyed at this, POPPY takes the phone and flings it out of the car window. JAKE is startled by this – their first row (if we can tell.)
At this point the Mercedes tries to overtake again. As it pulls out to overtake the Mercedes clips the rear of JAKE’s car. JAKE jerks the steering-wheel over to the left and bounces over the kerb. With a car coming in the opposite direction the Mercedes has to swerve too. Both cars skid over the grass verge. Jake finds a stonewall fast approaching. POPPY and JAKE brace themselves as the car smashes into the wall and jolts to a crunching halt. The Mercedes hits the wall too.
JAKE, held in place by his seat-belt, is dazed and cut. He sees people running towards him out of the corner of his eyes. He looks over at POPPY. She’s not there. The windscreen is smashed. JAKE pulls himself from the car.
The Mercedes is a right-off, the driver dead. JAKE looks for Poppy. He looks along the stonewall, then leans over it. There she is. It doesn’t look good. JAKE can’t see properly, he is suffering from concussion. Blood runs into his eyes. He sits down against the wall. Looking up he sees a stampede of rugby players coming his way – he doesn’t know if they are friend or foe – but no longer cares. JAKE passes out.
CUT TO:
I/E. AMBULANCE TRAFFIC ACCIDENT – MOMENTS LATER
JAKE sits with a blanket over his shoulders in the back of an ambulance. Another police car arrives. A POLICEMAN takes pictures of the approach to the accident. A FIREMAN records video of the rescue. FIRE CREWS tackle the burning car while a team of a dozen work on POPPY. She is put onto a stretcher and strapped in place. Several of the RUGBY PLAYERS help lift POPPY over the stonewall. The man in the Mercedes looks dead. There are two people, both oddballs in their way, taking particular interest in him, DR MUNROE and PROF DICKINSON. Shaking their heads, they right him off and go over to the other victim. There’s life still in Poppy. Straps hold her in place. JAKE looks around as someone takes his picture. The flash angers him and he swipes at them with a hand. It hurts to move.
Looking around he picks out people who are morbidly attracted to what is going on – not just looking but taking images of the activity, pics and video clips, with mobile phones, hand held devices and cameras. JAKE is startled to see a YOUNG WOMAN in the crowd who from behind could be POPPY. He watches her walk off down the road and feels the urge to follow. A VIDEO JOURNALIST approaches him.
VIDEO JOURNALIST
Anyone dead?
JAKE is mortified. A TRAFFIC COP pushes the BUSY-BODIES away. A PARAMEDIC gets in with JAKE, another closes the rear of the ambulance and it drives off. Meanwhile, DR MUNROE and PROF DICKINSON (sixties or older), convinced there is hope to save POPPY call over young colleagues HILLARY and BEN (early twenties) to take a close look at POPPY. While the other emergency teams have a conventional array of costumes and kit according to their roles: fire service, police service, ambulance service. These two, HILLARY and BEN, are hi-tech and only interested in POPPY’s skull and its contents. Probes/monitors employed cause screens to light up in a near-by van kitted out like a TV Outside Broadcast Unit. This is no TV unit though, the images they gather are all related to medicine/neurology – its as if they are operating a portable CT scanner looking for brain activity.
CUT TO:
NEWS BULLETIN
Evening News. Various media outlets, TV and broadband, have a frenzy over the images of a nasty pile up.
TV ANCHOR
Death on the roads. Expect adult language and scenes that may distress some viewers from the start.
CUT TO: JAKE in the back of an ambulance.
JAKE
(Distressed. To himself)
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
We see the two cars involved. We see the dead and injured: one male fatality, one female seriously injured.
PRESENTER (V.O.)
One dead, the other fighting for her life.
There’s a picture of ANDY, then POPPY as she is stretchered away.
PRESENTER (CONT’D)
A notorious spot on the A66 claims its third victim this year. The driver of the vehicle which caused the accident had this to say.
JAKE
(To the camera crew)
Fuck off!
CUT TO:
INT. INTENSIVE CARE UNIT – NIGHT
POPPY is the centre of attention. Efforts are made to stabilise her condition by doctors/nurses. This is no normal intensive care room. One wall is a bank of mirrors. JAKE, medicated, an arm in a sling, a bandage around his head, approaches.
NURSE
Are you family?
JAKE
?
The NURSE won’t let him in.
NURSE
Only family.
JAKE
I was driving.
NURSE
You’re the one who did this?
JAKE
I’m her boyfriend.
JAKE is kept out of the room. The oddball couple, DR MUNROE and PROF DICKINSON enter. JAKE watches as PROF DICKINSON and DR MUNROE speak to the NURSE. A moment later PROF DICKINSON leaves and DR MUNROE motions to JAKE to enter.
PROF DICKINSON (V.O)
(Through a speaker)
We’re ready in here.
JAKE is hesitant. DR MUNROE & PROF DICKINSON are up to something and he doesn’t know what. DR MUNROE takes JAKE over to POPPY’s side. The NURSE leaves. All members of the medical team step away from the body. POPPY looks terrible. A machine like a CT scanner, a large doughnut of technology, sits behind her head. JAKE steps forward. It is like stepping under a spot light. ‘Where is this place?’ We see written on his face. JAKE puts his fingers on POPPY’s hand.
DR MUNROE
She’s in a coma.
JAKE leans over. He goes up close. He kisses her.
CUT TO:
INT. VIEWING ROOM – NIGHT
A team of specialists, more like a busy live news room, watch a bank of monitors that are like tiles filling a dome like room. Every person in the room gives the impression that they are passionately and intellectually gripped by what is going on. They work in teams or solo, tweaking monitors, adjusting screens, on keyboards, behind desks wiring in new hard drives. We pick out three members of the team, PROF DICKINSON, the team leader and the two youngest team members who work together at one of the desks, HILLARY and BEN. They have drawn a blank … within every set of two or three screens the ‘viewing panel’ is blank. PROF DICKINSON looks up at a bank of monitors. As JAKE kisses POPPY several screens light up: 3D mind maps complementing images that we just about recognise as being of JAKE. A couple of technicians (HILLARY & BEN) go to work on the images. Images of the 3D mind map are grabbed from various sources and assembled. Other members of the ‘team’ enter the room to contribute to the work. Fed back to the patient the image of JAKE changes hue and becomes sharper. PROF DICKINSON is impressed. He leans over to a microphone and speaks to the Intensive Care room.
PROF DICKINSON
We’ve got something.
CUT TO:
INT. INTENSIVE CARE – NIGHT
JAKE is invited to sit next to POPPY. As he does so JOANNA (fifties) enters followed by CLIVE (fifties). JOANNA is furious.
JOANNA
He shouldn’t be here.
(Indicating JAKE)
He did this.
JOANNA pulls JAKE’s hand from POPPY and tries to pull him out of the room.
JAKE
I did nothing of the sort.
JOANNA
You should not be allowed to drive.
JAKE
It wasn’t me.
JOANNA
I could see this coming.
JAKE
Meaning?
A HOSPITAL PORTER helps to lead JAKE from the room. CLIVE hangs back, letting JOANNA take the lead.
JOANNA
Meaning young male drivers like you should be banned from the road.
JAKE
Try saying that to the person who clipped the back of the car as they tried to overtake.
JOANNA won’t listen. She has made up her mind that JAKE is to blame.
CUT TO:
INT. VIEWING ROOM – NIGHT
PROF DICKINSON expresses dismay as the image of JAKE they have ‘coming’ from POPPY begins to bleach away as the argument next door in the Intensive Care Unit gets out of hand. The images on monitors of neuronal connections break up.
PROF DICKINSON
Get her out of there.
CUT TO:
INT. INTENSIVE CARE – NIGHT
DR MUNROE intercedes.
DR MUNROE
It was my idea.
JOANNA backs away from him.
JOANNA
You can’t make me leave. I’m her mother.
JOANNA slaps DR MUNROE’s hands away. POPPY goes into a cardiac arrest. The medical team rush back in. JAKE and JOANNA are ushered out of the room. The medical team have work to do if they are to save Poppy.
CUT TO:
INT. VIEWING ROOM – NIGHT
PROF DICKINSON, hearing all this and seeing it through the two way mirror is frustrated as sharp bright flashes burst onto the various monitors. HILLARY and BEN work on the neuronal connections to try and stabilise the image they have of Jake. All the screens go blank.
CUT TO:
INT. FARMHOUSE POPPY’S ROOM – NIGHT
A young woman/girl, mid teens, BETH sits on a single bed going through a hardback diary. Her actions are suspicions – she doesn’t belong her. She’s on edge. The bedroom is heaped to the ceiling with ‘stuff.’ Books, newspapers, cardboard boxes – the person whose room this is hoards things. BETH is startled by headlights on the drive. BETH slips all the inserts back into the diary, opens a desk drawer, pushes it under some papers and locks the drawer and hides the key under a collection of thimbles on a shelf. BETH leaves the bedroom as the door opens downstairs.
CUT TO:
INT. FARMHOUSE, FRONT LOBBY – NIGHT
CLIVE helps JOANNA off with her coat. They look haggard.
BETH
She’s alright?
CLIVE and JOANNA are too upset to say anything. BETH goes over to them for a family hug. The news is bad.
CUT TO:
I/E. DAY CAR/A BUSY MAIN ROAD – DAY
A taxi pulls over on the kerb. JAKE, pale, still bruised and cut gets out. He watches the busy main road as cars race passed. He spots people on mobile phones. He spots people eating sandwiches as they drive, a woman doing her lipstick as she drives. Up the road, Police accident scene tape marks the spot where the accident occurred. The wall is down. JAKE goes back up the road looking for something – the mobile phone Poppy threw from the car.
A police vehicle arrives and pulls up on the kerb by the stonewall. A POLICEMAN takes a portable roadside sign from the boot of the vehicle, marks it up with a fat felt pen and places it by the road where it can be spotted by passing traffic. “Fatal Accident. Wednesday 08/03/07 at 5.37 p.m. Any information contact Northumbria Police 0870 0191 999”
JAKE wanders over to the road-side shrine. There are bouquets of flowers left to ‘Andy.’ JAKE is so angry that he treads the flowers into the ground.
WPC
This yours?
JAKE turns to find a WPC watching him. She has his mobile phone.
CUT TO:
NEWS BULLETINS
Day Time TV. The accident scene, day light. Some flowers at a road-side shrine. We see photographs of JAKE and POPPY, and video footage of the young man from the Mercedes – Andy. Excited presenters, quick cuts, even a cut for children’s television. Andy, the dead one, gets the most attention.
CHILDREN’S TV PRESENTER
Promising fly-half Andrew Simpson lost his life in this tragic accident.
CUT TO: INTERVIEW with JOANNA by the stonewall.
JOANNA
The driver of the car my daughter was in should be locked up – he was using his mobile phone.
CUT TO:
INT. INTENSIVE CARE UNIT – DAY
POPPY is barely alive. Various pieces of medical technology are attached to her body and brain. Additional monitors are brought in to monitor brain activity. POPPY is watched over by a team of medical staff, especially DR MUNROE. JOANNA sits down at her side. CLIVE is here and so is BETH.
BETH
There’s nothing there?
DR MUNROE
She might recognise your voice – keep talking.
CLIVE
Why shouldn’t Poppy recognise her sister’s voice?
DR MUNROE
She’s in a light coma.
NURSE
The bloods are back.
The NURSE hands DR MUNROE a set of records that get his attention.
JOANNA
But she isn’t.
CLIVE
No more guinea-pig – rabbits, dog-sheep antics here. If there’s something you can do – get it right.
CUT TO:
INT. VIEWING ROOM – DAY
Efforts in the viewing room to recover or capture a ‘memory’ from Poppy come to nothing.
PROF DICKINSON
Nothing.
HILLARY tries to stop her tears. BEN comforts her.
BEN
If there’s nothing there – there’s nothing we can do.
HILLARY
Isn’t that our job? To find something?
BEN
She’s shutting her sister out.
HILLARY
Where’s the boyfriend gone? We had a response from him.
CUT TO:
INT. POLICE INTERVIEW ROOM – DAY
JAKE sits with the WPC and a PC. The WPC puts a cassette in the dual-cassette player and hits record.
WPC
Interview commenced at 15.27. Present. WPC Simpson, PC DODD and Jake Jeffries. This call you took.
JAKE
It was a text. I didn’t take it.
WPC
But it was on your phone.
JAKE
Poppy took the call. She wouldn’t let me. I was driving wasn’t I?
WPC
Does she always take your calls?
JAKE
Did this time.
WPC
Did you know who was calling?
JAKE
I do now.
WPC
Did Poppy throw your mobile phone out of the car?
JAKE
Ask her.
CUT TO:
INT. DR MUNROE’S CAR – DAY
PROF DICKINSON and DR MUNROE go together. Dr MUNROE drives.
PROF DICKINSON
We’ve got nine months, maybe a year.
DR MUNROE
If her parents approve.
