"THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION" Screenplay by Paul Schrader DRAFT SCRIPT 2000 EXT. AMAZONIA - SUNSET Subtitle: Amazonia 1960. A Ceremonial House in the upper reaches of the Amazon basin, "ceremonial house" being a euphemism for a raised platform covered by a thatched roof. In the distance, the sun slants low over an unending expanse of verdant jungle. A half dozen HIPPIE EXPATS sit around a low rough hewn table. Atop the table of Heaven an earthen bowl, decorated with multi-colored scenes and fantastic creatures, is circled by drinking cups. ETHAN RANKIN, 20, and VINCE GARWOOD, 19, the two American expats, wear jeans, sandals, T-shirts and long hair. Their skin has a dull bluish color, the result of residue of a purification bath. Trance music, constant, evolving, ripples below the surface. The expats look one to the other as the SHAMAN, an elderly mestivo, ladles a brownish brew from the bowl into the individual cups. His assistant, DON MACITA, 36, helps him. Ethan and Vince's expressions fluctuate from nervous to expectant. Each cradles his cup in his hands as the Shaman, dispensing the "tea," starts to sing an ancient icaros, a ritual chant, the melody which will accompany them on their journey. On a pre-arranged signal, each of the ceremonialists drinks the brew in one sustained swallow. TIMECUT. NIGHT: the hippie expats are scattered to the far reaches of the Ceremonial House, each barfing and shitting (off camera, hopefully) their insides out. Vince, wobbly, crawls to where Ethan lies: VINCE Ethan... (no answer) Rankin? ETHAN Vince? VINCE How are you? ETHAN You? VINCE Weak, spacey. Ethan's countenance changes: his face becomes placid, his eyes widen. VINCE Ethan? ETHAN Oh, Jesus, oh my God... INSIDE ETHAN'S MIND'S EYE: he shoots at sling-shot speed across the jungle canopy, trailing stars and clouds to his right and left; then, rapidly approaching from the horizon, a giant iridescent speckled SERPENT zooms into view, its jaws open. Inside we fly, whirling through the serpent like passengers on an animistic roller coaster, until, twisting and turning, the light grows bright and bursts into a kaleidoscope of color -- Subtitle: Mexico City, 2001. CUT TO: CREDITS INT. RAVE CLUB - NIGHT The rainbow of colored light comes from dozens of flashing bulbs reflecting off a disco ball. Trance music cross- dissolves into techno with a Latin beat. Below, a throbbing mass of kids gyrate and thrash. Amid the mass of sweating ecstatic Mexicanos, RUSSELL RANKIN, 26, hops from one partner to the next. Russ' unkempt hair and club clothes can't disguise what he is: American, intellectual, middle class -- a student on permanent foreign leave. The music grows discordant, off. Russell looks around: something seems wrong. He stops dancing, stares, anxious. Definitely wrong. He's growing paranoid. Is it the drugs? No, is it the music, an earthquake? No. He pushes his way toward the "Salida." A FRIEND, noticing the expression of Russ' face, calls to him: FRIEND Russ, where you going? RUSSELL I've got to go! Something's wrong! FRIEND Where? RUSSELL I don't know. FRIEND Chill, come on, we'll go someplace. RUSSELL No, I've got to go home. FRIEND Home? Russ elbows his way outside. CUT TO: INT. MEXICO CITY - NIGHT Russ, in a panic, throws clothes into a duffel bag in his hostel like residence. The walls are decorated with third world agit-prop, psychedelic posters and Pre-Raphaelite prints. CUT TO: INT. MEXICO CITY AIRPORT - NIGHT Just a few stranded travelers; otherwise, empty rows of geometric chairs. Russ leans over the counter of the only airline still open: RUSSELL I need to get to Portland, Oregon, US, on the next flight possible, the next connection. CLERK There wouldn't be anything until morning. Six o'clock. RUSSELL Put me on it. I have cash. Russell pulls all the money he has out of his pocket. CLERK (suspicious) Do you have a passport? RUSSELL (pulls it out) Right here. (explaining) Family emergency. END CREDITS INT. CLASSROOM - DAY Subtitle: Portland. An institutionally plain classroom. HUME (HUGH) RANKIN, 30, stands before a mixed audience: male, female, older, younger, mostly white. Rankin, angular, clean cut, wears a white shirt with a silk tie. If he and his brother Russell could be put in boxes, he would be "straight," and Russ would be "hip," although, in fact, neither can be so simply defined. In the back sits Vince Garwood, now 60, wearing professorial jacket and tie. It's not a class per se, as indicated by the fact that some listeners drink coffee, some are dressed in soiled work clothes, others business outfits. Hume speaks: HUME ...I've been through this with each of you individually, but now, collectively, we have the joint opportunity to air any concerns or anxieties. This DMT -- dimethyltryptamine -- trial is the first such study to be approved by the FDA, so forgive us if we err on the side of caution. We have chosen DMT as the pioneer psychotropic compound for several reasons: it naturally occurs in the body, evident in such states as schizophrenia and manic depression. To the extent that we can understand why Serotonin is affected by DMT, we might unlock some of the mysteries for such disabling disorders. Second, it is an intense drug. The visions will be strong. Third, it's short acting. It's in and out fast. Should anyone have an unpleasant experience, at least it will be over quickly. All of you have previous experiences with psychedelic drugs, some extensive experience. This will be a much more controlled environment. 1.0 mg/kg of dimethyltryptamine will be injected intramuscularly, not smoked as is the usual practice. This retards the speed at which the drug becomes effective, but it's the only way to be sure everyone receives the same dosage. You've all signed the informed consent forms, but I wanted to take this opportunity to invite your friends and relatives to an open forum. If anyone has any questions, please ask. If anyone has second thoughts about being a trial subject, you may withdraw your consent at any time. Questions? An awkward seat-shifting. No one wants to appear unhip. The GIRLFRIEND of one of the trial participants half-raises her hand. HUME Yes? GIRLFRIEND Dr. Rankin... HUME Hugh. GIRLFRIEND Have you taken dimetheltrimethitripo... (awkward communal laugh) ...DMT? HUME Since 1970 dimethyltryptamine, along with virtually every other hallucinogen, has been a Schedule I drug, meaning that any unauthorized use is a crime. I do not break the law. But yes, I have taken DMT, inhaled and intramuscular, outside the country and in legally approved situations. Is it dangerous? Only if you fear death by astonishment. (scattered laughter) Because you will be astonished. I have zero qualms about administering or using this substance. An OLDER MAN raises his hand: OLDER MAN There are those, and I'm not one of them, who say this program is just an excuse for recreational drug use. Nervous laughter. The audience is predominantly and unabashedly pro-drug. HUME I don't like the word "recreational." It implies something trivial. Vision- inducing plants are functional, and have been for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. They teach us about ourselves. A DMT voyage, like any trip, is instructional. You will return knowing more about the world around you and the world inside you. (beat) The purpose of the trial is not recreational, it is scientific. CUT TO: INT. CORRIDOR/OFFICE - DAY Hume and Vince Garwood walk along the hallway leading from the classroom. Participants small talk in the background. HUME What do you think? VINCE You mean were there any "spies," members of Fifth Estate? No, it was cool. You did good. HUME Thanks, Vince. VINCE It's such a delicate balance. You want to be open and candid -- we have nothing to hide; on the other hand, we all know the devastating effects too much publicity have had on this type of research. (beat) I particularly liked the line about not breaking the law. Hume chuckles as Garwood stops at his office, opens the door. Inside it's a rat's nest of books, papers and ethographic souvenirs. Framed pictures of Emmanuel Swedenborg, William Blake and Aldous Huxley hang between the windows. VINCE When do you start? HUME Monday. You going to be there for the first trials? VINCE What time? HUME Ten a.m. At the clinic. VINCE Okay. Again, good work. They nod goodbye as Garwood closes the door. CUT TO: EXT. HUME HOUSE - LATE AFTERNOON Hume drives his green Camry through the leafy South Park streets surrounding the university. He slows, turns into the driveway of his 20's "California cottage" house. Portland, the Martha Stewart of American cities, enforces zoning regulations to preserve the quaint nature of its older neighborhoods. On the front steps sits Russell Rankin, unshaven, duffel bag at his side. It takes Hume, getting out of the car, a moment to recognize his brother: HUME Russ, is that you? Russell? Russ gets up, sheepishly slouches over to his brother who embraces him. HUME Jeez, six months without a boo or a bah, now -- it's great to see you. What's going on? RUSSELL I just felt... I wanted to come home. HUME Well, come in. Meet Allison... (looks around) I guess she's not home yet. Come on in. You want a beer or a soda or anything? Hugh pulls out his house keys as they walk up the steps. RUSSELL Water. I'm thirsty from the plane. CUT TO: INT. LIVING ROOM - LATE AFTERNOON Russ looks around the room: sofa, mismatched chairs, dining table stacked high with books -- furnishings familiar to anyone who has spent an extended period in grad school. A Haitian painting depicting a voodoo ceremony hangs in the dining room. One corner of the room has been sectioned off. A wooden Buddha in the Padmasana position sits on a covered pedestal, before it, a meditation mat and between the mat and Buddha, incense censors and joss sticks. Hume returns from the kitchen bearing a glass of water. Russ gulps the water, sighs. There's something on his mind. HUME Okay, brother, com'on, out with it. What happened? RUSSELL It's hard to explain. HUME Are you in trouble? RUSSELL No. I was in a club the other night, well, last night, in Mexico City, that's where I've been living, getting into Indian culture and all that and I got this feeling, this very strong feeling, that something was wrong. That someone was in danger -- HUME You had a panic attack. RUSSELL I had a premonition. (beat) Is Mom all right? HUME You should have called. RUSSELL I wanted to see her. Is she all right? HUME You all right? Russ nods. Hugh sighs, confirms his brother's fears: HUME There may be a reoccurrence of the cancer. In her lungs. Russell emits a noise; he knew it: RUSSELL Let's go see her. HUME I'll call. We'll drop by tomorrow. RUSSELL We could go now. HUME (firm) Tomorrow afternoon. I've got to have some time to prepare her. You two didn't exactly leave on the best of terms. (beat) You need some rest. And