PROF DICKINSON
We can get a court order if they don’t. There’s more than one life here.
DR MUNROE
Is it life?
PROF DICKINSON
There’s a debate.
DR MUNROE
Do we keep looking?
PROF DICKINSON
Our best hope will always be to take what there is.
DR MUNROE
And if there isn’t anything?
DR MUNROE takes out a coin. (DESPITE DRIVING).
DR MUNROE (CONT’D)
Tails we erase. Heads we … keeping looking.
DR MUNROE flips the coin.
CUT TO:
INT. FARMHOUSE, POPPY’S ROOM – DAY
CLIVE looks around. Sequence set to Elton John & Bernie Taupin’s ‘Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word.’ The bedroom looks cluttered. CLIVE looks in the drawers and finds one locked – where Poppy keeps her diaries. He looks around for a key but can’t see one. CLIVE keeps looking – not rummaging, but carefully studying what is in his daughter’s bedroom. It’s as if he has never taken any notice before – now he does. He feels her loss, yet as he goes through her things he feels he is coming to understand her too.
CUT TO:
INT. FARMHOUSE, KITCHEN – DAY
JOANNA indicates that DR MUNROE & PROF DICKINSON should come in. DR MUNROE takes out the papers. JOANNA looks through them. BETH watches from the other side of the room.
JOANNA
It sounds like a hair brained scheme to me.
BETH
Do I get a say?
The ‘adults’ look around. They are unanimous – ‘no.’
BETH (CONT’D)
Why not? She’s my sister.
CLIVE joins them.
PROF DICKINSON
Either we’ll find a stable memory, map it, then use this to stimulate other related memories … and build from there … or not.
BETH
I’m more related to her than anyone else!
The ‘adults’ look around. Beth should shut up is the expression on their faces.
DR MUNROE
Or we’ll ensure that her mind is clear … that we have nothing to go on.
PROF DICKINSON
And we’ll restore what she requires from another source.
BETH
You mean ‘replace.’
All FOUR adults turn to BETH. The expression on their faces is ‘who asked you?’
BETH (CONT’D)
I’d not let you do it to me.
JOANNA
We’re not talking about you.
BETH
What would Poppy want? I don’t think she’d want anyone messing about with the contents of her brain.
CUT TO:
INT. INTENSIVE CARE UNIT – DAY
JAKE sits close to POPPY. His head is so close to hers they could be in bed together.
JAKE
Remember when we first slept together? No sex, just slept. It was a single bed. That was the most exciting thing we’d ever done. Falling asleep together side by side.
CUT TO:
INT. VIEWING ROOM – DAY
BETH and HILLARY are working … so are a few technicians. Both are watching this exchange from various angles courtesy of cameras and monitors.
BEN
They should put this on television.
HILLARY
Shut up.
BEN checks for brain activity. Nothing.
CUT TO:
INT. FARMHOUSE, KITCHEN – DAY
PROF DICKINSON
It’s like this.
PROF DICKINSON takes from a kitchen cabinet three glasses which he fills with water. He then takes from Dr Munroe’s jacket pocket a fountain pen (with a familiarity that hints at their being personally close). PROF DICKINSON puts a few drops of ink into the first glass.
PROF DICKINSON (CONT’D)
A functioning brain acquires millions of pieces of information that make up trillions of connections.
He goes to an empty glass.
PROF DICKINSON (CONT’D)
With Poppy, all we have … regretfully … is this.
PROF DICKINSON puts the tiniest drop of ink into the glass of water. The ink fans out into a milky, inky spiral.
DR MUNROE
If we’re trying to see, then capture the complex pattern of active neurons and synapses.
PROF DICKINSON
To read it. Then match it. Or see it.
DR MUNROE
Then we need more to go on.
CUT TO:
INT. INTENSIVE CARE UNIT – NIGHT
JAKE continues his vigil by his girlfriend’s side. He whispers into POPPY’s ear.
JAKE
Eggs. [BEAT] Fertile. [BEAT] Baby. [BEAT] Us. [BEAT] Eggs. [BEAT] Bacon.
CUT TO:
INT. VIEWING ROOM – DAY
HILLARY and BEN watch.
HILLARY
Has he been told?
BEN shakes his head.
HILLARY (CONT’D)
Anything?
BEN
Not a sausage.
CUT TO:
INT. FARMHOUSE, KITCHEN – DAY
PROF DICKINSON squirts ink into the glass of water. BETH, cynical YR9 understands the analogy. Her parents struggle with it.
PROF DICKINSON
From a memory.
DR MUNROE
Or set of memories.
PROF DICKINSON
We hope to restore everything.
DR MUNROE
The alternative … we drain her brain.
BETH steps over to the glasses.
PROF DICKINSON
And use the brain map of another person to restore functionality.
BETH picks up the glass with the ink drop and the glass with lots of ink in it and pour both into the clear glass of water which overflows.
BETH
Result. A mess. Result. A guinea-pig that thinks it’s a rabbit. Or a dog that thinks it is a sheep.
BETH goes upstairs to her room.
CUT TO:
INT. SOLICITOR’S OFFICE – DAY
JAKE sits opposite a man in a suit, his SOLICITOR.
SOLICITOR
You could be charged with the greater offence of ‘death by reckless driving.’
JAKE
What about the bus? Hitting its brakes like that. Or this guy Andy in the car behind flashing his lights?
SOLCIITOR
Andrew Simpson?
JAKE
He clipped me as he tried to overtake.
SOLICITOR
Is there anything else I should know?
JAKE
Such as?
SOLICITOR
The rivalry between you two?
JAKE
I didn’t know him.
The SOLICITOR finds this hard to believe.
CUT TO:
INT. FARMHOUSE, POPPY’S BEDROOM – DAY
BETH, in school uniform, sits on a single bed with an A4, hardback notebook – Poppy’s Diary. BETH is tearful as she looks through the pages. The room is piled high with stuff. This is a room that belongs to someone who hoards, who collects. There is an array of boxes, small/large, cardboard/utility, stacked or placed around the floor.
BETH turns to the last written up page of Poppy’s diary. As she reads the last entry BETH is upset by the blank pages that follow. BETH is joined by a friend, ABI. Similar age. Also in school uniform.
ABI
Now what do we do?
BETH
We’ll make it up.
Beth takes Poppy’s diary through to her bedroom. ABI follows.
CUT TO:
INT. UNIVERSITY ROOM – NIGHT
JAKE cuts a sad figure. He’s in a bathrobe, at his desk, in front of a laptop, with a can of beer, clicking through online porn. As he clicks through webpage after webpage of scantily clad young woman we see a pattern forming: they are young woman who resemble POPPY – age, hair colour and cut, body size/weight. JAKE finds what he is looking for – a young woman who at a glance could pass for Poppy. He gets out his wallet, removes his credit card and signs up. A moment later the figure in the window waves. There is a passable likeness. They exchange messages. This’ll do for JAKE.
CUT TO:
INT. FARMHOUSE, BETH’S ROOM – NIGHT
The last entry of Poppy’s handwritten diary fills a reverse page – the facing page is blank. In amongst the text there is a passport photograph of a dark haired young man, this is ‘Andy’, the facing page is blank. BETH opens a webpage where there is another picture of Andy. BETH wonders what to write next – she’s at the keyboard.
ABI
How about, “Met dark haired Andy in the college bar and went for a ride. We had sex outdoors in the woods behind the Race Course.”
BETH
Do you mind. She is my sister. They’d have come back to his parent’s place. He lives just down the road.
BETH leans over to pull back the curtains and points down the road.
BETH (CONT’D)
That one on the corner.
ABI
What a letch.
BETH
Never did anything with him. Poppy hated him. She called Andy the “stinky perv.” Andy kept coming round here until he got the message.
ABI
?
BETH
She told him to ‘F’ off.
ABI
What about we say. “Had sex in the car.”
BETH
?
ABI
Affairs are good. That’s what people want to read.
BETH
?
ABI
We’re always juicing it up. Most of what she puts is so boring.
BETH
(persuaded)
“In the car?”
ABI
“In a car wash.”
BETH
“With the roof down.”
The girls agree on this. BETH types into the computer keyboard and the words come up in a dialogue box in Poppy’s blog ‘The Contents of My Brain.’
ABI
On “Premium Wash!”
The girls have fits of giggles over this.
BETH
Tesco’s?
ABI
Sainsbury’s.
BETH writes.
BETH
“It only took a few minutes. As the cycle began we unbuckled our seat-belts and climbed … ”
ABI
“Slid …”
BETH
“And slid… into the back of the car for an amazing ride.”
ABI
“Wet ride”
BETH
“Sticky ride?”
“And Bumpy” … a “bumpy and sticky ride!”
The girls crease themselves with laughter as they post the entry into Poppy’s Blog ‘The Contents of My Brain.’ A moment later they see that the STATS GRAPHIC giving the number of ‘visitors’ reading, commenting and revealing their presence is rising.
BETH
Look … we’re getting them back.
ABI/BETH
Suckers!!!
CUT TO:
I/E. JAKE’S CAR/A BUSY MAIN ROAD – DAY
People are working on the collapsed stonewall where the accident occurred. CONTRACTOR 1 knocks in a fence post while CONTRACTOR 2 attaches wire netting to put in place across the gap made by the collapsed wall. A hire car approaches and parks up at the accident spot. JAKE gets out and goes over to the spot where he thinks POPPY was found. The grass is chewed up where the two cars skidded over its surface, the grass is scorched where the cars burnt out and the stonewall where the cars hit lies toppled over. JAKE ignores the shrine. Cards, cans, pictures, a rugby ball and flowers. On the other side of the wall there’s a deciduous wood, and a stream. It is in sharp contrast to the busy road. JAKE looks along the stream to see where it goes. In the distance JAKE spots someone, a YOUNG WOMAN watching him. She steps out of sight. JAKE could swear it was Poppy, but that would be ridiculous. He runs along the side of the wall looking into the woods. He sees her again. This time he scrambles over the wall. Looking up again he finds she has gone. Ridiculous.
CUT TO:
INT. INTENSIVE CARE UNIT – DAY
Every piece of medical technology imaginable is attached to POPPY’s body and brain. Her skull bristles with pins and lines. A bank of monitors cover brain activity from every angle. Cables, like umbilical chords connect the Intensive Care Unit to the Viewing Room behind the two-way mirror. POPPY is watched over by a team of medical staff, especially DR MUNROE. BETH is at her side.
BETH
(Whispering to her sister)
I’m keeping you alive.
POPPY goes into cardiac arrest. Alarms sound. A medical team rush in. BETH is bundled out. She doesn’t understand how she could have done anything wrong.
CUT TO:
EXT. HOSPITAL – DAY
JOANNA, like several others at the hospital entrance, are using mobile phones.
JOANNA
You’re my local MP. You have to do something. A £60 fine and three points for using a mobile phone while driving is crap.
BETH comes looking for her mother.
JOANNA (CONT’D)
Sorry. But it is.
Seeing someone on a mobile as they leave the hospital car park JOANNA runs over and thumps on the window.
CUT TO:
INT. INTENSIVE CARE – DAY
TWO PEOPLE enter, police. WPC and PC. The WPC is more senior. They wait discretely in the corner of the room. All this is being watched from the other side of a two way mirror. CLIVE looks over. He joins them.
WPC
Your daughter was the last one to use the phone. She took the call. Not Jake.
CLIVE
How do you know?
WPC
She told a mutual friend. To ‘f’ off.
CLIVE
Who was it?
The WPC won’t say.
CLIVE (CONT’D)
Was it reckless driving?
WPC
Even if we can prove that … which isn’t currently the case. He hadn’t been drinking, he wasn’t on his mobile.
CLIVE
Was he to blame?
PC
Unless your daughter dies it can’t be the more severe charge of death by reckless driving.
WPC
She wasn’t wearing her seat-belt. Whose fault was that?
PROF DICKINSON enters the intensive care room.
PROF DICKINSON
We’re trying to get a clearer picture.
CUT TO:
INT. VIEWING ROOM – DAY
Several technicians look over from their desks to listen into the exchange in the intensive care room. PROF DICKINSON goes over to HILLARY and BEN.
PROF DICKINSON
Who made that last call? Find out!
HILLARY and BEN get up to leave.
BEN
Picture? Voice?
HILLARY
Might it work?
PROF DICKINSON
We’re looking for a trigger. Something that could help restore Poppy’s memory. It might be: a piece of music, a smell – scent, bath soap – who knows? The touch of something.
HILLARY and BEN are prepared to take up the challenge – they leave.
CUT TO:
I.E. INTENSIVE CARE UNIT – DAY
HILLARY & BEN leave.
BEN
We have to find out everything we can about her.
His car or her motorbike? It’s a nice day thinks BEN, he’ll go for the motorbike and takes the helmet offered to him by HILLARY.
HILLARY
We need to know her inside out.