a shave. CUT TO: INT. MOTHER'S LIVING ROOM - DAY Freshly cut flowers in a vase; the boys' gift to their mother. EVANGELINE RANKIN, 59, Russell and Hume's mother, cradles a cup of coffee. The decor is middle-brow, but not cheesy (tansu chest, prints by local artists, etc.). Evangeline, a bit gaunt, exhibits the healthy glow associated with the Northwest's outdoor culture. She wears a shiny gold cross. Hume and Russell, also holding cups of coffee, sit on the edges of their matching upholstered chairs. The mood is more formal than one would expect of a family "reunion." EVANGELINE More coffee? HUME No, Mom, I'm fine. RUSSELL Me too. EVANGELINE It's from Kona. (off their reactions) The coffee. RUSSELL Delicious. HUME Were you out this morning, power- walking? EVANGELINE Yes, with Judy, but these days it's more walk than power. In fact, we turned back after fifteen minutes. Awkward beat: no one wants to bring up her failing medical condition. EVANGELINE (to Russell) Are you planning to stay long? RUSSELL A couple of days at least. We'll see what happens. It's good to see you. Hume sets his coffee down, gets up: HUME I gotta go see a man about a dog. He heads for the bathroom. Evangeline and Russ smile; this is an old family expression. EVANGELINE (to Russ) You were in Mexico City? (he nods) The American University? RUSSELL Well, it isn't a school in the formal sense. It's a group of young scholars with sympathetic interests -- EVANGELINE Like a commune? RUSSELL We wouldn't use that term. EVANGELINE And these sympathetic interests, what are they? RUSSELL Indigenous American cultures. Pre- Columbian societies. Tribal organizations, tribal rites -- EVANGELINE You mean peyote. You're talking about peyote, right? (no reply) Oh my God. RUSSELL It's nothing to be ashamed of. What do you think Hume does at the University, at the clinic? Her reply is sharp, censorious -- and full of denial: EVANGELINE He's a bio-chemist. RUSSELL He does drug research. EVANGELINE He has a Ph.D. Russ rolls his eyes. Her tone turns angry: EVANGELINE Everything that has gone wrong with this family can be traced directly back to drugs. RUSSELL Mom, stop. Just stop. EVANGELINE Drugs have been the death of this family. Russ, already on tender hooks, reaches the end of his proper behavior: RUSSELL No wonder Dad left you. Jesus Christ. Tell me, has he ever been in touch with you in, what, twenty years? She starts to cry. Hume, returning, overhearing Russ' conversation, groans: he should have never left them alone. Evangeline turns to Hume: EVANGELINE He hasn't changed. He's always looking for trouble, he goes to jail -- HUME Mom, it was petty larceny -- EVANGELINE And drugs. HUME He was never in jail. He was on probation. EVANGELINE Every time I see him I see his father. Russ, fed up, stands up: RUSSELL That's it. (to mother) I don't blame him. Hume grabs his brother by the arm and, shooting his mother a hard look, escorts Russ to the front door. RUSSELL (to Hume) She lives in worst case scenario- land. HUME (looking back) Mom, I'll call you. CUT TO: EXT. MOTHER'S HOUSE - DAY They emerge from the proper middle-class home. Hume, keeping Russell moving, heads toward the Camry. RUSSELL I don't know why I came back. What was I thinking? It was a bad idea. HUME (reproachful) Russ. BAM! They run smack into a thirtiesh GARDENER: RUSSELL Asshole! Why don't you look were the fuck you're going? Hume throws an apologetic look at the Gardener ("It's nothing"), continues toward the car. CUT TO: INT. HUME DINING ROOM - NIGHT Hume, Russ, and ALLISON sit around the empty dinner plates, sip tea, wine. Allison, 25, is the model of intelligent hipness: attractive, long-hair tied in a ponytail, wearing a loose plaid shirt. ALLISON ...I was trying to teach my students about life. I said to them, "The only way you can be sure you are loved for yourself and not for money or sex, is if you are unattractive and poor." But then I explained it's very hard to be loved if you are like that. RUSSELL That makes love practically impossible. ALLISON They need to know what they're up against. They laugh. Allison turns to Russ: ALLISON Hume's talked about you a lot, and I have to say, I haven't been disappointed. RUSSELL (chuckles) Yeah, I really fucked up today. ALLISON You should go back, not tomorrow, but soon, and apologize. RUSSELL (hard, edgy) That's one point of view. ALLISON Yes. Mine. Allison shakes a cigarette from a pack, lights up. Russ looks to Hume; she explains: ALLISON Hume doesn't approve of artificially enhanced nicotine. HUME One makes certain concessions for love. ALLISON (to Russ) You want one? RUSSELL Nah. But you know, of course, marijuana is also carcinogenic. HUME Well... Allison starts to stack the plates. HUME Here, let us help you. Russ reaches over to assist his brother. CUT TO: EXT. HUME FRONT PORCH - NIGHT Hume and Russell sit on the front steps sipping Chardonnay. Night crickets are interrupted by the sound of the occasional passing car. RUSSELL To be honest, I'd sort of come to the end of my interest in mescaline. Mostly just getting stoned. HUME That's what you were doing in that club? When you had the panic attack? RUSSELL (sheepish) Not really. HUME MDMA. RUSSELL Yep. HUME It's an interesting drug. There's important work being done on Ecstacy at John Hopkins, in Barcelona: neuroendocrine effects, vasopressin secretion... RUSSELL What are you into? HUME We're starting a trial on DMT. RUSSELL The harmalines? Hoo boy. The heavy stuff. How you get away with that? HUME Cause I'm a good boy. RUSSELL How can you put up with it? All the shit you have to deal with in this country? HUME Somebody's got to stay and fight the good fight. The best labs are here, the best scientists are here -- you do work in this country and the scientific community has to take it seriously. Besides, with the internet, everybody is connected now. You know the organization MAPS? (Russ nods) Through MAPS now we're in constant contact with research all around the world: Spain, Finland, Brazil. It's not like it used to be. RUSSELL Good old Hume Rankin. HUME Don't mock me bro. RUSSELL (lifts glass) Excuse-moi. HUME (click glasses) Things are going to change. It's too important not to change. RUSSELL Psilocybin, that's where I realized I wanted to be, but I just wasn't... well, I just I was scared. The big drugs, the See God drugs, that's what it's all about. HUME This extraordinary imagery we all have within us. These things, unworldly things, that just appear. Where do they come from? What are they trying to say? RUSSELL The old dilemma. You open those doors of perception, what happens? Do you see this world more clearly or do you come in contact with another world? HUME Does the inside come out or does the Outside come in? RUSSELL The Freud/Jung dilemma. HUME It's not politically correct, and I'll deny I've said this if you repeat it, but I believe there's a parallel world of awareness that these plants give us access to. It may be the way primitive man first became aware of the spiritual world. RUSSELL (joking) "Jesus was a plant." HUME (responding in kind) I deny it. I never said that. RUSSELL So, this DMT trial, you got everyone signed up? (Hume nods) You can't fit one more in? HUME Why? RUSSELL You got a bunch of Portland Deadheads signed up for this trial and you're going to interview them silly. Wouldn't it be better to have one subject who has studied psychotropic affect, who's personal history is intimately conjoined with your own, someone with whom you can truly discuss the results of the trip? HUME You want in? RUSSELL Can you swing it? HUME (thinks) Yeah. If you don't advertise. RUSSELL Yes sir. (beat) Tell me one thing, Professor Rankin. HUME What? RUSSELL Do you, ah, offer Mileage Plus? CUT TO: INT. HAMBURGER KING - DAY Russell fills out a form under the MANAGER'S watchful eye. The Manager can't help but notice Russ' overqualifications. MANAGER We have an Advancement Program. RUSSELL Not really, I'm between situations. I need short term employment. I don't want to be a burden on my friends. MANAGER We have an investment in training you. RUSSELL (quizzical look) It's a counter position. MANAGER This is a service-intensive occupation. RUSSELL Mr. Banks, I've worked in the fast food business. I seek only to be a diligent employee. I understand customers. CUT TO: EXT. HEAD SHOP - DAY The local drug paraphernalia, radical press, vinyl oldies, Heavy Metal store. CUT TO: INT. HEAD SHOP - DAY Russ steps over to the counter, approaches an eighteen year- old head in a KORN T-SHIRT. RUSSELL Chuck around? KORN SHIRT Chuck who? RUSSELL Wistelm. "Chuckie Wisdom." KORN SHIRT Oh yeah, Chuckie. No, nah, I don't know. RUSSELL I used to hang here. KORN SHIRT He got busted -- or maybe not, I'm not sure. That was before my time. RUSSELL How long you been here? KORN SHIRT Six weeks. (recognizing him) You're Russ Rankin, right? (Russ shrugs) I'm Joe. I came here, like before I had this, like job -- you're heavy, you were like a major dope dude huh? (calls to unseen employee) Hey, this is Russ Rankin. Russ changes his mind about coming here: RUSSELL My name's Bob. A TEENAGE FEMALE EMPLOYEE, tattooed, huge breasted under a Marley shirt, walks over. FEMALE EMPLOYEE Yeah? RUSSELL I was just looking for Chuckie Wisdom. FEMALE EMPLOYEE Chuckie who? RUSSELL Hey, it's nothing. Groove on. He walks off. FEMALE EMPLOYEE You find him, tell him I got some crabs of his. CUT TO: INT. CLINIC - DAY Russell, with three other trial participants, walks down a severe hospital corridor with Hume and two ASSISTANTS. Russ, looking at the patient rooms, the white walls, the brutal machinery of modern medicine, turns to Hume: RUSSELL And they wonder why people have bad trips? HUME The setting isn't what it should be, but it's important to operate in a clinical environment. Anyway, the "set," the mind set, is more important than the physical setting. RUSSELL No problem. CUT TO: INT. TRIAL CLINICAL LAB - DAY Russ and the other volunteers sit in leisure chairs in a white-walled room. Each, sleeves rolled up, has a blood pressure cuff and IV attached to one arm, a double-valve blood needle to the other. EKG wires extend from under their smocks. The Assistant draws blood from each of the participants as Hume, wearing a blue button down collar shirt with a dark tie, lowers the lights on a rheostat. HUME We will, during the duration of the trial, approximately twenty minutes, draw blood at regular intervals as well as check pupil diameters -- none of which will effect your experience. If anything, it will provide a comforting connection to the real world of the clinic. Are there any questions? No questions. The volunteers are prepared, even eager. Hume steps back to five video cameras, one trained on each of the participants, checks if they are running: all red lights glow. Hume steps away, looks as the door opens: Garwood enters the darkened room. HUME Relax