CUT TO:
INT. FARMHOUSE, BETH’S BEDROOM – DAY
BETH sits at a desktop. She types with extraordinary dexterity. We see that she is online and that she is writing, creating & maintaining an online journal featuring Poppy called ‘The Contents of My Brain.’ Messages grab Beth’s attention. BETH raises her left foot so that it is under her desk light. ABI takes a picture of BETH’s painted toes. A moment later she uploads the image.
BETH
(Reading it out as she types)
This morning the nurse painted my toe nails. What do you think?
ABI and BETH split their sides when a ‘Sad Middle Aged Man’ pops up in a window and gives a wave.
CUT TO:
INT. JAKE’S CAR – DAY
The interior of the car is steamed up. JAKE is cuddled up under a coat in the back. He looks scruffy and unkempt. A young woman, ANGELA, taps at the window.
ANGELA
JAKE! JAKE!
JAKE wakes with a jolt. He feels groggy. There is a crick in his neck. He rubs away the condensation with his elbow. He knows ANGELA. JAKE eases himself forwards, unlocks the car door and pushes it open.
ANGELA (CONT’D)
Are you alright?
JAKE isn’t okay. He feels drugged, drained, and awful. But that wasn’t what she meant. Angela can see that JAKE looks dreadful.
ANGELA (CONT’D)
Don’t do anything stupid.
JAKE
Something stupid? Mmm. I hadn’t thought of anything stupid to do until now, but … Let me think.
JAKE looks away from ANGELA, down the road. There are several young people by the stone wall, some hold bouquets of flowers, some are reading the messages left by well wishers. JAKE recognises some of them.
ANGELA
Come over and say ‘hi.’
JAKE doesn’t get it.
CUT TO:
INT. INTENSIVE CARE/VIEWING ROOM – DAY
An iron lung is brought in to help Poppy breath. CLIVE is heartbroken at this. He understands the implications.
DR MUNROE
She can’t breath on her own.
CLIVE
Have you found anything? Any brain activity?
DR MUNROE shakes his head.
DR MUNROE
It’s like trying to take a photograph of a landmark in fog. We know it’s there, but we can’t see it. If we can’t see it, neither can she.
CUT TO:
INT. NEWSPAPER OFFICE – DAY
JOANNA is with a REPORTER and advertising sales person (ASP). She has a collection of photographs to show them of people on the phone, eating or doing their lipstick.
JOANNA
Look at these. They should be named and shamed. I’ve got their registration numbers …
The REPORTER and ASP share a glance. They think this woman is bonkers.
REPORTER
Next thing you’ll want to ban talking while driving.
JOANNA
Yes. ‘No talking to the driver while the vehicle is in motion.’ As they have on buses.
REPORTER
You’re serious?
JOANNA
Here’s my advertisement.
JOANNA hands an ad: picture, headline and copy, to the ASP.
JOANNA (CONT’D)
I believe you’ll write some copy if I place a quarter page advert?
The REPORTER and ASP of this local paper can’t argue with that. They’ll take her money, the ad and the copy.
CUT TO:
INT. JAKE’S CAR – NIGHT
JAKE is online. He too keeps a blog. Set to Nickleback’s ‘How You Remind Me.’ We feature elements of JAKE’s website/BLOG or online journal/diary. It is massive. The profile page in this generic, hosted site indicates that there are over 7,000 pages, over 3 million words and 1,000 pics and/or clips. It appears to be a living thing, always busy, being worked on an revised by others. His affiliated ‘Buddies’ top 300. The site is titled ‘My Mind Bursts.’
A webcam, or ‘car cam’ picks out JAKE in his car. The time is approaching 5.30 p.m.
CUT TO:
EXT. STONEWALL/BUSY ROAD – DAY
VARIOUS PEOPLE are at the crash site leaving cards and reading messages. JAKE recognises some of the people. He goes over and speaks to a young woman, ANGELA. JAKE looks at a photograph of ‘ANDY.’
JAKE
Was that the wanker?
Some of the people don’t like JAKE’s language.
JAKE (CONT’D)
You know what happened?
ANGELA
Not really.
JAKE
He rammed me up the arse. His car. He was on my tail.
ANGELA
Does it matter now?
JAKE
Yes, because he’s getting all the attention and I’m getting all the blame. Meanwhile, what about Poppy? Does anyone remember her?
JAKE sees the College Photograph. Four rows. 40+ figures in academic dress. He picks it up. He picks himself out. He spots Poppy. We spot Angela.
ANGELA
We can hardly leave flowers for Poppy. She isn’t dead.
Angela points out Andy on the College Photo.
ANGELA (CONT’D)
That’s Andy.
JAKE shakes his head.
JAKE
Didn’t know him. Did you? Looks a twat to me.
One of the male ‘mourners’ at the roadside shrine hears this and raises a fist as if he’ll give JAKE one if he doesn’t shut up.
ANGELA
Played rugby.
JAKE
A rugger bugger then.
The MALE MOURNER has had enough and lays into JAKE. There’s a scuffle/fight.
CUT TO:
INT. INTENSIVE CARE – NIGHT
JOANNA and CLIVE are joined by DR MUNROE and PROF DICKINSON. Some difficult decisions have to be taken.
DR MUNROE
She’s in a permanent vegetative state.
JOANNA
She’s alive. Isn’t she?
DR MUNROE
She could be.
JOANNA
?
DR MUNROE
Let’s talk with my colleague.
CUT TO:
INT. JAKE’S CAR/STONE WALL – NIGHT
JAKE can see the stonewall where he crashed. It’s as if everything has gone into extreme slow motion.
CUT TO:
INT. INTENSIVE CARE ROOM – NIGHT
The monitors show that there is no brain activity coming from POPPY.
JOANNA
Is there any brain activity?
PROF DICKINSON
We can’t guarantee that we’ll achieve anything.
CUT TO:
INT. JAKE’S CAR/A BUSY MAIN ROAD – NIGHT
JAKE’s car crumples in extreme slow motion as it hits the exact spot where there is a roadside shrine to Andy. POPPY holds up a College Photo. POPPY thrusts it in front of JAKE’s nose to get his attention. She points at a figure in the picture.
POPPY
What about Katie? She’d be good on the rebound.
JAKE can’t help but be preoccupied with the slow-mo crashing car in which they are sitting. He continues to exist in real time, while events around him are grinding to a halt.
POPPY (CONT’D)
Or Sally. She might be good for you. She is a nurse. You’re going to be injured of course. Worse than last time. Broken legs, gashes to the face.
POPPY takes an interest in the car as pieces of glass break from the vehicle and fly in JAKE’S direction. There’s something familiar about the look and feel of all of this – as if JAKE is floating in zero gravity.
POPPY (CONT’D)
It’s the air-bag that saves you. Hire car. You forgot about that.
JAKE glances at the stonewall as it approaches in slow motion and the bonnet as it crumples. He has time to brace himself. POPPY takes little notice of the crash occurring.
POPPY (CONT’D)
Or can I interest you in a little Julie?
JAKE looks at the College Photo. Julie is short. That was a cruel jibe. POPPY points at another face.
POPPY (CONT’D)
Take Fiona. She’ll be faithful. Ends up owning a chain of estate agents. A bit predictable. You end up having an affair with…. Katie.
JAKE despises POPPY’s presence. How could she come here and wreck his death? The air-bag deploys. In slow-mo it pops out of the central hub of the steering-wheel like time-lapse photography of a mushroom growing.
POPPY (CONT’D)
You got on great with Elizabeth when you were kids. Remember playing in the sand dunes when you were six? Like brother and sister you two. Can’t have kids though. If you want kids it has to be Jessica.
JAKE looks at the stone wall. The car appears to be moving, but is going nowhere. It’s as if it is caught between two phases, caught on pause in an old video-player with single heads.
POPPY (CONT’D)
Forget Angela…. you know she tried to kiss me? She tried to get off with your sister as well.
JAKE braces himself as a crack appears in the windscreen. He grabs for his seat belt but it won’t click into place right away.
POPPY (CONT’D)
Kathy sends her love by the way.
CUT TO:
INT.NIGHT. INT.DAY.INTENSIVE CARE/VIEWING ROOM
JOANNA sits by her daughter. DR MUNROE checks POPPY’s condition. PROF DICKINSON goes through to the viewing room.
JOANNA
She was one of the most popular in her year group. They don’t even come and see her.
CUT TO:
INT. JAKE’S CAR/BUSY ROAD – NIGHT
JAKE turns to face POPPY on hearing this name.
POPPY
She could have done this. But I was on your mind, so we thought it would be easier coming from me.
JAKE gets the seatbelt clicked into place then shields his eyes from slowly approaching shards of glass. POPPY keeps on about the College Photograph. She holds up the picture in front of JAKE to point at another girl.
POPPY (CONT’D)
Beverly? Don’t bother. She’s unfaithful. Ends up with your neighbour in Ponteland. Mary-Jayne deserves better than you. She does well for herself too. After she leaves you. Hannah’ll have you back, but she has high expectations.
JAKE lowers his hands. The shards of glass from the broken windscreen move so slowly through the air that he can turn his face away from them with ease. POPPY reaches over and gives a particularly nasty shard of glass a flick with her fingers – as if in Zero Gravity, the shard spins away from JAKE’s left eye. JAKE tries wrapping his head in his arms and ducking into a foetal position.
POPPY (CONT’D)
I know about your fling with Steph.
This gets JAKE’S attention. He looks over to POPPY.
POPPY (CONT’D)
I did something similar with Andy. Was I getting my own back? Or hedging my bets? A bit of both I suppose. Give Lucinda a go please. Please. Please.
JAKE finds the impact is yet to touch him and he finds he can move about freely for now. POPPY is determined to get through EVERYONE and all the possibilities on the college photo.
POPPY (CONT’D)
Lu and you have twin girls. You call them Kathy and Poppy. Sweet. After your sister and after your childhood sweetheart. We’re touched. They turn out nothing like us of course.
JAKE manages to press the seat belt into place and raises his arms to protect his face.
POPPY (CONT’D)
See. You don’t want to die after all.
JAKE is thrown forward, his body buckles and bends, but is kept away from the steering-column and windscreen by the now fully deployed air-bag. JAKE is in a bad way. POPPY, who is sitting next to him in the passenger seat, quite unharmed is not pleased with JAKE’s efforts.
POPPY (CONT’D)
Now what are you going to do?
A vehicle or two pull over in the background. POPPY remains sitting there. Someone approaches JAKE’s car. POPPY is angry. She tries to get his attention.
POPPY (CONT’D)
I’m pregnant.
CUT TO:
INT.NIGHT. INTENSIVE CARE UNIT
JOANNA is about to leave.
DR MUNROE
There’s one other thing. She’s pregnant.
JOANNA
She’s not keeping it.
JOANNA leaves.
CUT TO:
EXT. STONEWALL/BUSY MAIN ROAD – NIGHT
A minute after JAKE’s car hits the wall people come over.
SOMEONE 1
What are you supposed to do?
SOMEONE 1 sees JAKE slumped across the steering wheel. SOMEONE 2 sees the cans of drink in the front well of the car.
SOMEONE 2
I think he’s been drinking.
SOMEONE 1 reaches in and is about to move JAKE off the steering will.
POPPY
That’s it. He may live, but why not make sure his neck brakes by moving him.
SOMEONE 1 and SOMEONE 2 figure out how to get their hands on JAKE. They want to pull him out of the car.
POPPY (CONT’D)
Leave him alone!
A THIRD PERSON approaches.
THIRD PERSON
Stop! Don’t move them …
SOMEONE 1
Are you a doctor?
The THIRD PERSON nods.
THIRD PERSON
Don’t move him.
POPPY, invisible to them all, remains seated by JAKE. The THIRD PERSON reaches into the car and turns off the ignition. The THIRD PERSON looks around to see if the vehicle is safe … and looks in the back of the car to see if there are any passengers. The THIRD MAN looks straight through POPPY.
POPPY
Alistair Laidlaw. My first boyfriend. If I’d stuck with you none of this would have happened.
SOMEONE 1 takes out their mobile and phones the emergency serves. The THIRD PERSON reaches in to feel for a pulse then checks JAKE’S throat is clear.
THIRD PERSON
Coats, jackets, blankets. Anything to keep him warm. There’s no bleeding.
SOMEONE 2
He’s alive then?
The THIRD PERSON nods their head.
POPPY
You can keep him.
POPPY climbs out of the car.
POPPY (CONT’D)
For now.
CUT TO:
INT. FARMHOUSE, POPPY’S BEDROOM – DAY
BETH pulls out some of Poppy’s clothes. ABI pulls out a pair of knickers.
ABI
What about these?
BETH
To sell or wear?
ABI tries something on and looks in the mirror. BETH looks through POPPY’s books.
ABI
It won’t work.
BETH finds a recordable DVD hidden in the books. This gives her an idea.
BETH
Video clips!
The girls head off downstairs.
CUT TO:
INT. HOSPITAL WARD – DAY
There are scorch marks and scratches on JAKE’s face.
ANGELA
Plonker.