your muscles, let the tension flow from your bodies and: pay attention. Hume gives the signal: the Assistants move from one participant to the next, opening the IV valves, letting the saline/DMT mix flow into the tubes. The Assistants withdraw, pick up their clipboards, sit on folding chairs, one against each wall. EKG machines: heart rates slow. Trance music, first a faint echo, grows louder; the drug starts to take effect: Russell's eyes slowly close as the camera goes through the eyelid, into his mydriatic (dilated) eyeball. Author's Note: There are several extended trip sequences in the script. Although I will sketch the rudimentary stages of each trip, words are inadequate to describe a multi-layered constantly morphing hallucinogenic experience. Although the trip descriptions necessarily fall into linear, logical patterns, the final screen images should be much more free- flowing and imagistic. A better reference would be by the computer graphic "trip" videos put out by Sony Music Video (with titles like "Odyssey Into the Mind's Eye," "Luminous Visions" and "Ancient Alien"). The effects that can be created by cutting edge computer graphics are, as the saying goes, "mind blowing." IN RUSS' MIND'S EYE: the geometric lines of the room collide, fall away as we tumble, into the vortex, through the twisting tube to the other side. RUSSELL'S VOICE It's falling away... The sound of crinkling cellphone, a rising tone, then, suddenly, out of the tunnel the world explodes in splintering mandalas of pink, red, and orange. It is as Mircea Eliade wrote about the religious experience, "a complete rupture of the mundane plain." The kaleidoscope of splintered colors trails like a fleeting firebird giving way to an undulating SEA OF SERENITY. Off to the left, in the distance, lies the Ice Country, but we're not going there. A flock of strangely colored birds glide below, their trills merging with the music like a choir. We pass the waterfall where dead souls bathe. The effect is not unlike that of a child observing a three- ring circus: so much is happening, so much that we've never seen before, all of it simultaneous -- and all of it so astonishing. There's no way to absorb it all. One only watches with slack-jawed wonder. IN THE CLINIC: Hume watches as an Assistant takes Russ' blood pressure. Russell sits unmoving, lost in time and space. IN HIS MIND'S EYE: a HIGH PLAIN appears in the distance; approaching, it's green and welcoming. On the horizon, an eerie light glows. Small creatures scramble across the plain as we land. As they approach we realize these are the ELVES, miniature mutating folk radiating joy and playfulness. They're all smiling. The grass grows tall, soon we're in an ancient overgrown FORREST. The elves lead us through the darkening wood. A panther watches from a tree limb, his eyes piercing trees. The music darkens, an ominous mood wells from the Earth's core. But the elves still seem happy and we follow, moving quicker now. Out of the forest, on the valley floor, sits the SAUCER, the source of the eerie glow. The silver skin pulsates like a living being. This is where the elves have been leading us -- but now, suddenly they're gone. The door to the saucer opens; a blue warmth radiates from within. A human silhouette appears in the doorway. We draw nearer. The silhouette is Evangeline, her arms across her stomach. She pulls back her hands, revealing an open wound. Her hands are red with blood. IN THE CLINIC: Russ shifts in his chair anxiously. It's as if he's trying to get out of his body without standing up. Hume checks the EKG monitor; Russ' heart rate increases. RUSSELL Mom. IN HIS MIND'S EYE: Evangeline extends her hand, leads us inside. The music, still hypnotic, has taken on a frightening Nine Inch Nails quality. Inside the saucer we're led from room to room. Shifting planes of shades of blue surround us. The floors seem liquid at our feet. He hears a TV show, "Jeopardy." Alex Trebek says "The Taj Mahal, Solomon's Palace and Billy Joel's beach house all have this in common." Evangeline takes us to where a thirty year-old man stands wearing dark old jeans and a T-shirt. Hanging from one hand is a blood dripping butcher knife. This is the MURDERER. IN THE CLINIC: Russ squirms. Hume checks his watch; it's been eighteen minutes. One of the other participants opens his eyes, says something to one of the Assistants. RUSSELL Stop, stop. IN RUSS' MIND'S EYE: The murderer lifts his other hand. From his fingers tangles Evangeline's gold cross. He presses the cross into our palm. We fall into the WHIRLPOOL. IN THE CLINIC: Russell awakens, frightened, trembling, his face beaded with sweat. Hume kneels beside him. Russ attempts to speak, but cannot. HUME Russ? He looks at the EKG monitor, double-checks with the Assistant who is taking Russ' pulse, checking his pupil dilation. She indicates Russ is fine. RUSSELL (groggy) We have to go to mother's house. HUME We can't do that. You're not fully down yet. We'll go in a while. RUSSELL (soft, urgent) No, we've got to go now. Hume attempts to calm him, but now Russ is on his feet, pulling the EKG sensors from his chest, blood pressure cuff from his arm. He starts for the exit. RUSSELL I'll go on my own. Russ breaks free from the Assistant's attempt to restrain him, heads for the exit. Hume calls after: HUME No, no, I'll take you. Let's get your shirt. Hume throws a perplexed backward glance to Garwood as he follows. CUT TO: INT./EXT. HUME'S CAR - DAY Russ, wearing his street shirt, rides shotgun as Hume negotiates the Camry though a Portland suburban subdivision. Russ' eyes are focused on the road ahead. Classic rock plays on the FM. RUSSELL Turn it off. It takes Hume a moment to understand what his brother means. He clicks off the stereo. HUME What happened? What's this all about? (no reply) You're just going to sit there? I mean, what can be so bad? You're not going to create a scene are you? They turn a corner: the house appears. Russ tenses. Hume pulls into the drive, parks behind their mother's van. They get out, walk to the front door. At the door: Hume rings the chimes. No answer. Rings again. The brothers look to each other. Hume turns the knob: it's unlocked. The door swings open. They step inside -- CUT TO: INT. MOTHER'S HOUSE - DAY Everything appears normal, everything as it was the day before. Russ and Hume walk into the living room. Day old cut flowers in their vase. Russell relaxes. Maybe it's nothing after all. Then, from the TV room, he HEARS A SOUND which sends a chill up his spine: "Jeopardy." Alex Trebek's voice echoes from the den: "The Taj Mahal, Solomon's Palace and Billy Joel's beach house have this in common." Buzzer sound. "Yes, Mike." Russ turns his head, catching TV Mike as he replies: "They were all built for love." Russ, now fearful, notices red stains on the carpet as they proceed. The bedroom door is ajar. It hits Hume: something is very wrong: HUME Mom? Russell pushes the bedroom door open, revealing a horrific tableau. Evangeline, her stomach sliced open, her hands cut with defensive wounds, her breast repeatedly punctured, lies beside the bed. Everywhere, the room shows signs of a struggle: a lamp knocked over, chair askew, coverlet half off the mattress. Hume resists the impulse to rush to his mother's side. Russ, his head in his hands, sobs. HUME (quiet) Don't touch anything. It's a crime scene. Mother, Mom, Mom... Hume steps closer. RUSSELL She's dead. HUME (voice cracks) Yes. (beat) I'm going to another room, call 911. Are you all right? I mean, to deal with the police and whatever. I could drive you home, come back and call. RUSSELL No, I'm all right. I'm down. Go ahead and call. (beat) Hume? HUME Yeah? (no reply) Russell? RUSSELL I saw it. CUT TO: EXT. MOTHER'S HOUSE - DAY Paramedics wheel the gurney carrying Evangeline's body bag to an awaiting EMS vehicle. Police cars are parked at every which angle. Crime scene tape fences off the front yard as officers hold back curious onlookers and media crew. CUT TO: INT. LIVING ROOM - AFTERNOON Hume and Russ sit on the chairs they occupied the day before. Across from them is Homicide Detective LAWRENCE, 40, a veteran of such situations. Police and M.E. technicians go through the house with orderly precision, collecting evidence. Glancing time to time at the victim's sons, the technicians work as silently as possible. LAWRENCE ...I'll be in touch tomorrow, Dr. Rankin, but you touched nothing? HUME The front door, we walked here, here, there -- otherwise, nothing. I used the phone in the den. RUSSELL We were here yesterday. That's why we came back. We had an argument. HUME (explains) We came to see Mom and, well, you know, the usual parent-child stuff. We wanted to patch it up. LAWRENCE That's why you were together? HUME Yes. LAWRENCE And your father? HUME My father and my mother broke up twenty... one years ago. She hasn't seen him since. LAWRENCE Where is he now? HUME I don't know. LAWRENCE Is there anything, you can think about it, was there anything unusual, anything that might give us a direction to pursue? Hume shrugs. RUSSELL She was sick. She had lung cancer. She had a mastectomy, but the cancer returned. LAWRENCE How is this relevant? RUSSELL It isn't. But, I mean, what kind of person kills a dying woman? CUT TO: EXT. HUME'S HOUSE - NIGHT Incense burns at the foot of the shrine. Blue TV light flickers from a TV across the room. Hume, Russell and Allison, somber, sit watching the videotape of Russ' trip. Hume holds a stapled EKG of Russ' minute-by- minute progress. ON SCREEN: Russell, EKG wires under his smock, IV and cuff on his arm, lies quiescent on the Clinic lounge chair. RUSSELL (watching the video) The grass grew and it was like a forest, a jungle, there was a panther... HUME (turning pages) Minute fourteen. RUSSELL ...the elves lead me out of the wood... HUME There's a lot of literature on elves. Terry McKenna had a thing about them. Spirit escorts to the Other World. RUSSELL (watching himself on screen) There, there, it's starting. I see the saucer. I see the light. Blue light. She's there. ON SCREEN: Russ, turning his seat, says: "Mom." RUSSELL (back in house) My God. HUME (reading) Heart rate elevating. Blood pressure up. RUSSELL She takes me to him. I can see him clearly. I see him in every detail. Allison reaches over, touches Russ. ON SCREEN: Russ, squirming, saying: "Stop, stop." RUSSELL He places her cross in my hand. ON SCREEN: Hume kneels beside Russ. The trip is over. Russell, sweating, opens his eyes. HUME Twenty-one minutes, EKG, blood pressure returning to normal. ON SCREEN: Hume and Russell exit frame. The screen returns to static. Allison, using the remote, clicks off the TV. Russ sighs deeply. Silence. ALLISON (quiet) Wow. RUSSELL I... do you believe me? ALLISON Yes. Russ turns to a reluctant Hume. He extends his right arm, holds out his hand, which he has kept balled up, both here and in his mother's house, opens his hand, uncurls the fingers, reveals his palm: there, on the tender part of his palm, is a BURN MARK of a cross, the exact size of his mother's gold cross. They stare without response. Russ, wiping his wet eyes, stands: RUSSELL I'm going to bed. He walks away. Allison waits until Russ' door closes. ALLISON Do you believe him? HUME (hesitant) Yes, I do, but... ALLISON But what? HUME I don't know what it means. CUT TO: INT. LAWRENCE'S CUBICLE - DAY Russell sits beside Detective Lawrence. RUSSELL What do you mean, no new developments? LAWRENCE Mr. Rankin, your mother's murder... (checks watch) occurred thirty-four hours ago. Believe me, this is a high profile crime. We are employing every resource at our disposal-the forensic results, a lot of it is still coming through. RUSSELL But the evidence, witnesses, somebody must have seen something... Russ' intensity can't help but pique the Detective's interest. LAWRENCE We've canvassed the neighborhood, we're going back, re-interviewing -- gone out on the news shows, I'm sure you've seen them. When's the funeral? RUSSELL (corrects him) Memorial service. (beat) Day after tomorrow. LAWRENCE I spoke with your father. RUSSELL Huh? LAWRENCE In England. That's where he lives. I was going to have him interviewed there, but he's decided to return for the funeral. Russell falls silent, not knowing what to say or feel. LAWRENCE You mean he didn't tell you? CUT TO: INT. GARWOOD'S OFFICE - DAY Vince Garwood, wearing a tweed jacket and tie, turning a small Incan god in his hands, sits at his desk across from Hume Rankin. The desk is stacked with research papers; the shelves lined with books on chemistry and psychedelic experience. A chart on one wall shows the chemical structure of various drugs: TMA, MDMA, Mescaline, LSD, etc. A framed photo of Garwood and Ethan Rankin as young men sits on the bookshelf. VINCE I've heard and read a thousand trip stories, I've been to a hundred conferences, but I've never heard anything like this. Glossolalia, time and space travel, hyperspace healing, eschatological hysteria, material transformation, phone calls to the dead, being devoured by giant cats -- but not this. Are you going to write it up? HUME I haven't decided what to do. You're the first one I've told. VINCE How's Russ? HUME This whole thing has freaked him. Apart from that, he's fine. Hell, it's freaked me. It's hard to grieve properly with this other stuff hanging over our heads. VINCE I understand. I wish I could put it in context for you. HUME I know this is not something we discuss, but have you been in contact with my father? VINCE No, why? HUME The police located him. He's going to come back for the memorial service. Doesn't that strike you as odd? VINCE Yes. (refers to Incan God) These were once high-tech. HUME And you've never heard from him, about him? VINCE No, but thinking back, everything about your father was odd. There are two paradigms for work in this field. There are Huxleyites, who believe psychotropic drugs are for the prepared few. There are those like Tim Leary who are popularizers, who want everyone to turn on. I'm a Huxleyite, Ethan was a Learyist and he got terribly burned for it. Leary didn't mind when they turned him into a clown, in fact, he got off on it; but not Ethan. He couldn't stand the ridicule, the rejection, the cheapening of his ideas. He turned his back on the whole thing. I don't know what your mother told you, but I think this was underneath the problems Ethan and Evangeline were having. CUT TO: EXT. FT. STEVENS STATE PARK - DAY Fort Stevens State Park, formerly a military reservation, sits on a picturesque finger of land between the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean. Friends and family of Evangeline Rankin stand under an open tent. Her smiling photograph rests on a stand to one side of the tent; opposite is a table for refreshments. The conservatively dressed mourners stand in ranks as a nondenominational MINISTER releases her ashes to the wind and sea. The words "Evangeline Rankin" permeate the fog of repression. A lone trumpeter plays "I Shall be Lifted Up." Hume, Russ, and Allison watch beside Ethan Rankin, now 61, wearing what can best be described as "gentleman farmer" attire. Vince Garwood and his WIFE stands a row back. Russ glances at his palm: the cross burn mark is faint, almost gone. TIMECUT: The bar is open. Friends and family mill about, chat quietly, sip wine, coffee and Perrier. Ethan, avoiding Garwood, joins Hume and Russ. Allison watches as they step away from the others, view the great confluence of waters. ETHAN That was very moving. She was a good woman. Better than I deserved. I'm glad I came. HUME I'm glad you did too. Dad. Ethan reacts with a self-deprecatory smile: ETHAN I can't say I've been much of a parent. (beat) I'm going back to Britain tonight. This takes the boys by surprise. RUSSELL Can't you stay a bit longer? ETHAN (shakes head) I almost came back five, six years ago, but I did some checking. (to Hume) You're involved in psychedelics, aren't you? HUME Um-hmm. ETHAN I went to the library, looked you up. Read some of the articles you've written. How in God's name did you end up in that field? Tell me. HUME (halting) Well, I was pre-med. I wanted to be a doctor, just like you. I got interested in brain function, how neurotransmitters react, why certain alkaloids effect the brain as they do, which then of course led to psychotropic drugs which led me here. Just like you. ETHAN Psychedelics ruined my life and they'll ruin yours too. Ruined my reputation, ruined my marriage, ruined my self-esteem. I have a new life now and I want no contact with this one. (hard: to Hume) Get out, Hume. Get out before it ruins your life. (to both: voice cracking) Maybe we'll meet again. We'll see. Russ and Hume watch as their father, fighting back emotions, walks a half dozen steps away, stares out at the ocean. Hume turns to his brother, stunned: HUME Wow. RUSSELL (lighter) Yeah, well, what do you expect from a man who names his sons after British philosophers? CUT TO: INT./EXT. HUME'S CAR - DAY Hume drives his brother and Allison back to Portland. Russell thinking, then: RUSSELL I still see him. I can see him as clear as I see you. HUME Who? RUSSELL The murderer. ALLISON The one inside the saucer? RUSSELL Yeah. Hume starts to reply, stops. RUSSELL I think we have to do something about it. What if he's a known psychopath? What if he's killing someone else in some other city right now? HUME What do you propose? RUSSELL Well, since I have the image so clear in my mind, we could go to the police, to Detective Lawrence. I'm sure they have a sketch artist, you know, a sketch kit, then they could take the murder's face, see if anybody recognizes him. ALLISON But what if he's not the murderer? What if it's just somebody you saw somewhere and incorporated into you unconscious? RUSSELL Well, then he'll have an alibi, right? (Hume looks unconvinced) Hume, I think this is a real person. We have a moral obligation to help catch him. We have an obligation to our mother. CUT TO: INT. HUME DINING ROOM - NIGHT Russ and Hume, in the darkened room, lean across the table facing each other. The conversation continues from the previous scene: HUME Okay, we'll do it. We'll call Lawrence in the morning. But we've got to have the story straight. Russ states the "official" version: RUSSELL During the DMT trial I had a vision. I saw Mom bloody, I saw the murderer standing beside her, holding a bloody butcher knife. Afterwards, we went over to her house and found her dead. HUME Don't tell him about the elves. RUSSELL No. HUME Whatever you do, don't tell him about the flying saucer. RUSSELL No way. CUT TO: INT. POLICE LAB - DAY Russ leans beside a female POLICE SKETCH ARTIST working on a computer. On the screen a face emerges from the many possibilities. RUSSELL I would say the eyes... show me some additional eye choices. She brings up a screen full of white male eye matches; he picks one. She adds the new eyes -- much better. Almost an exact replication of the Murderer's face. Spooky. And frightening. RUSSELL Now the skin color... CUT TO: INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY A utilitarian space: four walls, three chairs and a metal table. Lawrence, in a casual mood, sits across from the brothers. In front of him is the open case file, Russ' statement and the computer-generated sketch of the Murderer. LAWRENCE You know that expression, "I've seen it all?" Remind me not to use it again. (to Hume) Thanks for coming by. I thought it would be good to go over it with both of you. (indicates photo sketch) Is this a good resemblance? He is, of course, trying to catch Hume unawares. HUME I would have no idea. I was not "there." RUSSELL It's very good. Almost exact. LAWRENCE I'll pass it around, very discretely, of course, given the circumstances. See if it gets a hit. I don't think broad dissemination is well-advised. I checked with your department at the University. Everything about the drug trial is apparently on the up and up. There won't be any negative repercussions. RUSSELL I think this is him. This is the killer. And he's real. I believe that, I can't tell you why. LAWRENCE Why can't you tell me? RUSSELL It's not that I won't tell you, it's just that my reasons are more intuitive than rational. Lawrence's beeper goes off. He checks it, turns to Russ: LAWRENCE I hope you're not planning on participating in any additional trials. RUSSELL No, sir, I'm not. It's not that Lawrence is dense or insensitive, but he's from another mindset. The Detective pages through Russ' statement: LAWRENCE Okay, let me go through this again. This DMT trip. Let's back up to the point where you encounter the "self- transforming machine elves." Hume looks at Russ incredulously: HUME You told him about the elves? Russell, defensive, replies to Hume: RUSSELL I had to. Otherwise it wouldn't make any sense. How else could I explain how I got to the saucer? HUME (even more incredulous) You told him about the flying saucer? CUT TO: EXT. HUME HOUSE - NIGHT Hume's Camry, his mother's van parked in the driveway. CUT TO: INT. HUME HOUSE - NIGHT A single light burns. Hume, his legs folded in the lotus position, meditates before the shrine. He repeats softly, "Om mani pene hung, om mani pene hung..." CUT TO: INT. HAMBURGER KING - DAY Russ, wearing his Hamburger King shirt, his Hamburger King cap, his "Russell" name tag, takes orders from a gaggle of high school students. CUT TO: INT. CLINIC - DAY Hume, Garwood and the Assistants collect EKG data, videotapes and notes after another DMT trial. A few participants linger, talking amongst themselves. Russ steps silently in, raps his knuckles on the door jam: RUSSELL Hume? HUME Yeah? RUSSELL You about done? HUME (looks around) Give me twenty minutes. I'll meet you downstairs in the snack shop. Russ nods, waves to Garwood, walks