JAKE
It wasn’t a cry for help.
ANGELA
There are all sorts of strangers leaving messages – trying to find out how you are.
JAKE
Oh them.
ANGELA
?
JAKE
Buddies.
ANGELA
?
JAKE
Never mind. They’re only online.
CUT TO:
INT. INTENSIVE CARE/VIEWING ROOM – DAY
HILLARY takes CLIVE over to POPPY. He sits him down close to the bed. She then takes Poppy’s hand and runs her fingers over his chin. Nothing on the screens, nothing from Poppy. HILLARY then runs POPPY’S fingers over the back of her father’s hand. There is still nothing on the screens and nothing from Poppy.
CUT TO:
INT. FARMHOUSE, SITTING ROOM -EVENING
BETH and ABI have a DVD home video camera player plugged into the TV in the sitting room.
ABI
What is it?
BETH
Whoops.
The tape plays. There is no doubting the content – Poppy and Jake having sex – ’69’ or Poppy giving Jake a blow-job. JOANNA steps into the door.
JOANNA
What have you found?
BETH yanks out the skart.
JOANNA (CONT’D)
If it’ll help Poppy you should take it in.
BETH & ABI don’t think so. Or do they?
CUT TO:
INT. JAKE’S CAR – EVENING
JAKE is asleep in his car by the side of the road not far from the accident spot. He curses when he sees a police car pull up. The WPC gets out and comes over.
WPC
We could arrest you.
JAKE
?
WPC
How do we know you won’t do it again?
JAKE
I won’t. I can’t. Not here.
The WPC leaves.
JAKE puts the seat back. He hears singing – a woman singing. He looks at the radio. Not on. He looks about to see if anyone is around. No one. He gets out of the car.
CUT TO:
EXT. STONEWALL – NIGHT
JAKE is bugged by this lovely singing. He goes over to the wall. There she is. In the trees. In the distance. A young woman. JAKE feels compelled to go over to her.
CUT TO:
EXT. WOODS – NIGHT
JAKE is drawn to the singing and the girl. Then the girl disappears and the singing stops. JAKE returns to the stonewall.
CUT TO:
INT. VIEWING ROOM – DAY
BETH and ABI watch awkwardly as HILLARY views the ‘hot’ action of POPPY and JAKE at it. BEN feels awkward. HILLARY stops the playback.
HILLARY
Thanks girls. It could be something mundane. A dog barking. Her favourite hat. The mind’s a funny thing.
BETH puts her hand out for the DVD. HILLARY doesn’t understand. BETH wants it back.
BETH
Make a copy then.
HILLARY
How old are you?
BETH
!
HILLARY
This should have an 18 rating.
CUT TO:
EXT. STONEWALL/BUSY ROAD – NIGHT
JAKE sets off down the road. A minute later he doubles back. He keeps an eye on the time, holding back a little and causing a few vehicles to gather behind him. Someone overtakes. As JAKE approaches the scene of the accident he checks the time. It is approaching 5.37 p.m. He undoes his seatbelt, stamps on the accelerator and on reaching the spot where POPPY died he swerves across the road. ‘My Mind Burst’s’ viewing figures go ballistic. JAKE aims for the roadside shrine left to Andy. As he approaches he catches sight of someone sitting in the passenger seat, he turns to see POPPY. Just as she had been.
POPPY
I’m not dead yet.
JAKE
Don’t you start.
POPPY
Pervert.
JAKE
I’m not playing.
POPPY
I miss you.
CUT TO:
INT. FARMHOUSE, POPPY’S BEDROOM – DAY
JOANNA sits on Poppy’s bed in her room. She touches her daughter’s things and spots others, like the collection of thimbles, soft toys, books. Opening a box JOANNA finds receipts, another contains bus tickets, a third is full of sweet wrappers, a fourth full of used envelopes. JOANNA looks in a small utilitarian box on the floor. A few folded items of clothing. A set of keys. A wallet. A mobile phone. She picks up the phone. She turns it on. A moment later it rings. The dial tone is distinctive. Poppy has dozens of messages. BETH and ABI look around the open door.
BETH
What are you doing?
JOANNA
(Referring to ABI)
Hasn’t she got a home to go to?
BETH
She always comes round after school.
JOANNA
Yes she does. Doesn’t she.
ABI makes her excuses and leaves.
JOANNA (CONT’D)
(looking around the heaps of junk) What was it about your sister?
BETH
It’s the contents of her brain.
JOANNA
?
BETH
That’s what she calls this stuff. ‘The Contents of My Brain.’
JOANNA pulls a heavy duty refuse sack from a roll and starts to drop things into it.
JOANNA
You can help me. All of this stuff has to go.
BETH
You can’t. You mustn’t.
CUT TO:
INT. JAKE’S CAR/BUSY ROAD – DAY
JAKE accesses the webcam in the tree. With an edit controller he spins through the footage grabbing images and moments, giving them captions, naming the people. Filing them. Analysing them. Discussing them. It all goes online. Needing to go to the toilet JAKE pisses into an empty EVIAN bottle. He has his pecker in the top of the bottle when a motorbike pulls up. JAKE hasn’t time to deal with the bottle as the BIKER taps on the window. JAKE pulls a laptop over his knees. The BIKER removes their helmet.
HILLARY
Would you like some help with that?
JAKE
Not really.
HILLARY
I could give you a hand.
JAKE is still holding the EVIAN bottle with one hand. He lowers it to the bottom of the car and grips it between his feet so it won’t fall over.
HILLARY (CONT’D)
She’s a lovely girl. I can see why you loved her so much.
JAKE
I wish everyone would leave me alone.
HILLARY
I’ve seen your website. ‘My Mind Bursts.’ [BEAT]Is it you keeping Poppy’s site alive?
JAKE
?
HILLARY
Someone’s keeping her blog up to date.
JAKE
She never put anything on line. She had a handwritten diary. Everything went into it. That or it went into a box of some sort.
CUT TO:
INT. FARMHOUSE, BETH’S ROOM – DAY
BETH and ABI have a little business going. There are Post Office boxes, Jiffy bags and masking tape in the room. BETH checks something online.
BETH
We’ve sold her coat. Look £79!
ABI
Which one?
BETH clambers over the mess in their ‘post room’ like clutter of her bedroom and picks out a pea-green coat and hands it to ABI who folds it and begins to wrap it.
BETH leaves.
CUT TO:
INT. FARMHOUSE, POPPY’S ROOM – DAY
CLIVE looks around. The place is looking less cluttered than before. He looks on the shelves, looks in the cupboards and looks in the drawers. Then he spots the collection of thimbles. He takes them.
CUT TO:
EXT. TOWN TRAFFIC – DAY
JAKE makes his way out of town some late afternoon in spring. Kids in various school uniforms dismount from buses. JAKE gets onto the main road out of town. It begins to rain. He takes a call on his mobile.
JAKE
Hi. Is it? Oh you sweet thing. I’ve got away early. Love you too.
A bus pulls out of a layby and JAKE has to ease up and give way. It is next to a stone bus shelter. They pass under a pedestrian footbridge. In front the road opens out into a dual carriageway.
POPPY (V.O.)
Toothpaste.
JAKE shakes his head. He doesn’t want to play this game. He looks over to the passenger seat. She isn’t even there.
POPPY (V.O.) (CONT’D)
Toothpaste.
JAKE
Brush.
POPPY
Frequently.
JAKE shakes his head. It always turns crude. He looks over to the passenger seat. There she is. JAKE looks up the road. He comes to a fly-over. All familiar stuff. He could drive it with his eyes shut. She always pops up somewhere along this stretch.
JAKE
Of course.
POPPY
Very.
JAKE
Shit.
POPPY
That’s not nice.
JAKE
This is complete shit and has to stop! When will you leave me alone?
POPPY
When you stop wanting me.
JAKE
What?
POPPY
When you stop wanting me.
JAKE
When will I ever stop wanting you?
CUT TO:
INT. INTENSIVE CARE UNIT/VIEWING ROOM – DAY
CLIVE puts a thimble in Poppy’s hand. Nothing. BEN looks on from the viewing room. You can tell he is sympathetic to CLIVE.
CLIVE
Anything?
BEN
Nothing.
CLIVE looks around the I.C.U. There are things belonging to Poppy around the room.
CLIVE
Can we take her home? Being in her own room would help.
BEN and PROF DICKINSON have the same thought. They go through to the I.C.U.
PROF DICKINSON
How about you bring her room to her?
BEN
Recreation of the whole experience, not a single element.
CLIVE
I’ll bring it all. Every bit of it. You’re sure? She was a hoarder.
CUT TO:
EXT. FARMHOUSE, GARDEN – DAY
Joanna throws the last box of books/bric-a-brac onto a pile of household junk and sets a match to it. BETH and ABI watch from a window. BETH curses her mother’s actions.
BETH
They said we should keep this stuff. Don’t you see … this is all we have left of her. Mum! Stop it!
BETH makes a phone call.
BETH (CONT’D)
Dad. She’s doing it again.
BETH listens, then reads out the number of the skip hire company to her father.
CUT TO:
EXT. STONEWALL/BUSY ROAD – DAY
A delivery van parks up on the kerb behind JAKE’s car. JAKE is sitting with HILLARY chatting. The DELIVERY MAN checks the address again – seems to have it right, and goes over.
JAKE
Yep. That’s me.
JAKE takes the package, signs for it and opens the thing. It’s Poppy’s pea-green coat. He lays it in the back of the car with a collection of other things of Poppy’s that he’s bought off the internet from Beth.
JAKE (CONT’D)
They thought I was texting.
HILLARY
Were you?
JAKE looks HILLARY over. She seems genuine.
JAKE
That lot on the bus were lying.
HILLARY
?
They would wouldn’t they.
HILLARY
?
JAKE
They were his mates. They were making faces at him when he came up behind.
HILLARY
Where do you live?
JAKE looks around the interior of the car, as if to say this will do for now. HILLARY leans in and kisses him on the cheek.
HILLARY (CONT’D)
I like you. Don’t go to waste.
HILLARY leaves. JAKE reaches between his legs, takes out the EVIAN bottle and pours the contents out onto the grass next to the car.
CUT TO:
I/E. FARM HOUSE – DAY
CLIVE and BETH go through the things in the skip. As they do this JOANNA comes out with a pile of boxes from Poppy’s room and chucks them unceremoniously into the skip. She sees that CLIVE is watching her disapprovingly.
JOANNA
What?
JOANNA goes back to the house for more. CLIVE hopes to find something of value in the piles of papers, receipts and tickets. He can see what JOANNA means. BETH pulls out some clothes.
BETH
Can I keep some of these?
CLIVE
I don’t think your mother will want to see you wearing them.
BETH
You can’t just throw them out.
A mobile phone rings.
CLIVE
What’s that?
BETH looks guilty. She takes a mobile phone from her pocket.
BETH
It’s Poppy’s. Hideous ring tone. It’s enough to wake the dead.
BETH wishes she hadn’t said this. CLIVE wishes she hadn’t said it. They start to cry, then laugh, then they give each other a massive hug.
BETH (CONT’D)
I was going to change it. But it’s so her.
CUT TO:
INT. JAKE’S CAR – NIGHT
JAKE goes through porn online. The search criteria are clear – he is looking for ‘Poppy’ types. He finds a livecam of a girl who looks right. She is Slovakian. He gives his credit card details. She is impatient to perform for him. Jake wants her to chat. He calls up a Slovakian dictionary.
JAKE
I am your English boyfriend
SLOVAKIAN LIVECAM
You English. Much good. You want show?
JAKE
How old are you?
SLOVAKIAN
I twenty three.
JAKE
Where do you live?
SLOVAKIAN
You want full show. I am hot for you.
The SLOVAKIAN holds the edge of her panties and implies she might remove them.
SLOVAKIAN (CONT’D)
You want? You buy a gift.
JAKE
Yes. I buy. If you do something for me?
SLOVAKIAN
I do girl on girl with friend?
JAKE
No.
SLOVAKIAN
Just sit? I no like. You must buy more credits.
JAKE
Just like that. Sit still please.
The SLOVAKIAN girl sits. JAKE controls the viewing experience. We can see that by operating the controls in the online window he is able to nudge the camera in as he tries to match the SLOVAKIAN to a picture of Poppy.
SLOVAKIAN
You like? I am your girlfriend? I look like her?
JAKE
Yes.
SLOVAKIAN
She pretty?
JAKE
Yes. She’s very pretty. Just like you.
SLOVAKIAN
She like toys?
The SLOVAKIAN has to do her performance. She picks up a dildo.
JAKE
Do you have a banana?
CUT TO:
INT. FARMHOUSE, POPPY’S BEDROOM – DAY
CLIVE looks through Poppy’s things. He comes across the ‘diary’ drawer – instead of being locked it is open and empty.