away. CUT TO: INT. CLINIC SNACK SHOP - DAY They share coffee and soda water at a table in the upscale snack shop: designer coffee selection, croissants and scones, vegetarian wraps and snacks. HUME The police have unsealed Mom's house. We have to arrange the disposition of her possessions. RUSSELL How's the trial going? HUME Good. RUSSELL No more freak-outs? HUME No. RUSSELL I've been thinking. HUME No kidding. Me too. RUSSELL The police aren't doing anything. I can't say I blame them, not after that fiasco with Detective Lawrence. I mean, we came off like a comedy team. HUME You've spoken with Lawrence? RUSSELL I don't have to. Murders like this are solved in seventy-two hours -- or not at all. Or at least not until the killer makes a mistake. It's been over a week. There's nothing in the papers, on the news. HUME What makes me think you have something in mind? You want me to get a copy of the sketch? You want to circulate it privately? RUSSELL No, not that. HUME What then? RUSSELL The murderer exists up here. (points to his head) So does, I imagine, his identity -- or at least, clues to his identity. There's only one way to access that information. That is to return to the scene of the identification. Learn more about him. (beat) To take another trip. HUME There's no way Garwood would let you back into the trial. RUSSELL I know. Besides, I don't want to trip at the Clinic. That setting is not good -- I'll do it at your place. I'll smoke the DMT, not inject it. Mix a little Syrian rue to extend it. That way the experience will be stronger, sharper. HUME It's illegal. RUSSELL Drug use is based on loss of control. Drug laws are created by those who are terrified by loss of control -- HUME You're preaching to the choir. RUSSELL You're telling me you can't get DMT crystals? This is the Pacific Northwest, man. We're in the fucking epicenter of drug consciousness. You don't even have to go through the Clinic. (no response) Or I should get it on my own? HUME What do you think will happen? (Russ doesn't understand) When you trip? RUSSELL I'm going back, Hume. He won't avoid me. You know how the hallucinatory mind works: you say the word "blue" and you see more shades of blue than you ever imagined. I'll call him, he'll appear -- and when I meet him, I'll find out more about him. Something we can use. Hume exhales, sips his water. RUSSELL There's no other way. HUME If you do it -- RUSSELL I am. HUME I don't think you should do it alone. (beat) I'd have to come with you. RUSSELL You want to meet him? HUME I wouldn't mind. RUSSELL Is that a yes? HUME No. RUSSELL But you'll think about it? HUME I'll think about it. CUT TO: INT. HUME HOUSE - NIGHT The "setting" has been prepared: two mats, low indirect lighting, a mounted camcorder. Russ, wearing shorts and a baggy T-shirt, sits on one of the mats. Hume, similarly dressed, places a Goa Trance CD in the stereo as Allison labels a video tape, puts it in the camcorder. Hume takes the Haitian voodoo ceremony painting off the dining room wall, turns it, places it on the floor, face to the wall: HUME (explains) I'd hate to look at that and up in that trip. (to Russ) I opted to go without any carrier. That way the effect will be strongest and shortest. I think twenty minutes is more than enough. Hume carries a box containing a glass pipe, a small vial of pale pink powder, herbs, a strainer and a small kitchen knife to where Russ sits, places it on the floor, sits beside Russ. Trance music -- mantra undulations laid over a gentle techno throb -- plays softly. HUME (to Allison) Is the designated driver ready? ALLISON (nods) Why is it the boys get to have all the fun? Allison checks through the camcorder -- the wide-angle lens encompasses both brothers -- presses "record." The red light glows. She sits beside the brothers as Hume places DMT powder in the bowl of the glass pipe. HUME (to Russ) If you make an object, you say it first, then I'll repeat it. (to Allison) Everything okay? (to Russ) Relaxed? Russ nods. HUME Pay attention. Hume strikes a match, lights the powder, inhaling deeply. Hume reacts to the harsh chemical smoke as he passes the pipe to Russell. Russ inhales, sets the pipe down, closes his eyes. Hume, feeling the onrush of drug effect, looks over to Allison... The crackling, the rising tone AND THEY'RE OFF. Alan Watts described the DMT experience as "being fired out of the muzzle of an atomic cannon." Note: although this is primarily Russ' trip, at times we'll see both visions simultaneously on a split-screen. The camera snap zooms into each of their foreheads, throwing out, in diptych, three time/space tunnels as they tumble into the multi-colored VORTEX. The two simultaneously tumbling tunnels grow progressively white until they merge, the entire screen luminescent, Russ' face double exposed beneath: this is his vision. We fly across water, jewel-like crystals reflecting off its surface. To our right the promontory at Ft. Stevens State Park approaches, its earth heaving up, morphing into rolling humps in a DESERT, which now surrounds us. Except it's liquid. The hump continues to grow, morphing snake-like across the surface below. No, penis-like. In fact everything is SEXUALIZED. The trailing clouds are breasts, buttocks, crotches, nipples. The screen caught between male and female imagery, separate yet intermixing. Vagina, penis; flower, serpent; yin, yang. THROUGH THE CAMCORDER: Russ and Hume lying side by side. Russ, left hand feeling his erection, reaches with the other hand, touches Allison's leg, which protrudes into frame. She removes his hand, places it on his side. IN RUSS' MIND: traveling through a world composed of moving body parts: hands, fingers, eyes, arms, yet human like some multi-limbed Hindu deity. Angel wings flap past as, somewhere, a woman speaks to herself. Ganesh and the angel, now embracing, break off into a separate screen, vanish in the distance as the screens reemerge. A hand waves goodbye. Russ has forgotten the purpose of his voyage. He says: RUSSELL (O.S.) Elves. (more forceful) Transforming machine elves. And they appear, at first in the far distance, tiny specks on a VAST PLAIN of green. We approach. The topography feels familiar: we've been here before. It's the high plain from the clinic trip. Below mutating elves, bouncing colored balls, wave and smile. To our left, the waterfall where dead souls bathe, ahead: a recognizable glow. THROUGH THE CAMCORDER: Russ and Hume, side by side. Russell, focused, says: RUSSELL The saucer. (beat) Open the door. IN RUSS' MIND: the elves, at our sides, fall away as the music grows more troubling, the SAUCER more imminent. Evangeline is at the door, bleeding, but we have no time for her. Inside the saucer we wander through a maze of multilayered blue light. Alex Trebek's voice echoes from a TV speaker: "The Taj Mahal, Solomon's Palace and Billy Joel's beach house have this in common." Russell's voice trails across the screen in colored patterns: RUSSELL (O.S.) Show yourself. I want to see you. (beat) Murderer. (beat) Murderer! Suddenly, as if from vapor, the Murderer materializes, wearing old jeans and a T-shirt. In one hand is the bloody butcher knife, in the other is Evangeline's cross. THROUGH THE CAMCORDER: RUSSELL What is your name? Hume, recognizing Russ' voice, repeats the incantation: HUME Murderer, what is your name? IN RUSS' MIND: the Murderer prepares to raise his hand, but it is not the hand bearing the cross -- it is the hand holding the knife. The Murderer steps forward, SLASHING THE KNIFE repeatedly toward us, into us. We hear a scream. THROUGH THE CAMCORDER: Hume screams as Russ, straddling him, STABS his stomach and sides, with the kitchen knife. IN THE LIVING ROOM: Allison bolts across frame in a blur, screams as she pushes Russ off Hume, onto the floor beside. Confusion, panic. Allison takes Russ' T-shirt, presses it on Hume's stomach, attempting to help him. Hume, groggy, watches. Russ, becoming aware of what's happened -- seeing Hume, seeing his hands, seeing the knife -- retreats, frightened, across the floor. CUT TO: INT./EXT. CAR - NIGHT The Camry swerves wildly as it careens around a corner, regains control, speeds down a residential street. Allison, at the wheel, drives as best she can given her frightened condition. In the back seat, Russ cradles Hume in his arms. Hume's side and stomach are wrapped in bath towels; here and there blood seeps through. CUT TO: INT. EMERGENCY ROOM - NIGHT Allison, Hume and Russell burst through the door as one: Hume, his towels nearly soaked through with blood, supported by Russ and Allison. RUSSELL We need help. Somebody, please! Heads turn. An ORDERLY rushes over to help Hume while a NURSE fetches a gurney. ORDERLY Everything is going to be all right. The Orderly and Nurse place Hume on the gurney as ANOTHER NURSE says to Allison: NURSE We need some information about him. A uniformed OFFICER and a print JOURNALIST, standing together, watch from the waiting room. The Journalist has his note pad out. JOURNALIST (to Officer) Isn't that... isn't that the Rankin boys, the ones whose mother was killed? Allison speaks to the Nurse as Russ watches the Orderly remove the bloody towels: ALLISON ...not allergic to any medications, Hume, Hume Rankin... FADE TO BLACK: INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY FADE IN: a "below the fold" newspaper headline reads: "Sons of Murder Victim Involved in Stabbing" and, in smaller typeface, "Acid Trip Alleged." The newspaper lies on a small table beside a vase of flowers and hospital pamphlet ("When Emergency Strikes"). Hume rests in a private room, an IV connected to the back of his hand. Allison, wearing a Fair Isle sweater, sits on a chair beside, reading. Hume opens his eyes. Allison, noticing this, stands beside the bed. ALLISON Hi. HUME I didn't hear you come in. ALLISON How are you feeling? HUME Sore. ALLISON A few more days and you'll be able to go home. HUME Non-life threatening wounds, but, Jesus, they hurt. (beat) Garwood visited yesterday. ALLISON That was nice. What did he say? HUME It was what he didn't say. ALLISON What didn't he say? HUME He's under pressure. The whole department is under scrutiny. I offered to resign but he turned me down. ALLISON That's good. HUME No, what it means is that it will look better for the University if they fire me. She touches his head, straightens his hair. ALLISON I visited Russell in jail. HUME You hid the videotapes? (she nods) How's he? ALLISON Not good. HUME God, what a mess. ALLISON He's fallen inside himself. He's absolutely mortified. HUME You told him I don't blame him? ALLISON (nods) But that's not the problem. The problem is that he blames himself. CUT TO: INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY Russell, wearing a blue prison jumpsuit, sits across from Detective Lawrence and District Attorney VANTIL. Russ' hands rest on the table. He can hardly bear to look them