CUT TO:
INT. FARMHOUSE, BETH’S ROOM – DAY
BETH sits at a computer screen. Set to Pink’s ‘Dear, Dear, Diary.’ BETH is wearing Poppy’s clothes. As much as we can tell, she has changed her ‘look’ to be more like her sister. POPPY’s diary is open by her side. A mobile phone rings – Poppy’s ring-tone. BETH takes the call.
BETH
I’m online now. Come and join us.
BETH closes the phone then copies out text and pastes it into the online diary. When she comes across a piece of ephemera, a bus ticket or sweet wrapper, she scans it in and uploads it.
A message is sent to Poppy’s website. ‘How are you?’
BETH gives it a moments thought. She clicks on a map that identifies the person as a ‘buddy’ in North America. BETH opens her webcam. The light isn’t good, the webcam shows the top of her head and her fingers as she works on the keyboards. BETH types. ‘I nearly died. It’s a new experience. How are you?’ As she looks down at the keyboard a second webcam opens on her screen. A young Hispanic girl looks back. HER message reads. ‘What do you think of the layout?’ BETH sees the puppy, smiles, clicks a button, leans towards a mic and barks while typing.
TYPES: Just sending more. Bus tickets.
BETH reaches into a shoe box stuffed full of bus tickets. She finds a particular torn ticket.
BETH (CONT’D)
This was the first time I ever took a bus. The 45 from Polworth drive. I was eight.
There’s a knock on BETH’s door. It is locked. Someone tries the door. BETH types/speak a message. ‘Got to go,’ then closes the web page.
CLIVE(V.O.)
Can I come in?
BETH pushes the box full of bus tickets under her bed, closes POPPY’s handwritten diary and puts it under some school files.
BETH
I’m doing my homework.
CLIVE bashes on the door.
CLIVE
Don’t lock me out.
BETH pulls some homework files down and spreads them on her desk, clicks to open a spread sheet then goes over and opens the door.
CLIVE (CONT’D)
Have you seen Poppy’s diaries?
BETH
?
CLIVE
We all know she kept a diary.
BETH wonders what she means.
CLIVE (CONT’D)
We could publish them: her drawings, her thoughts, poems and stories. We could give them a life. Make them into a book.
BETH
No one would read it.
BETH cuts her online link and uses a hand to make a yawning action then barges past her father as if she was leaving her room anyway.
CUT TO:
INT. JAKE’S CAR – DAY
JAKE is alone as he drivers passed a bus top and under a foot bridge.
POPPY (V.O.)
Pants.
JAKE turns. There she is.
JAKE
Ants
POPPY
Itchy.
JAKE
Scratch.
POPPY
Yes.
JAKE
Where?
POPPY
There.
JAKE
Where?
POPPY
Just there.
POPPY rests her hand on JAKE’s, lifts it off the gear stick and places it between her legs.
JAKE
There?
POPPY
Just there.
JAKE tries to concentrate on the road ahead. POPPY opens her legs and feels the pleasure. She reaches out and places her hand on JAKE’s erection. He enjoys it. JAKE is distracted. Up the road, out here on the dual carriageway there is a girl, a young woman, in her teens. For a moment he thinks it could be POPPY. She is walking along the side of the main road. It is raining, she has no coat. She wears the familiar green school blazer and green tights. JAKE takes his hand off POPPY, she tries to hold it there. JAKE drives past and takes a good look in the rear view mirror. POPPY has gone. As JAKE approaches a sliproad he checks his rear view mirror, indicates then pulls over. He doubles back onto the main road. As he passes the spot where he saw the girl he notices a white van parked up on the kerb. There is a conversation. The girl shakes her head and walks away. The van drives off. JAKE speeds up, finds another sliproad, comes off the main road and once more double backs. As he sees the girl in front he carefully checks his rear view mirror, indicates and pulls over. The girl looks fed up, mid teens. A young woman. You never know their age at this age. The girl knows what the bloke is going to ask. She comes over. He doesn’t look so bad.
JAKE
You need a lift? What’s happened?
GIRL
Where are you going?
JAKE
Where do you need to go? We live on the other side of Corbridge.
The GIRL looks inside the car, in the front and the back. Nothing dodgey. The guy looks sort of familiar. It looks okay.
GIRL
Wylam will do.
The GIRL gets in.
GIRL (CONT’D)
Do I know you?
JAKE
I was at the R.G.S.
The GIRL shakes her head. That’s not it.
JAKE (CONT’D)
You’re Church High I suppose?
GIRL
So.
JAKE
My first girlfriend was at the Church High.
GIRL
So.
JAKE
I have a studio near the school.
GIRL
So.
JAKE
Or I could have been having my lunch in the Exhibition Park.
GIRL
So.
JAKE
I wish you’d stop saying that.
The GIRL looks away, ahead, then out of the passenger window. The last thing she wants is a conversation.
JAKE (CONT’D)
You said I looked familiar that’s all.
GIRL
I thought you were a teacher or something.
This disappoints JAKE. Does he look like a teacher? He sees a familiar landmark on the road.
GIRL (CONT’D)
I don’t want anyone reporting me for hitching a lift home.
JAKE
It’s not still Mrs Cox?
The GIRL shakes her head. There’s a resemblance to POPPY. Age and the uniform help. There’s more though, an attitude, an expression on the face.
JAKE (CONT’D)
You weren’t hitching. It looked like you were walking.
GIRL
You’re not some sicko are you?
JAKE takes both his hands from the steering wheel and crosses his heart back and forth.
JAKE
Cross my heart and hope to die
The car jerks about. The GIRL grabs the wheel. She gets it into the lane. JAKE lets her steady the car then he takes the steering wheel from her.
GIRL
That was NOT funny.
JAKE’S glad to have the girl with him.
JAKE
No coat. No bag. What happened to you?
The GIRL mutters something, raises her eyes to the roof of the car. She doesn’t want to talk about it. She’s going to get the third degree from her parents eventually anyway so why indulge this bloke.
JAKE (CONT’D)
Wylam is it?
The GIRL looks at him. Gives him the once over. Not that old she supposes. Not that bad. They drive on in silence. JAKE gives up on the girl and reaches over to the radio to turn it on. The girl reaches over to stop him. Their hands touch.
GIRL
I’m sorry. I can’t think with that on.
JAKE
What’s bothering you?
GIRL
My mother.
JAKE says nothing.
GIRL (CONT’D)
She doesn’t understand. She’s just …
JAKE says nothing.
GIRL (CONT’D)
Just … just.
JAKE feels uneasy about this. This exchange, this word play rather than conversation, is starting to sound familiar. JAKE looks in the back of the car. There she is POPPY. She is smug. Thinks JAKE is onto a good thing. JAKE would like her to leave. She has no intention of going anywhere.
POPPY
You can’t make me. You’ve tried. But you can’t make me. You want me, so I’m here. It is as simple as that.
JAKE
I don’t want you.
GIRL
What?
JAKE
Your mother. She’s just … ?
GIRL
Rubbish.
JAKE says nothing. POPPY speaks up. Only he hears it of course.
POPPY
Garbage.
GIRL
She’s rubbish about everything.
POPPY
What a waste.
GIRL
What a waste.
JAKE
What is?
GIRL
Life. It’s a waste of time.
JAKE
I wouldn’t say that. I know someone who’d love to have their life back.
The GIRL hasn’t a clue what JAKE is talking about and isn’t that interested. The GIRL wants JAKE to listen to her problems, not the other way around. JAKE checks in the rear view mirror. POPPY has gone. He’s pleased she’s gone. It appears he can get rid of her if he wants to.
GIRL
She was supposed to meet me after school.
JAKE
And?
GIRL
And …
JAKE
And?
GIRL
And she didn’t.
JAKE
And you spent your bus money.
GIRL
Don’t you start. Anyway, I usually get the train.
JAKE says nothing. He looks up the road. He knows every road sign, every tree, every gate, every building.
JAKE
If you take the train, what were you doing out on the main road?
GIRL
I was having a driving lesson.
JAKE
And?
GIRL
And we got into an argument.
JAKE
Who with?
GIRL
With my mother, who else?
JAKE
I thought you said …
GIRL
I know what I said. Look it’s none of your business anyway.
The GIRL looks out the window as they drive passed her turning.
GIRL (CONT’D)
It’s just … just.
JAKE tries to focus on the road ahead misses the turning for Wylam.
GIRL (CONT’D)
There. It’s just there.
JAKE
Sorry.
CUT TO:
I.E. JAKE’s CAR/RESIDENTIAL STREET – DAY
JAKE drops the GIRL. JAKE offers her Poppy’s pea-green coat.
JAKE (CONT’D)
Take it.
GIRL
?
JAKE
Really. She won’t miss it.
The GIRL refuses the coat.
GIRL
Next time.
CUT TO:
EXT. STONEWALL/BUSY ROAD – DAY
The shrine to POPPY is growing now: flowers, cards, cuddly toys, photographs. JAKE watches. He objects. No one else says anything, no one offers to comfort him. JAKE gets some odd looks … as if he is not being himself.
ANGELA
They’ve not seen you around for months.
JAKE picks up bouquets and cards and cuddly toys and takes them to his car. People object.
JAKE
She’s not dead yet.
People feel sorry for him. He’s deluding himself.
CUT TO:
INT. INTENSIVE CARE/VIEWING ROOM – DAY
POPPY sleeps. There is a stuffed spaniel puppy toy close by her side. HILLARY calls BEN over.
HILLARY
Watch this.
HILLARY goes in, picks up the soft toy and places it against Poppy’s face. That instance fresh images begin to appear in the viewing room. We make out images of her mother, JOANNA, and her father, CLIVE.
HILLARY (CONT’D)
Her mother.
BEN
Her father.
Then the ‘sheep dog.’
CUT TO:
INT. INTENSIVE CARE/VIEWING ROOM – NIGHT
HILLARY gets up as she sees DR MUNROE enter the intensive care room where POPPY is being held. BEN stares at the console. HILLARY leans over a mic and speaks.
HILLARY
It’s about THREE gigabytes. Uses 73 paths. Nearly mapped.
DR MUNROE makes some adjustments to the apparatus attached to Poppy’s head then gives her an injection. PROF DICKINSON looks at screens that match those that HILLARY and BEN are working on. They show the image of a new born baby in one screen while in the second they have a three-dimensional representation of a series of neurons and synapses and their interconnectivity.
CUT TO:
INT. VIEWING ROOM – NIGHT
As PROF DICKINSON studies the images and as HILLARY and BEN make their adjustments we see that there is a relationship between the image of the baby and the 3D representation of the neurons and synapses – adjust one and a change occurs in the other and vice versa.
PROF DICKINSON
This is all we have to work with?
BEN
So far. We lost her mother and father.
PROF DICKINSON
Are we likely to find anything else?
HILLARY gives a Gallic shrug of her shoulders. BEN shakes his head. PROF DICKINSON can see him through the glass. He gives it a moments thought.
DR MUNROE
(From the intensive care room)
How far? How much?
HILLARY
(Using the mic)
We’ve got 99.37%. We’ll need a week to improve that by half a per cent.
BEN
Another month to be within a hundredth of a per cent of 100 … and we’ll never reach a hundred per cent as you know ..
DR MUNROE understands all this.
PROF DICKINSON
We need to delete everything.
HILLARY
Not here. Not yet.
PROF DICKINSON
The experience of her labour will act as a milestone … something on which she can peg the rest of her existence.
HILLARY
What tripe.
DR MUNROE
We need to give it time.
CUT TO:
INT. CHURCH HALL – NIGHT
First used as a polling station, now to count votes. JOANNA is with husband CLIVE and daughter BETH to get the outcome of the local elections.
LEADER OF THE COUNCIL
Congratulations … Mrs Joanna Laing. Councillor for Stocksfield Ward.
CLIVE
What next?
BETH is not impressed by her mother’s achievement.
BETH
She’ll ban everything.
CUT TO:
INT. VIEWING ROOM – NIGHT
HILLARY and BEN animated. Making the final touches to the image of this new born and its ‘mind map signature.’ There are other teams in the room, in twos and threes, working at consoles … a blank screen and static 3D ‘mind map.’
CUT TO:
INT. INTENSIVE CARE UNIT – NIGHT
POPPY is slotted into an CT scanner. Teams and specialists attend to her. DR MUNROE makes sure everything is ready then gives the nod through the glass dividing them from the viewing room.
CUT TO:
INT. VIEWING ROOM – NIGHT
As soon as the image of the new born has been ‘entered’ monitors across the viewing room begin to pick up images, some washed out, some clear. Most of the images have something to do with this face – the same face, eyes open, the same face from a different angle, then at its mother’s breast. Then other faces … JOANNA and CLIVE when they were younger.
PROF DICKINSON speaks to BEN and HILLARY.
PROF DICKINSON
Sister?
HILLARY
Beth. The day she was born. Poppy was there at the birth. It must have registered. She was five years old.
PROF DICKINSON
And from this?
BEN
There’s nothing else.
HILLARY
It won’t stick.
BEN
She’s got a brain like Teflon.