in the eyes. VANTIL We in the DA's office have been back and forth about this whole thing. I know I said some pretty strong things before, but we've reconsidered. Russell speaks in a small, broken voice: RUSSELL I haven't asked for leniency. VANTIL I don't know if the District Attorney's office wants to prosecute the son of a recently murdered woman who's killer is still on the loose. (looks at Lawrence) Especially when there is no complainant, no reliable witnesses. No hard evidence. (beat) I've spoken with the judge. I'm going to propose community service and probation, providing you enter a court-administered program of therapy. LAWRENCE Any infraction, any contact with illegal drugs, and you'll be right back in here. RUSSELL (contrite) My drug taking days are over. No more tripping for Russ Rankin. LAWRENCE You were trying to catch your mother's murderer in hyperspace -- do you realize how crazy that sounds? RUSSELL Yeah. VANTIL We're going to get you some help. RUSSELL Any developments in the murder investigation? LAWRENCE No. RUSSELL Nothing from the sketch? LAWRENCE No. RUSSELL You know what scares me the most, even more than stabbing my brother? (they listen) It's the fear that this murderer is a product of my own projection. That I created him out of my own anger at my mother, that I took on his form and I killed her. VanTil looks at Lawrence: this boy does need help. LAWRENCE It's fortunate you have such a good alibi at the time of her death. CUT TO: EXT. POLICE STATION - DAY Hume, Allison and Russell exit the station, walk to the parking lot. Hume, still sore, gets behind the wheel. Allison and Russ squeeze in; they drive off. CUT TO: INT./EXT. CAR - DAY Hume and Allison are up front, Russ in back. Hume relaxes, happy to be out of the hospital. RUSSELL Allison told me about the University. I'm so -- HUME Please, Russ, I said no more apologies. Just stop apologizing. RUSSELL (apologetic) I can't. HUME I can find another job, even if it's sorting specimens somewhere. Or real estate. What do you think? Think I'd make a good realtor? (Allison laughs) I know these guys who have started up a medical web site. ALLISON That sounds good. HUME Yeah, from hyperspace to cyberspace. CUT TO: EXT. HUME HOUSE - NIGHT Camry on the drive. Trance music plays from inside. CUT TO: INT. HUME HOUSE - NIGHT Insert of TV, the trip video: Russ, Allison and Hume lie on the mats. Goa Trance plays over. Hume, coming in the back door, hears the TV, walks into the living room where Russ sits watching the trip video. On screen: Allison removes Russ' hand from her leg, places it at his side. Hume walks over to the video player, ejects the tape. The screen goes to static. HUME Where did you find this? I'm going to lock it up. Hume turns off the TV. HUME You're not going to get better watching that. He starts to walk away. RUSSELL How am I going to get better? CUT TO: EXT. HUME HOUSE - NIGHT Russell sits on the front steps, lost in thought. Allison opens the door, steps out on the porch, sits beside him. She takes our a cigarette, lights it. She offers: RUSSELL Thanks, no. For a moment they just sit looking straight ahead, enjoying the evening. RUSSELL This is where we were sitting. ALLISON Who? RUSSELL Me and Hume. We were sitting here, just like this, listening to the crickets, sipping wine. That's when I convinced him to let me in on the DMT trial. That's how it all started. If we could only go back... (she doesn't respond) Look, ah during the trip? ALLISON Yes? RUSSELL Did you and I, did I... was there anything sexual? ALLISON You were aroused. You touched me. RUSSELL But? ALLISON No. You thought we did? RUSSELL The trip was very... sensual. You were part of it. Did you tell Hume? I wouldn't want him to think, you know, his brother and his girlfriend -- ALLISON Psychedelics have a strong sexual component. You know that. RUSSELL I didn't have a sister. I've never understood women, what makes them tick. (beat) I don't even know what makes them shop. ALLISON (chuckles) But it was good, right? It felt good? RUSSELL This is supposed to help me? ALLISON There's so much denial going on around here, I think somebody ought to tell the truth. I've never heard of therapy that claimed that denial was the doorway to health. RUSSELL (reluctant, sheepish) Yeah, it felt good. I took a puff, my arms and legs fell off, the floor gave way and the world opened up. Until, of course, the very end. That wasn't good at all. ALLISON Well then, think about the good. Not the other. RUSSELL Ally, I like you. I think you're fabulous, but I don't want you to think... ALLISON I like you too. I love you. But it's Hume I want to give my life to. Why can't both things be true? He lets this sink in. RUSSELL I was wondering... ALLISON What? RUSSELL (a smile) Do you have any sisters? She laughs, responds with a mock drawl: ALLISON No, I'm the only one. CUT TO: MONTAGE: Life goes on as usual, over music, something by a contemporary psychedelic group, such as Flying Saucer Attack or Shamen. INT. HAMBURGER KING - DAY Russell, wearing his uniform, yaks it up with a couple of old timers. CUT TO: INT. CLASSROOM - DAY Allison lectures her high school students. On the blackboard behind her in bold capitals: "Nineteenth Century Literature -- why is it relevant?" and I killed her. CUT TO: INT. OFFICE HIGH RISE - DAY Hume works at a computer cubicle, open texts stacked on his desk. A wall logo behind reads: "medicalanalysts.com." CUT TO: INT. CLINIC - DAY Garwood and the Assistants prepare participants for a drug trial. CUT TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - DAY Community service: Russ, strung alongside the roadway with a half dozen other orange-suited miscreants, picks up litter, stuffs it into a sack. CUT TO: INT. THERAPIST'S OFFICE - DAY Russell, seated, listens while JUDITH SALBERG, the court- appointed therapist, speaks. CUT TO: INT. HUME HOUSE - NIGHT Hume meditates: "Om mani..." CUT TO: INT. MOTHER'S HOUSE - NIGHT Hume, Allison and Russell pack Evangeline's possessions into cardboard boxes, saving some items, discarding others. Hume comes across photos of the young Ethan and Evangeline Rankin standing in front of their modest home, some alone, some proudly displaying newborn sons. Hume passes the photos to Russ, who, after looking, hands them to Allison. CUT TO: INT. POLICE CUBICLE - DAY Detective Lawrence, on the phone, answers a question from a fellow worker. CUT TO: EXT. FT. STEVENS POINT - DAY Russell stands on the escarpment where his mother's ashes were strewn, where his father turned away to watch the confluence of waters. END MONTAGE INT. HUME HOUSE - EVENING The doorbell rings. Hume walks to the door, opens it: there, standing in the failing light, is MIGUEL CHINDOY, an aging hippie, long braided hair, wearing a ruana, the short blanket favored by South American peasants. CHINDOY Dr. Rankin? HUME Yes. CHINDOY (extends hand) I'm Miguel Chindoy. HUME (declines handshake) Okay. CHINDOY I've read about the events surrounding you and your brother. I've come to help. I have had twenty years of shamanic experience. I believe I can help. HUME Excuse me, who told you to come here? CHINDOY I am a shaman. HUME I'm a scholar. What do you want? CHINDOY I've come to offer my services. To help your brother through this difficult and necessary passage. HUME Mr. Chindoy, thank you and fuck you. Or is that Senor Chindoy? (checks car in driveway) So, Senor, get your ass back in your rental car and leave us alone. CHINDOY Dr. Rankin. Hume closes the door on Chindoy. CUT TO: EXT. COLLEGE BAR - DAY A beer and TV sports joint on the University strip. CUT TO: INT. COLLEGE BAR - DAY University rowdies cheer a sporting event on wall-mounted televisions as Hume and Garwood, tucked into a quiet corner, sip draft beer. VINCE "Miguel Chindoy." His real name is Michael Kamen. Born in Brooklyn, 1946. Poster child for burnout. Brilliant student, apparently, but then, arrested, discredited, etcetera. Eight fries short of a Happy Meal. We all talk the psychedelic talk, spiel the psychedelic evangelism, but there are people who are lost, destroyed. We don't like to admit it, but it's true. HUME They keep trying to contact me. I've sent back my University mail, I changed my mail address, but this is the first time someone's tried to track me down. VINCE I'm sorry about the way it came down. It was improper, inhumane, and I was part of it -- HUME You had to do what you had to do. I don't judge you. VINCE Don't play the saint. HUME I'm not. I probably would have done the same thing if I were in your shoes. VINCE I just hate having to be the one, the proprietor of conservative government sanctioned values. HUME I'm working for an internet company, I'm making some money for a change. Maybe it was meant to be. VINCE The trial is going to be great. HUME I wanted to ask about that. VINCE We've enough test subjects to start collating the results. The final paper -- that's a year off -- could be quite important. I want to submit it to Lancet. I know that sounds like a fantasy... HUME I'm glad. VINCE How is he? HUME Russ? (Garwood nods) Everyone says he's getting better, but I don't think so. He's in therapy. VINCE Court therapy. (Hume nods) The blind leading the mind. HUME I've spent a lot of time with him. VINCE You've spoken with the therapist? HUME Dr. Salberg? She says he's had a "psychotic break." VINCE You believe that? HUME (pause) I don't know. CUT TO: INT. THERAPIST'S OFFICE - LATE DAY Russell sits across from Dr. Salberg, 45, sincere. A Jungian mandala hangs on the wall behind her -- right next to the photo of Sigmund Freud. RUSSELL ...it's hard to put into words. SALBERG It seems to me that at every turn, you seek to avoid the underlying issues. RUSSELL Which underlying issues? Okay, let me put it in terms you can understand. I assumed another form and killed my mother. I fucked my brother's girlfriend, then tried to kill him. Is that Oedipal enough for you? That's just what I mean. Whenever this comes up, you automatically assume this metaphysical weight, strap it on your shoulders like some Herculean backpack with the implication that you're guilty and there's nothing you can do about it. You did not fuck your brother's sister. You did not kill your mother. Russell falls silent. SALBERG Did you? RUSSELL (quiet) Somebody killed her. SALBERG But not you. RUSSELL No, I guess not. SALBERG Have you been taking your medication? RUSSELL Yeah. SALBERG It's been three weeks. You should feel something. Can you detect any change? RUSSELL No. SALBERG You still have suicidal feelings? (no answer) I would like to change your medication. It's an exploratory process. She picks up a script pad, starts to write: SALBERG Prozac is a relatively mild drug. A friend of mine calls it the penicillin of psychiatry. It's not working and, frankly, I only hoped it would. I want to try something else... CUT TO: INT. HUME HOUSE - AFTERNOON