CUT TO:
INT. JAKE’S CAR – DAY
Jake has a copy of the College Photo pinned to a notice-board. All the young woman are circled in red. Several have now been crossed out.
JAKE
(To himself)
Who are you kidding?
JAKE phones.
JAKE (CONT’D)
Lu? I wondered if you fancied doing something tonight? What about next week? [NO JOY] Oh. Alright.
JAKE puts a line through another face. He phones another.
JAKE (CONT’D)
Beverly? Is she there? It’s Jake. Poppy’s boyfriend.
(Cursing his stupidity for saying this)
JAKE (CONT’D)
What do you mean you’re not a mattress?
She cuts off.
CUT TO:
INT. COUNCIL CHAMBER – DAY
A busy Council Chamber listens to the words of Cllr Joanna Laing. JOANNA holds up a small black box gadget.
JOANNA
I therefore put to the chamber that all provisional driver’s in the county MUST have a black box, such as this, installed, to prevent the vehicle they are insured to drive from at any time, exceeding the speed limit.
Cries of ‘here, here’ and applause suggest that the motion is passed.
CUT TO:
INT. JAKE’S CAR – DAY
JAKE gets out a can of lager and switches on the TV. Holby City. Anything’ll do. He flicks through different channels. More medical dramas. Nothing worth watching.
CUT TO:
EXT. BUSY ROAD OUT OF TOWN – DAY
JAKE heads out of town. He’s in a state. As he drives he drinks a can of beer. He drives under the footbridge. He’s on his way out of town.
CUT TO:
EXT. FARMHOUSE – DAY
JAKE pulls up in his car.
CUT TO:
INT. FARMHOUSE, BETH’S ROOM – DAY
ABI
He’s there again
BETH
?
ABI
Your stalker.
BETH
That’s Jake. Don’t you recognise him?
BETH goes out to him.
CUT TO:
INT. COUNCIL CHAMBER – DAY
JOANNA has the attention of the council.
JOANNA
Tracking devices should be fitted as standard. The authorities have a right to know who is on the road and where they are.
CUT TO:
EXT. JAKE’S CAR/BUSY ROAD – DAY
Bright sun. Spring (if we can tell). The same road. Sometimes duelled, often not. JAKE drives. He’s alone. There’s no one in the passenger seat. He’s in a T shirt and shorts.
POPPY (V.O.)
Bacon.
JAKE smiles. He’s been here before. It feels good to have her around. She has this habit of turning up as he passes on the same footbridge, by a bus stop, on the way out of town. He turns his head, as if he is addressing a passenger … there’s no one there – not yet. He’s not bothered by this. He then turns back to look up the road.
JAKE
And eggs.
POPPY (V.O.)
Hundreds and thousands.
JAKE
Millions.
POPPY (V.O.)
Loads.
JAKE
Bag loads.
POPPY (V.O.)
Healthy.
JAKE
Fertile.
POPPY
Mother.
CUT TO:
EXT. STONEWALL/BUSY ROAD – DAY
JAKE pulls up. He finds a couple of COUNCIL CONTRACTORS clearing away the shrines – putting stuff in boxes and bags. He walks back and forth along the wall. A motorbike pulls up. It is HILLARY.
JAKE
How come you always know where I am?
HILLARY
I’m your No.1 fan.
JAKE
?
HILLARY
Buddy.
JAKE
?
HILLARY
Friend.
JAKE
I don’t recognise you.
HILLARY
How could you. Who do you think I am?
JAKE
Out of thousands?
HILLARY nods.
JAKE (CONT’D)
Ghanima.
HILLARY gives JAKE a kiss.
HILLARY
Trying to kill yourself again?
JAKE
If you can die from boredom.
HILLARY
Come and work with me. You’d be good the technical side. You’d be helping Poppy too.
JAKE
Do you know what you’re doing?
HILLARY
Poppy has a right to have her life back.
JAKE
It won’t be her life.
HILLARY
It’ll be a life.
JAKE
She’ll be someone else. The very thing that defines us is the way we are wired and the way we experience and respond to life as we grow up.
HILLARY
The way she’s wired is genetic. We can’t change that. She’s lost the contents of her brain, that’s all.
JAKE
That IS all. THAT is everything.
HILLARY
You’ve not been to see her recently.
JAKE spots POPPY in the woods.
JAKE
I don’t need to. She’s all in here.
JAKE taps the side of his skull. JAKE finds an old jam jar. This is where it all happened. JAKE picks it up and flings it against the stonewall. It brakes into pieces and shards.
CUT TO:
INT. HOSPITAL LOBBY – DAY
BETH takes a call on Poppy’s mobile as she walks through the hospital. A MATRON spots her and says something. BETH turns the mobile off.
CUT TO:
INT. INTENSIVE CARE/VIEWING ROOM – DAY
POPPY, still in a coma. BETH sits with her holding the baby.
BETH
You’re getting thousands more hits. I’ve been transcribing your diaries. And uploading pictures. The world knows about the baby. Top choices for a name are Abigail, Beth, Kate, Laura and Zoe. What do you think?
CUT TO:
INT. VIEWING ROOM – DAY
The viewing room is busy. HILLARY and BEN are more interested in listening in on BETH.
CUT TO:
INT. INTENSIVE CARE UNIT – DAY
BETH
Jake said he might come in with his parents. Everyone wants to see you get better.
CUT TO:
INT. VIEWING ROOM – DAY
The image of a new born baby appears. Then it changes. Its face turns into that of a JAKE.
BEN gets up as if to go out. HILLARY stops him.
HILLARY
It’s alright. I’ll go.
She picks up her motorbike helmet.
BEN
You know if you have an accident on a motorbike you’re more likely to end up dead than in a coma.
HILLARY doesn’t need to be told.
CUT TO:
EXT. STONEWALL/BUSY ROAD – DAY
JAKE goes over. He stands for a while by the wall. He has been here so often before. Anger. Joy. At peace. He no longer knows what to feel. He looks at his College Photo. He takes out his mobile. He sits by the wall, the College Photo in his lap. He sends several text messages.
JAKE
Let’s start with Angela. Then … Julie. And Fiona.
JAKE is distracted by singing. Someone is singing. He stands up. He strains to figure out where the singing is coming from. JAKE looks over the wall into the wood beyond. The voice comes from somewhere off in the wood. JAKE clambers over the wall. He heads into the woods, not caring about getting his feet soaked, or brambles snagging his trousers.
CUT TO:
EXT. DAY. WOODS/LAKE
JAKE steps out into a clearing. There is a lake surrounded by trees. It’s a beautiful spot. The singing stops. He feels as if he is being watched. POPPY is in the woods. She watches as JAKE leaves then slips into the water.
CUT TO:
INT. COUNCIL CHAMBER – DAY
JOANNA has the floor.
JOANNA
The top speed of all cars and motorbikes will be capped at the National Speed Limit.
‘Here, here’ from the audience.
CUT TO:
INT. INTENSIVE CARE UNIT/VIEWING ROOM – NIGHT
POPPY looks no better. Her body functions. She is being watched inside the Viewing Room by BEN. HILLARY is at her side. BETH comes in carrying a bag of things, as if she’s going on holiday. She hands the bag to HILLARY.
BETH
Don’t tell my Mum. She’d murder me. These are some of Poppy’s things. My Mum wanted to throw everything out.
A mobile phone goes off – Poppy’s familiar ring-tone.
CUT TO:
INT. VIEWING ROOM – NIGHT
BEN hears the ring-tone and sees something new coming up on his viewing room monitor in relation to Poppy’s brain activity.
BEN
I’m getting something.
HILLARY looks over. The three screens on which BEN is working might look at home on the desk of a hedge fund manager. There are dates, there are charts, there is movement. And then there is an image … as if taken through a steamed up window.
HILLARY
What’s the number? On the mobile?
BETH
07789 172707
HILLARY goes to a phone and rings. Poppy’s mobile rings again. The sound sets off a chain-reaction. Inside the viewing room there is a cascade of activity as screens light up and Poppy appears to recover her memories.
HILLARY
What’s that ring-tone called?
BETH shrugs her shoulders. HILLARY & BEN work together on enhancing the images, storing them, backing up ‘mind maps’ etc: BEN reaches for and presses a red emergency call button.
CUT TO:
INT. THE TWO GEORGE’S BEDROOM – NIGHT
DR MUNROE and PROF DICKINSON, who are in bed together, are woken by the telephone. DR MUNROE takes the call.
DR MUNROE
We’ll be over shortly.
DR MUNROE gives PROF DICKINSON a nudge.
DR MUNROE (CONT’D)
They’re working on a data burst from Poppy. We should go over.
CUT TO:
EXT. THE SAME BUSY ROAD – DAY
A busy road. Sometimes duelled, often not. Cars get caught behind slower vehicles. Some passing opportunities. A dangerous road. A fast road. A road full of impatient drivers. It is summer – if we can tell. And dawn. All the cars appear to be driving in the same direction. JAKE has the local radio station tuned into the breakfast show.
MALE VOICE OVER
No problems with the traffic on the A69 this morning and no road works to report.
POPPY (V.O.)
Twazzled.
RADIO MALE (V.O.)
‘Men think about sex every three minutes.’ Keep those calls coming in. We have JAKE on the phone.
POPPY (V.O.)
Twazzled.
JAKE holds a mobile phone to his ear as he talks.
JAKE
Yes. Mike Morrison?
RADIO MALE (V.O.)
Yes, mate. You’re through to Mike at Metro Radio.
JAKE
I think about sex … when I’m driving. Every few minutes.
There’s a toot of a horn as JAKE drifts into the outside lane of the dual carriageway.
POPPY (V.O.)
Twazzled.
JAKE
I put the radio on to take my mind of it.
RADIO MALE (V.O.)
So you’re thinking about sex at the moment, JAKE?
POPPY (V.O.)
Twazzled.
JAKE
Shut up, I heard you the first time.
RADIO MALE (V.O.)
You’ve pulled over to make this call have you mate?
JAKE cuts the call off and drops his mobile into the glove compartment.
RADIO MALE (V.O.) (CONT’D)
That was JAKE. Pulling over for a quick fiddlededee …
JAKE turns the radio off.
CUT TO:
I/E. INTENSIVE CARE UNIT
A skip containing Poppy’s stuff is delivered to the car park next to the intensive care unit where she is kept.
CUT TO:
EXT. THE SAME BUSY ROAD – NIGHT
JAKE is wearing a suit. We pass a road sign. Some familiar road mark like a footbridge that puts us in the same spot as before. He is sitting with POPPY. She is wrapped in a towel. A second towel is wrapped around her hair as if she has just got out of the bath.
POPPY
I was having a bath. I got into a water fight with Mum.
JAKE has heard this story before. She’s run out of new things to say. He’s bored with it. Tolerant. Unable to stop it.
POPPY (CONT’D)
I was getting out of the bath and wrapped myself in a towel. Mum was being annoying so I threatened to sit down in the bath with the towel round me. She said, ‘just you dare.’ She filled a jug that we use to rinse our hair with freezing water and threatened to tip it over me.
I/E. JOANNA’S CAR/BUSY MAIN ROAD – DAY
JOANNA drives into town. She is agitated. She dials on her mobile phone and makes a call.
JOANNA
If we can’t put drivers who use their mobile phones in jail for a night, then I quit the council.
CUT TO:
I/E. JAKE’S CAR/BUSY MAIN ROAD – DAY
JAKE is enjoying POPPY’s story as he drives along that stretch of road where the accident occurred.
POPPY
I sat down so she tipped the water over me. Soon we were throwing water all over each other. When she wouldn’t stop I picked up the back scrubber and threw it at her. When she went to pick up the brush she found an unopened Durex behind the radiator. She said to me, ‘You do know how to use one of these I suppose.’ I think that was when I got pregnant.
JAKE sees a car coming straight towards him in the opposite lane. It is trying to pass a lorry.
JAKE
Shit.
JAKE eases off the accelerator while the car coming towards him speeds up. Conscious of a car behind him and what few options he has JAKE swerves to the side of the road. They just miss hitting each other. To JAKE’s dismay and disbelief he sees that it is JOANNA on the phone. JAKE hits the brakes. The car behind slows down then pulls in behind him. JAKE is sitting catching his breath when there is a tap on the passenger windscreen. It is young woman, JESSICA.
JESSICA
I think I got her number. Are you alright?
JAKE isn’t all right. His heart is racing. He’s faint if anything. And tired. And fed up.
JESSICA (CONT’D)
Can I ring anyone for you?
JAKE shakes his head. He looks at the passenger seat. Work. Briefcase, laptop, files and papers. Sweet papers. A can of energy drink.
JESSICA (CONT’D)
Where are you headed?
This brings a smile to JAKE’s face. It reminds him of something or someone.
JESSICA (CONT’D)
What? Why are you smiling?