Hume, followed by Allison, opens the front door and, setting down his keys, reacts with shock at what he sees: the house has been trashed, burglarized. He looks around: furniture tossed this way and that. The Buddha toppled over, the shrine desecrated. ALLISON My God, Hume... She picks up the video player which has been tossed to the floor. They stand in a sea of discarded books. Hume goes into the KITCHEN. The refrigerator door is open, the cabinets exposed. There he sees, amid the maliciously discarded food supplies and dining utensils, a once locked cabinet, now chopped open, its lock ripped out. Hume examines the cabinet -- its contents tossed hither and yon. ALLISON What is it? HUME I locked it here. ALLISON What? HUME The video tape. The trip tape. CUT TO: INT./EXT. VAN - NIGHT Russell, driving home, listens to rap on the car radio. The music distorts. Russell feels something strange. He looks side to side. It suddenly feels like he's driving too fast. He slows his mother's van to a crawl, turns off the radio. He sees something darting in the distance, something in the trees between one house and the next. Russ pulls the van to the curb, stops. Shuts off the engine. Silence. He gets out of the van, closes the door. Looking apprehensively, he steps forward... Then he sees him: THE MURDERER, the Murderer from the blue light saucer, tucked behind a distant tree. The Murderer scans the landscape. Russ devises a method of escape. If he dashes to the right, hides behind a tree, then slips between two houses, he can avoid the Murderer. He runs. He escapes. Ahead: Hume's house. He's home. CUT TO: EXT. HUME HOUSE - NIGHT Russ, composing himself, walks up the steps. CUT TO: INT. HUME HOUSE - NIGHT Russell enters to find Hume and Allison cleaning up the living room mess. Russ attempts to appear the voice of reason: RUSSELL Jesus, what happened? HUME We were burglarized. RUSSELL How? ALLISON Some creep broke in. That's how. RUSSELL What'd he take? HUME I don't know. We're still looking. Russ looks at the toppled Buddha: RUSSELL Why would he do that? HUME I don't know what's missing. Nothing valuable. We didn't have anything fucking valuable. RUSSELL It's my fault. Ever since -- HUME Would you fucking get off that! Hume replaces the Buddha on its pedestal as Russ drifts into the kitchen. He calls out: RUSSELL What's with this guy? He's got a thing for Special K and Wheat Thins? Hume and Allison join him in the KITCHEN. Russ, suddenly pale, points to the splintered kitchen cabinet. RUSSELL What was taken? HUME What do you mean? RUSSELL From the cabinet. The locked cabinet. They are reluctant to answer. RUSSELL What? HUME That's where I'd put the tape. (Russ: huh?) From the trip. Russ starts manically pacing: RUSSELL He's found us, he knows we're onto him. ALLISON Who? RUSSELL The murderer! HUME Russ, stop it! RUSSELL You think it's some sort of joke, right? Well, fuck both of you! He knows about all of us, he knows about the police sketch, he knows everything! It's evidence. Lock the doors! We've got to get some guns, protect ourselves. He wants to kill us, because we know who he is! Allison goes over to Russ, attempts to hold him: ALLISON We'll sort it out in the morning. HUME I'll call the police. RUSSELL (disdainful) Right, like they're going to do anything. HUME There's been no real damage. ALLISON You're exhausted. You look fried. Now is not the time to jump to decisions. Her embrace calms him. RUSSELL Yeah, I suppose. (beat: weepy) I don't know what gets into me. HUME Are you all right? We can take you somewhere. RUSSELL No, no, I'm just tired, worn to the bone. Every little thing, I don't know why, sets me off. HUME You need sleep. RUSSELL I know, I know. Hume looks out the window, toward the driveway and street. HUME Where's Mom's van? RUSSELL It ran out of gas. I left it several blocks back. (off Hume's puzzled reaction) I walked. I'll get it in the morning. ALLISON You're going to be all right? RUSSELL I'm fine. I just need some sleep. He starts for his room. RUSSELL You want me to help clean up? HUME We got it under control. Russ nods, staggers away. Hume and Allison look at each other as he walks off. CUT TO: EXT. HUME HOUSE - MORNING Allison, outside, waits at the curb as a friend stops her car. She gets in, the car drives off. CUT TO: INT. HUME HOUSE - MORNING Hume and Russ, at the kitchen table, finish morning coffee, peruse a scattered newspaper. Russ, resigned, sets down his cup: RUSSELL Well, I guess I better go track down the car, pick up some gas. Hume, checking his watch, watches Russ exit. The door slams. Assured he is in the house alone, Hume stands and -- checking the window -- walks to his brother's guest room. Hume looks around his BROTHER'S ROOM. Where to start? Everything seems normal: Russ' dirty clothes thrown into a corner, bed sheets unmade, a book (Stephen Wright's Non Zero) overturned on the bed table beside an empty glass. Recently recovered photos of his mother, father, himself and Russell on the bureau. These cause Hume to hesitate, but he continues: opening drawers, going through the closet, looking under the bed. And there, under the bed, hidden, he finds it: the trip video tape. His fears confirmed: it was Russ who "broke in," trashed the house, desecrated the shrine, stole the video from the kitchen cabinet. CUT TO: EXT. HIGH SCHOOL - AFTERNOON Hume watches, waits as high-schoolers stream from the two story building. Then Allison appears, walking beside a fellow teacher, joking. She sees Hume beside the Camry, walks over, embraces him: ALLISON What a surprise. You're my "crossing guard" now? HUME I love you. ALLISON Oh, that feels good. I love you too. HUME Get in the car. She, sensing something of import, opens the passenger door, gets in. CUT TO: INT. CAR - DAY They sit in the Camry. Hume makes no attempt to start the car. She waits apprehensively. HUME I searched Russ' room. I found the video tape. (beat) There can be no other explanation. It was Russ. He broke into the house, he trashed everything. ALLISON He claimed it was the murderer. HUME You know what this means. ALLISON He's no longer in control. HUME He's my brother. I love him. ALLISON He needs help. HUME Fuck help. I know about the help he's getting. ALLISON Is he in danger? HUME What should I do? ALLISON No, that wasn't like a casual question. That was a real question. Is he in danger? Are we in danger from him? Can he hurt us? HUME (pause) I don't know. CUT TO: EXT. HAMBURGER KING - DAY A fast food joint in a row of fast food joints. CUT TO: INT. HAMBURGER KING - DAY Slow day: a few workers, moms and kids. Russell, cap and name tag in place, flirts with a pretty, intellectual COED. He holds up a french fry: RUSSELL The french fry. My occipital lobe sees it, my temporal lobe says "yum," my parietal lobe says, "I'll eat it," my prefrontal lobe says, "I'll bite it," my motor cortex does so... (takes bite of french fry) ...my somesthesic cortex supervises and my brain is thrilled. (Coed laughs) My brother taught me that. COED But I don't eat fried food. RUSSELL To each her own. COED You're a strange sort of guy to be working at a place like this. RUSSELL Well, I'm working my way up to middle management. COED (laughs again) I'm working my way up to a grilled chicken sandwich and a diet coke. RUSSELL That we can do. Russ turns to order a grilled chicken sandwich, turns and smiles at the Coed. Then he sees: past the Coed, past the brightly colored tables, moms and kids, through the window, lurking outside, wearing old jeans and clean T-shirt, the MURDERER beside a four-wheel drive pickup. It's a face he knows well, one he can't forget. The Murderer walks toward the entrance, turning his head, as if looking for someone. Russ turns his head away, says "I'll be right back" to a fellow worker as he scoots into the kitchen area. The Coed, baffled, watches. He ducks out a side door, circles surreptitiously along the SIDE OF THE BUILDING. Peeking around the corner, he sees the Murderer just standing there by the concrete table and chairs, hands on hips, looking around. The Murderer, turning his back to Russ, decides to go inside. Russ inches closer, following him. The Murderer ENTERS Hamburger King. Russ slips through the door behind him. The Murderer scans the room: he's looking for someone. Russell makes his move. Taking a running start, he charges toward the Murderer, tackles him at the waist, drives him against a chair, then onto the floor. Russ is now atop the Murderer, turning him over. Patrons stop mid sentence, mid meal, look speechlessly -- as if in a slow motion dream. Russell pummels the Murderer's face, blow after blow after blow. A child screams. A male employee and two patrons rush over. They pull Russ off the Murderer. The Murderer's face is bruised, starting to bleed. He is terrified, BUT: he is not the Murderer. In fact, it's not even a man. It's a woman. Commotion, chaos. Someone calls out, "Call the police." Russ, restrained by the employee and patrons, looks at the "Murderer." He can't understand how his face transformed into this bloodied female visage. CUT TO: INT. THERAPIST'S OFFICE - DAY Hume and Allison sit across from Salberg. SALBERG They initially gave him haloperidol -- HUME Haldol? SALBERG Yes. HUME My God. SALBERG It's out of my hands, Dr. Rankin. It's not my case. It's up to the staff at the psychiatric hospital. But I would imagine they would prescribe orally administered Thorazine, at least until they can be sure he's not a danger to himself or others. (beat) I'm sorry I wasn't of more help. I knew he was delusional but I didn't think he was hallucinational. He sees things. HUME Of course he sees things. Just because they put him in an institution doesn't mean he's going to stop seeing things. SALBERG He has deeply unresolved issues concerning his father -- and his mother. And you. HUME (derisive exhale) And Thorazine is going to fix that? SALBERG Thorazine will block the hallucinations, but, in all the literature, it's never proven effective against delusions. ALLISON In other words, he'll still believe in his delusions, he just won't see them? SALBERG Yes. But, as I said, it's no longer my case. HUME Have you ever considered this: Russ, because of his use of psychedelics, has passed through the doors of perception, gained access to another reality and for one reason or another is unable to integrate this reality with his present state? Allison gives Hume a look, places her hand on his arm -- now he's sounding crazy. SALBERG That's called schizophrenia. And it's not treatable. CUT TO: EXT. PSYCHIATRIC INSTITUTE - DAY A bucolic campus setting belied by a sign reading, "Glenview Psychiatric Institute." CUT TO: INT. VISITING ROOM - DAY A day has passed. Allison and Hume visit Russell, wearing institutional whites, in an artificially "homey" room. Russ struggles to have a normal conversation, counteracting the effects of the Thorazine