JAKE dismisses it. He shakes his head, and takes a deep breath. He looks over his shoulder as if he intends to get out. A bus rattles past at speed. JESSICA holds the passenger door for him. JAKE clambers over. He gets out. Standing next to JESSICA something strikes him. She is gorgeous. And in that instant he knows he will love her forever. JAKE tries to control his shaking. He then cries because he feels so happy. In what light there is from headlights and traffic he sees exactly where he has stopped. There’s the stonewall again and there’s the wood behind.
JESSICA (CONT’D)
Can I give you a lift?
JAKE takes a few more breaths to get himself sorted.
JAKE
Chollerford.
JESSICA
It’s not out of my way.
CUT TO:
I/E. THE SAME BUSY ROAD AUTUMN – DAY
JAKE is in a great mood. He drives fast. He doesn’t let himself get stuck behind anything. He owns the road.
JAKE
Nothing.
POPPY
Never mind.
JAKE
Emptiness.
POPPY has blood on her face. Her clothes are burned up to her waist. JAKE notices. This is a version of POPPY he has never seen before. She is in pain. JAKE wants to stop. He can see he is coming up to THAT spot. He wants to hold her in his arms. He can’t do it though. He must keep on driving. The distance from town. The spot by the side of the road. He knows exactly where he is.
JAKE (CONT’D)
Spot.
POPPY looks round at JAKE and smiles cheekily. It is hard for JAKE to feel warmth for her given that she looks like the victim of a traffic accident today.
POPPY
Button.
JAKE
Touch.
POPPY
Gently.
JAKE
Gently?
POPPY
Very.
JAKE
Gently.
JAKE takes his left hand from the steering wheel and places it on POPPY’s thigh. As he drives past ‘that spot’ the car goes up on the kerb, but quickly recovers and he drives on. This irritates POPPY, the fact that he kept control of the car. She tugs at the steering wheel, she tries to get him to crash, JAKE is having nothing of it.
POPPY
What about us?
JAKE
What about us?
POPPY
What about us!
JAKE
What about us?!
POPPY
We said we’d speak to each other first if one of us ever decided to get married.
JAKE
You’re dead.
POPPY
No. I’m dead … ish.
JAKE
We can NEVER get married. Would we ever have? Anyway what’s it do with you anymore?
POPPY
She doesn’t even look like me.
JAKE
Good!
CUT TO:
INT. INTENSIVE CARE/VIEWING ROOM – DAY
POPPY gives birth by caesarian. There is a constant interplay between the viewing room and the intensive care room. The entire team are there – in the viewing room and intensive care room. A constant stream of data is being recovered – the entire contents of Poppy’s brain. Images, ides, connections … all must be downloaded, stored, referenced, catalogued.
CUT TO:
INT. COUNCIL CHAMBER – DAY
A busy Council Chamber listens to the words of Cllr Joanna Laing. JOANNA holds up a breathaliser gadget with electronic attachment.
JOANNA
I therefore put to the chamber that all cars be fitted with the ignition authorising unit.
JOANNA blows into the tube, as if she is testing her breath for alcohol.
JOANNA (CONT’D)
A driver will not be able to start the vehicle if they have been taking drinking alcohol or taking drugs.
Cries of ‘here, here’ and applause suggest that the motion is passed.
CUT TO:
INT. FARMHOUSE, SITTING ROOM – DAY
BETH feeds POPPY’s baby a bottle.
BETH
We have to give her a name. What’s wrong with Poppy?
JOANNA
She can’t be called Poppy.
BETH
We should ask Jake.
JOANNA
How do we know he’s the father?
BETH
So, you’re now saying your daughter was a slag.
JOANNA storms out, gets in her car and drives off.
CUT TO:
INT. FARMHOUSE, BETH’S ROOM – DAY
BETH takes the BABY up to her room. She gives her keyboard a nudge to lose the screensaver. She positions the baby so that it can be seen by the webcam.
BETH
Survivor! Her name is going to be Zoe which means ‘the meaning of life.’
CUT TO:
EXT. ROAD OUT OF TOWN – DAY
JAKE pulls into a layby/bus stop. There is a stone bus shelter and a pedestrian footbridge. JAKE spots the GIRL. She comes over and gets in. It’s as if they’ve done this a few times now. The GIRL is wearing Poppy’s pea-green coat.
GIRL
This could get me into so much trouble.
JAKE
Why?
GIRL
Getting into a car with a strange man.
JAKE
I’m not a strange man.
The GIRL thinks about this. She looks at JAKE. What is he? Mid-twenties. Older? Younger.
GIRL
You’re young enough …
JAKE
And you’re old enough.
GIRL
It would never work.
JAKE
It never has to.
GIRL
My parents would never approve.
JAKE
Neither would my girlfriend.
GIRL
Your girlfriend?
JAKE doesn’t have an answer for this so he doesn’t offer one.
JAKE
What do they do?
GIRL
Who?
JAKE
Your parents.
GIRL
My Dad’s the Commissioner of Northumberland Police. My mother’s the head teacher at the Church High.
JAKE takes this in. The chances that having her in his car could lead to trouble has suddenly become extremely high. JAKE looks up the road. He sees a bus stop coming up. It is an isolated spot, but there’ll be a bus along. He pulls over.
GIRL (CONT’D)
What have I said? You’ve got to take me home now. This is the middle of nowhere. It’s not true about my Mum and Dad.
JAKE
What’s not true?
JAKE leans over the girl to push open the passenger side door and let her out.
GIRL
He works for the council and my mum’s a teacher.
JAKE is leaning across the GIRL. There is no doubt that she is highly desirable. But who is going to make the first move. That will define the relationship if it is a relationship that they are going to have. The GIRL sticks her tongue out, sticks it into JAKE’S face. Her tongue accidently touches his nose. His mouth opens. Her mouth opens. They take a few breaths, they breath each other in. They lean into each other, noses touch, they adjust themselves for the kiss … and kiss.
GIRL (CONT’D)
Now you’ve done it.
JAKE pulls away. Cars drive past. JAKE thinks about this. He waits for a gap in the traffic, indicates and pulls out.
GIRL (CONT’D)
There’s no one in.
JAKE
Where?
GIRL
There’s no one at home. They’re not back ’til six. You could come in for a coffee.
JAKE
No.
GIRL
No as in ‘not ever’ … or
JAKE
Not ever.
GIRL
I thought you liked me?
JAKE
I do. You remind me of someone.
The GIRL takes this as a slap in the face. He’s right. It is going no where. They sit in silence. They approach the WYLAM turn off. The GIRL reaches up and tries to steer JAKE away from turning in.
GIRL
We don’t have to go straight back do we?
JAKE forces the steering wheel around. They say nothing as he drives into the village and parks at the bottom of a steep drive away from the houses.
GIRL (CONT’D)
What was she like?
JAKE
Nothing like you.
GIRL
You’re lying.
They sit. The GIRL doesn’t get out. They say nothing. Much to JAKE’S irritation he sees POPPY is sitting in the back of the car looking very smug with herself. The GIRL gets out, takes her bag from the back seat and leaves. JAKE tries not to watch her go. But he does. He desires her without a doubt but lacks the will to pursue it.
POPPY
You want her really.
JAKE
I want YOU really.
POPPY
You can have me if you like.
JAKE looks around. POPPY is naked. He still loves her. It is hopeless.
CUT TO:
EXT. STONEWALL/BUSY MAIN ROAD – DAY
JAKE stands by the wall. He hears someone singing. He looks into the woods. There is someone there. He leaves the car by the side of the road and goes into the woods.
CUT TO:
EXT. WOODLAND LAKE – DAY
JAKE sees POPPY. There is a resemblance. The GIRL and POPPY do look alike. She is by the lake side. He approaches. She is in the water up to her waist. JAKE approaches. She is up to her neck. He slips into the water. JAKE swims into the middle of the lake. POPPY continues to sing, but he can’t see her. He ducks beneath the water. The singing stops. His head emerges, it starts again. He ducks his head beneath the water and the singing stops. He lets himself drift beneath the water, between the weeds. It is peaceful. It is an escape from her down here in the water.
CUT TO:
INT. INTENSIVE CARE/VIEWING ROOM – DAY
The images downloading into the system slow up. PROF DICKINSON is agitated.
PROF DICKINSON
Get more memory. We have to back this up.
The screens go blank. In the intensive care room POPPY collapses. MEDICS run to her assistance.
CUT TO:
INT. COUNCIL CHAMBER – DAY
A busy Council Chamber listen to the words of Cllr Joanna Laing. JOANNA holds up a webcam that has two lenses, one pointing in each direction.
JOANNA
I therefore put to the chamber that all cars be fitted with the Janus webcam.
JOANNA holds the camera in front of her face and shows on two monitors how the ‘Janus’ records images in front and behind.
JOANNA (CONT’D)
This will monitor continually the actions of the driver inside the vehicle, and record episodes in front of the vehicle which could be used as evidence should an accident occur.
Cries of ‘here, here’ and applause suggest that the motion is passed.
CUT TO:
I/E. JAKE’S CAR/GIRLS’ SCHOOL – DAY
JAKE is parked up opposite a girl’s school at going home time. There are girls in a green uniform just the same as POPPY’s. Just the same as the GIRL’s. JAKE has the window down. He doesn’t notice the two men approaching or the women pointing towards his car. The FIRST MAN pulls the car door open.
FIRST MAN
Out!
JAKE
What?
FIRST MAN
We know your sort. Hanging around a girl’s school.
SECOND MAN
Fucking Pervert. That’s what.
JAKE
I’m just waiting for someone.
SECOND MAN
Who?
JAKE
Poppy
FIRST MAN
POPPY who?
JAKE
Poppy Laing. She’s at the school.
The two men do a double take. JAKE says this with such conviction. Perhaps they have got it wrong.
JAKE (CONT’D)
Poppy Laing.
FIRST MAN
What are you to her? Father? Brother? Uncle?
JAKE can’t answer. The men let JAKE be. They cross the road. They approach a couple of women parents too) who are standing with their daughters – girls of various ages from 11 to 17. You can see that no one has heard of POPPY Laing.
JAKE
She was at the school. I was her boyfriend.
It slowly dawns on JAKE where he is and what he is doing. The men approach again. The GIRL comes out of school and recognises the car. It is too late to go over. JAKE doesn’t wait. He drives off.
FIRST MAN
Pervert!
SECOND MAN
Wanker!
Parents and girls alike turn to see what is going on. Some of the girls giggle at the use of strong language. The parents disapprove.
CUT TO:
I/E. JOANNA’S CAR/BUSY ROAD – DAY
Joanna is on the phone as she drives.
JOANNA
It is important. Which is why we must act now.
JOANNA comes up to a T Junction. She lets a car passed then pulls out. She doesn’t see the motorbike. The motorbike hits the car. The driver is flung across the road. JOANNA is horrified by what has just happened.
DISSOLVE TO:
EXT. ROAD OUT OF TOWN BY T JUNCTION – MOMENTS LATER
The Paramedics secure a brace around the victim’s neck then remove the helmet. It is HILLARY.
CUT TO:
I/E. AMBULANCE -DAY
HILLARY dies on the way to hospital.
CUT TO:
EXT. JAKE’S CAR – DAY
JAKE, smart, looking as if he’s had a normal working day, drives towards the spot where the accident occurred. He has a baby carrier in the front seat. POPPY makes her appearance in the back seat. JAKE turns to look at POPPY. She is there. As gorgeous and desirable as ever.
POPPY
Mother.
JAKE
Baby.
POPPY
Child.
JAKE
Children.
POPPY
Small.
JAKE
Little.
POPPY
Large.
JAKE
Big.
POPPY
Thump.
JAKE
Head.
POPPY
Top.
JAKE
Bottom.
POPPY
Cheeks.
JAKE
Kiss.
POPPY
Lick.
JAKE
Tongue.
POPPY
Twister.
JAKE
Entangled.
POPPY
Us.
JAKE is more himself today. He checks his rear view mirror, indicates to pull in and then pulls over on the side of the road, mounting the kerb to park partly on the grass verge to keep out of the traffic. Once again he is looking at a stretch of dry stone wall. There is a wood beyond. A few daffodils pick out a spot. The road is busy so JAKE unhooks the baby and clambers out of the passenger side of the car.
CUT TO:
INT. LECTURE ROOM – DAY
PROF DICKINSON and DR MUNROE address their substantial team. TWO screens are used to illustrate what they wish to attempt – merging the partial mind maps of two different people to allow the one who is still ‘alive’ top function once again.
PROF DICKINSON
Our task is to take the mind maps of these two people, our colleague – Hillary, and the patient, Poppy Laing and construct a set of functions and memories that will allow Poppy to have a life …
DR MUNROE
To restore the behaviour, instincts, and acquired knowledge that will enable her to … pick up the pieces.
CUT TO:
INT. MASSAGE PARLOUR – DAY
JAKE lies stark bollock naked on a towel on a double bed. He looks round when a young woman (KERRY) enters. She is not a patch on POPPY or the GIRL, but she is good looking, in her twenties and ready to play JAKE’s game. JAKE twists his head round to watch. KERRY takes off a silk robe to reveal silk knickers and bra. She removes the bra and panties. She then pulls on a pea-green coat. She pushes her arms through the sleeves as she climbs onto JAKE’S bear backside. She lifts the coat and rubs her sex against him. JAKE loves it. KERRY rolls her client over, his erection sticks up under the coat.
KERRY
Oh. What’s this?
KERRY takes JAKE’S boner in her fingers.
KERRY (CONT’D)
So big. So strong.
JAKE puts a finger to his lips. He doesn’t want her to spoil it by talking. She mustn’t say a thing. KERRY understands. She knows how to please a man. She rides his shaft, but doesn’t put it in. She then crawls down the bed, as if to take him in his mouth. She unpacks a condom, puts it in her mouth and with great professionalism uses her lips to put the condom over his erect penis. They have sex with her sitting on, with him sitting over the bed and her in his lap and they have sex doggie style. Through out KERRY keeps the pea-green coat on.
CUT TO:
INT. VIEWING ROOM – DAY
PROF DICKINSON leans forward to speak through the mic.
PROF DICKINSON
Your perceptions of things will be different.
POPPY/HILLARY
Can I go now?
BEN catches POPPY’s eyes as she leaves.
BEN
It was nice working with you.
POPPY steps over to BEN. She tries to understand him.
POPPY/HILLARY
Did you work on me? Or with me?
BEN
?
POPPY/HILLARY
Why did we ever think we could unscramble an egg.
CUT TO:
EXT. FARMHOUSE HOUSE, FRONT DOOR – DAY
JAKE stands at the door. JOANNA won’t let him in.
JOANNA
She doesn’t want to see you.
JAKE
Something’s wrong. Of course she wants to see me.
JOANNA
Not any more.
JAKE
After all we’ve been through.
JOANNA
What you put her through more like.
JAKE
You’re not on about that again?
JOANNA closes the door in JAKE’s face. JAKE calls up to a bedroom window. There is no response.
CUT TO:
I/E. ROAD IN FRONT OF FARMHOUSE – DAY
JAKE looks up the road towards POPPY’s house. He spots BETH coming down the drive. He lifts up a paper. A moment later BETH taps on the window. She has a cup of coffee for him.
BETH
She won’t see you.
JAKE
Why not?
BETH
Not feeling herself.
JAKE is put out when BETH opens the passenger door and climbs in.
JAKE
It was you doing her website wasn’t it?
BETH
She couldn’t care. Won’t look at it.
JAKE
There’s a lot of stuff in there that isn’t true.
BETH
The truth is boring. I made her life more interesting.
Beth gets out. She turns to Jake.
JAKE
She was fine the way she was.
BETH
You’re right about one thing.
JAKE
?
BETH
This isn’t Poppy.
JAKE
Do you fancy going out?
BETH
Pick on someone your own age.
JAKE
Just a thought.
BETH
I don’t look like her. I don’t think like her.
JAKE
You’re the next best thing.
BETH
Exactly.
BETH leaves.
CUT TO:
INT. VIEWING ROOM – DAY
POPPY/HILLARY is at a console in the viewing room flicking through material related to Poppy’s life. She isn’t pleased with her situation.
POPPY
Did the dog receive counselling? I sure as hell need it.
BEN approaches with a coffee for her. As he comes from the door into the Viewing Room we see that JAKE is watching from the other side.
POPPY (CONT’D)
Which of me like’s coffee?
BEN
Hillary liked coffee. Poppy preferred mint tea. You choose I can hardly mix the two together.
POPPY
Exactly.
POPPY/HILLARY goes back to watching through material on the monitors.
CUT TO:
INT. HOSPITALITY ROOM, HOSPITAL – DAY
POPPY/HILLARY is introduced to some strangers, a MAN and WOMAN in their 50s and a young man, TOBY – these are HILLARY’s family.
POPPY/HILLARY
Dad? Mum? Toby? This feels as strange for me as it does for you … but I am in here.
POPPY/HILLARY taps her skull. Then refers to her body.
POPPY/HILLARY (CONT’D)
Even if I’m not quite looking myself.
The group gingerly embrace. JAKE looks in from outside, still reluctant to make his presence known.
CUT TO:
EXT. VIEWING ROOM – DAY
POPPY/HILLARY is upset as she leaves the Viewing Room and heads down the corridor followed by JAKE.
JAKE
Did she have a boyfriend, is that it?
POPPY
I’m not the same person.
JAKE chases POPPY/HILARY down the corridor. She goes into the Lady’s. JAKE thinks nothing of following.
CUT TO:
INT. FARMHOUSE, POPPY’S BEDROOM – NIGHT
POPPY/HILLARY, naked, throws everything out of her bedroom. She wants nothing that reminds her of her old self. BETH pushes open the bedroom door.
BETH
Mum thought you should put something on.
BETH holds up some clothes.
POPPY/HILLARY
I’m not wearing anything of hers.
BETH
They’re mine.
POPPY takes a look. They’ll do.
BETH (CONT’D)
You should see Jake. He wants to see you.
POPPY/HILLARY
I can’t see the attraction.
BETH
You two were so close.
POPPY/HILLARY
Really.
BETH
Very close.
POPPY/HILLARY
Why don’t you have him then?
POPPY gets up and pushes BETH out of her room.
CUT TO:
INT. LADIES’ LAVATORY – DAY
POPPY/HILLARY locks herself in a cubicle. She is upset. JAKE stands outside. A little self-conscious. Keen to have his say now that he has cornered Poppy.
JAKE
We were so good together.
POPPY/HILLARY
Go away.
JAKE
We were inseparable. No one could imagine us apart.
POPPY/HILLARY
So.
JAKE
I love you.
[BEAT]
The cubicle door unlocks. JAKE and POPPY/HILLARY embrace. JAKE wants to make it more tender. POPPY/HILLARY Pushes him away – tearful, wanting to sob.
POPPY/HILLARY
That was one human being to another. We just feel so alone.
POPPY/HILLARY embraces JAKE a second time.
POPPY/HILLARY (CONT’D)
You have no idea. We have no idea who we are. What I am. Who we are. These two people in my head argue about everything.
JAKE
We all have our doubts about who we are.
POPPY/HILLARY
If they had met would they have seen eye to eye on anything?
JAKE
You’d have liked her.
POPPY/HILLARY
Was I at the accident?
JAKE
I think you were. Both of you.
POPPY/HILLARY grins from ear to ear. She gives JAKE the hugest, wet snog.
POPPY/HILLARY
I’ve just figured this out. It’s like flicking between two channels on TV … looking for the good bits. This is a good bit.
POPPY/HILLARY and JAKE kiss passionately. They are together again big time. Pulling apart they give each other a ‘dare we’ kind of look.
JAKE
Let’s.
The make love in the cubicle.
CUT TO:
INT. HOTEL – DAY
POPPY/HILLARY looks gorgeous, in her wedding dress, hair done, soon to be married. She is there with several bridesmaids: sister BETH, friends FIONA, JULIE and ANGELA. CLIVE puts a gold locket on a chain around POPPY’s neck.
CLIVE
It’s your grandmother’s. There’s a picture of her with you as a baby.
POPPY studies the picture.
POPPY
I remember this.
BETH
You couldn’t remember it. You were only a baby.
POPPY
Of course.
There’s something odd about POPPY still – an emptiness.
CLIVE
Should I call a car?
POPPY
No. We’ll walk. It’s just down the road.
CUT TO
INT. HOTEL LOBBY – DAY
The entourage of POPPY, CLIVE, JOANNA and BRIDESMAIDS leave through the lobby of a Five Star Hotel. On seeing a motorbike courier POPPY goes over. POPPY fancies a ride on the motorbike. She approaches the RIDER.
POPPY
Will you take me to the Church?
CUT TO:
EXT. ROAD – DAY
The entourage of CLIVE, JOANNA and BRIDESMAIDS leave the five star Hotel to cross a main road and walk round to the church. They stop the traffic at a Pedestrian Crossing. POPPY appears cling to her dress sitting on the back of a motorbike and waving.
CUT TO:
INT. CHURCH – DAY
JAKE looks up the aisle. The guests wait. The church is packed. This is going to be a great event.
POPPY
I’m back.
To JAKE’s horror he turns to find ‘Poppy’ at his side.
JAKE
I can’t marry you.
POPPY
Why not?
JAKE attacks her with his arms as if he is wafting smoke than gives his head a tap.
JAKE
I don’t even know if you exist except in here.
JAKE taps his head.
POPPY
Something’s happened to me.
An USHER appears at the church door. He looks ashen. JAKE knows there is something up – he runs down the aisle.
CUT TO:
I/E. CHURCH ENTRANCE/LOBBY – DAY
JAKE looks up the road where a motorbike has been hit. JAKE thinks the worst and runs over. There are a couple of USHERS at the scene. POPPY/HILLARY leans over to JOANNA and kisses a two year old child she is carrying. JAKE turns on his heels. POPPY/HILLARY is okay.
POPPY/HILLARY
He gave me a ride to the church.
They watch as the USHERS help the driver up. He is going to be alright. He thanks the USHERS and drives off. JAKE turns to POPPY/HILLARY.
POPPY/HILLARY (CONT’D)
What do you think?
JAKE
Stunning.
JAKE leans in to kiss his bride. She won’t let him … not just yet.
POPPY/HILLARY
You can wait a few more minutes?
Of course he can. JAKE goes back into the church. As he walks up the aisle he makes reassuring noises to the guests.
Two men, CLIVE and ANOTHER MAN (50s), step forward. POPPY/HILLARY turns first to one, then the other.
POPPY/HILLARY (CONT’D)
Given away by two Dads. Now there’s a first.
POPPY/HILLARY takes each by the arm and is led up the aisle by both men – both her fathers.
ANOTHER MAN
You look gorgeous.
CLIVE
You haven’t changed a bit.
POPPY/HILLARY smiles. Either way she is happy to be alive.
CUT TO:
INT. CHURCH – DAY
JAKE steps forward to greet POPPY/HILLARY. They gaze into each other’s eyes – JAKE in particular is looking intently into her eyes.
POPPY/HILLARY
Two for the price of one. You lucky man.
JAKE so wants to give her a kiss. A peck on the cheek even. POPPY/HILLARY won’t let him.
POPPY/HILLARY (CONT’D)
In a minute. When I’m married. I’m a good girl.
JAKE
Not.
POPPY/HILLARY
Snot.
JAKE
Nose.
POPPY/HILLARY
Blow.
JAKE
Job.
The VICAR has been there all the time. So still, so much part of the scenery that you could forgive POPPY/HILLARY and JAKE for ignoring him. He now wants their attention and gets it.
VICAR
We have come together today, to witness the marriage of two people.
JAKE
Three people.
The VICAR clocks the two year old being held by JOANNA – he assumes that it is this that they are referring to. POPPY/HILLARY and JAKE are so absorbed in each other they find it hard to hear a word the VICAR is saying. The guests love the moment. We pick out the usual suspects: DR MUNROE & PROF DICKINSON, BEN, CLIVE, JOANNA, BETH, ABI … the entire cast list.
VICAR
And do you Poppy Anthea Laing take Jake Ferguson Jeffries to be your lawfully wedded husband.
POPPY/HILARY
We do.
JAKE and POPPY/HILLARY try to hold back their giggles – two people have never been so much in love.
POPPY/HILLARY
I do.
FADE OUT.
THE END
CUT TO:
CREDIT SCENE:
EXT. FARM YARD – DAY.
JAKE and POPPY/HILLARY (heavily pregnant) stand with CLIVE at a farm gate. CLIVE takes a dog whistle and blows. Looking across the fields/hill we see sheep turn, break into a canter and then run down towards the farm. The sheep, without a dog to handle them, come into the paddock. A few of them bark, none of them bleat.
The School to watch – where Vygotsky and e-learning meet?
The model for learning is compulsive. It has everything that is great about e-learning and the use of technology, indeed, it is part of this genre and world … but it is also a school, or college, in the old sense, with a physical presence where people meet to share ideas, grow and participate collaboratively in their development.
Where does studying and work end?
It doesn’t. There are no boundaries, nor should there be.
Were that the 115 year old Vygotsky (1926) was here to experience it …
The future world were ‘classes’ and ‘learning’ takes place at home and in the workplace as PART of the world, rather than distinct from it.
Ultimately, only life educates, and the deeper that life, the real world, burrows into the school, the more dynamic and the more robust will be the educational process. Education is just as meaningless outside the real world as is a fire without oxygen, or as is breathing in a vacuum.
Only he who exerts a creative role in real life can aspire to a creative role in pedagogics. It is just for this reason that, in the future, the educator will also be an active participant in society.
In the school of the future, these window will be opened as wide as can be, and the teacher will not only lok out, but also actively participate in the ‘duties of life.’
REFERENCE
Vygostsky L.S. (1926) Educational Psychology. (Translated 1997) CRC Press.
Mind Bursts 