like a wrestler in a hold. He sips from a glass of water: RUSSELL (to Allison) You can smoke here, you know. It's ironic. In all of Portland, there's no place you can have a smoke, but here it's all right. I guess they figure we got nothing to lose. ALLISON No, I'm fine Russ. HUME I'm trying to help you, but unfortunately, you've fallen into the great maw of the legal system. We've hired a lawyer, a psychiatric advisor -- RUSSELL He came. HUME It's all paperwork and bullshit. If I had a prayer, it would be, "God, let me never fall prey to the US criminal justice system." ALLISON You must not lose faith. We're here for you. You are loved. Russ' hands tremble. He restrains them. RUSSELL It's just these side effects, these -- what's the word? HUME Extrapyramidal disorders. RUSSELL Yeah, that and the dry mouth. (beat) I want to be normal. ALLISON We know. RUSSELL I'm worried. HUME Why? RUSSELL Him. (no response) The murderer. I can't get out of here. He must have figured out by now where I am. I'm not exactly protected in here. He could slip in, you know, wearing a uniform, find me, kill me. HUME I don't know if it's possible, but you need to make an effort. The mind is an extraordinarily powerful organ. You can, Russ, if you apply your mind, wipe all the events surrounding Mom's murder out of your mind. You can make the murderer disappear. Russell, not responding to his brother's plea, sips water, shifts subjects: RUSSELL I think time is a thing. It's not an abstraction. Time not only changes, but there are different kinds of time -- HUME Russ, this is interesting but it is not where we should be concentrating our efforts. An INSTITUTIONAL AID sticks his head into the room, withdraws. HUME I guess that's a hint. RUSSELL (looks at bare wrist) If I had a watch, I could tell you. They must have some exciting activity planned. Russ motions Hume close, speaks into his ear: RUSSELL (urgent) Get me out of here. He's going to find me. He's going to kill me. Hume kisses his brother on the cheek, stands. RUSSELL (to Allison) Ally, when you get outside and into the car, do me a favor. ALLISON What? RUSSELL Smoke a cigarette for me. That's what's nice about being crazy. You smoke out there, I can taste it in here. She smiles, nods. CUT TO: EXT. GARWOOD'S HOUSE - DAY Hume and Vince Garwood stand outside a pleasant post-war home in South Park. Garwood's wife works in a bricked-off flower garden. VINCE Let's take a walk. There's a little park up the way. I find that when something really heavy is weighing on you, it's good to walk. They nod to Vince's wife, head down the sidewalk. HUME I'm losing my brother. They got him on Thorazine. It's all maintenance crap. His mind is melting. VINCE I know. HUME Huh? VINCE I have contacts at Glenview, people I've consulted with over the years. I've asked about Russ. HUME You know you grow up with a brother, all that sibling shit, you don't think much about it. Of course we were close, not having a father, but I never realized how much I loved him until all this happened. VINCE I've been thinking about it too, in ways that probably go far and beyond what you're thinking. Ways that go back to your father, to the very reason I got involved in this discipline. You know how it is in this dreadful field. You get into psychedelic drugs, you have to be prepared to give everything else up. The medical establishment turns its back on you, any hopes you had of wealth are gone; of the people who take you seriously, half are fucking crazy. You do it because you believe in it. You believe that this sad planet, if there is any hope for it all, its hope lies in some primal reconnection with psychotropic plants. Every religion, you trace it back, you find a bunch of primordial men sitting around a campfire chewing leaves. (beat) I went to see your brother. HUME You did? VINCE Yeah. I mean, off the record. I feel responsible. HUME You're not. They reach a small pocket park, sit on a bench. HUME What do you think? VINCE Are you prepared to hear what I really believe? HUME At this point, I'm prepared for about anything. VINCE Your brother has had what others would call a "psychotic break," and it's not a condition that's going to be improved by conventional medication or therapy. I see no hope in that direction. HUME We're losing him. VINCE This has caused me to go back through the literature, tests, theories. I guess what I'm proposing is psycholytic therapy. HUME "Psychedelic therapy." No one's done that for years. It's been discredited. VINCE It was not discredited. It was criminalized. Extraordinary things were being accomplished, Stanislav Grof, Humphrey Osmond, but then came the anti-establishment movement, the popularization of LSD and the Big Crackdown. Psycholytic therapy just stopped. No one wanted to lose their license. HUME This is what happened to my father? VINCE (continues) There is a Shaman down the Amazon from Iquitos, near the Peruvian/Columbian border, Don Macita. He works with the ayahuasca vine. Your father and I tripped with him many years ago. We correspond from time to time. His books of imagery are essentially the same as what Russ describes. He's been doing this all his life. He works in the jungle, using the old ways, which is the best way to experience these primal drugs. It's the only way to ingest heroic doses of psychedelics -- in their natural context. It has the added benefit of being legal. HUME Define "heroic." VINCE If you're talking about ayahuasca, the mother of all harmala alkaloids, I'd say, oral dose, five, six hundred milligrams. I'd have to talk to Don Macita. HUME That's life threatening. VINCE There are different ways to mix the actual brew, which then effects the nature of the journey. I don't think we should wait. Much longer, it may be too late. HUME Wait a second. You're assuming I've already signed onto this "back to the jungle" scheme. VINCE I would need your support. HUME I'm sorry. You don't have it. CUT TO: INT. RUSSELL'S ROOM - NIGHT Russ, shivering, sits squeezed into the corner of his room. Sweat beads his forehead, his pupils are dilated. Every noise from outside, from the corridor, from the rooms above is magnified in his mind. He is struggling to hold on to his sanity. CUT TO: EXT. HUME HOME - NIGHT Just a normal house on a normal block. CUT TO: INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT Light filters in from a street lamp. Hume and Allison lie in each other's arms. It's as if they must hold on to each other for dear life because they're all they have left. HUME There was an inmate at a prison for the criminally insane and he told an interviewer, "It's easy to make the cops think you're crazy. All you have to do is act crazy all the time." She laughs. He kisses her. HUME I wonder if the same is true about sanity. All you have to do is pretend you're sane all the time. ALLISON In that case, you've got me fooled. HUME There is such a thin tissue separating one reality from another, from here and now to somewhere else and some other time. Somewhere this is not happening to us, but we are here and it is now and it is happening. (looks to ceiling) When we had the wake, when we distributed my mother's ashes, my father came over and spoke to me. He said, "Psychedelics ruined my life and they'll ruin yours." ALLISON Father knows best. Hume emits a short derisive snort. ALLISON What did Garwood want? HUME What do you mean? ALLISON He called, you went over. HUME (thinks) It was nothing. CUT TO: EXT. PSYCHIATRIC INSTITUTE - DAY Hume and Allison turn up the leafy drive. Several police cars are parked out front. They park, pass the police cars, head inside. CUT TO: INT. PSYCHIATRIC INSTITUTE - DAY Hume and Allison step up to the main reception desk, speak to a RECEPTIONIST in a white uniform. HUME I'm Dr. Rankin. We have a two o'clock visitation with Russ Rankin. RECEPTIONIST Just a moment. They wait as the Receptionist speaks into the phone. The entrance area is designed to be hospitable, but, looking closer, one realizes that beneath the benign surface is a high security institution: multiple locks, triple depth glass. The corridor door opens with a buzz. A hospital ADMINISTRATOR and a uniformed POLICE OFFICER approach them. They realize something is wrong with Russ. They greet: ALLISON What's happened? It's Russ, isn't it? ADMINISTRATOR Dr. Rankin? (Hume nods) I'm Dr. Fielding. POLICE OFFICER We've been trying to reach you. HUME We were running errands. ADMINISTRATOR Don't you have a cell phone? ALLISON We don't like cell phones. The Administrator lets this (her attitude) pass: ADMINISTRATOR I'm afraid, ah, we can't find your brother. HUME What do you mean, "can't find him?" He's in a lock down ward. ADMINISTRATOR At morning call, the attendant brought him breakfast. The room was empty. ALLISON Could he be hiding in the building somewhere? POLICE OFFICER Security is going through every room, ward, office. ADMINISTRATOR We are interviewing the staff. Someone let him out. There's no other explanation. You haven't heard from him? HUME No. ADMINISTRATOR Any idea where he might be? HUME None. CUT TO: EXT. GARWOOD'S HOUSE - DAY Hume rings the Garwood doorbell. Mrs. Garwood answers. HUME Mrs. Garwood. MRS. GARWOOD (smile) Hume. HUME I need to speak to Vince. I tried at the University. MRS. GARWOOD He left. HUME I don't understand. MRS. GARWOOD There was a phone call. Somebody at a conference dropped out and they asked Vince to fill it. He packed, grabbed his passport and headed for the airport. CUT TO: INT. HUME HOUSE - NIGHT Music plays over as Hume, pulling the curtains, looks out the front window at an unmarked police car across the street with two PLAINCLOTHESMAN sitting in front. He turns back into the room, walks over to Allison. He speaks softly, telling her about Garwood. CUT TO: EXT. DETECTIVE AGENCY - DAY The sign on the window reads: "Lennon's: We'll Find It" with a cartoon of a detective type holding an oversized magnifying glass. Through the window: Hume and LENNON, 30, lean over a computer manned by a teenager computer NERD. CUT TO: INT. DETECTIVE AGENCY - DAY Lennon speaks as they look at the screen: LENNON It took a bit of doing. Your friend didn't go direct. Portland to Mexico City, re-ticket to Bogota, to Quito, to Iquitos. HUME Any other passengers? I mean any passenger on the same flights with Garwood. (to computer Nerd) Can you do that? (the Nerd goes to work) Used to be, in the day, you had expenses, man hours, gumshoes, now it's just a computer and a teenager with a knack to hack. NERD Here's a reappearing name for the first two flights. "John Russell." Garwood's voice starts over as the Nerd continues to work: VINCE (V.O.) To the people of the Amazon basin, all life is determined by countless spirits and beings who live "on the other side." It is essential for their own survival to be able to enter that world and interact with those spirits to secure well-being for oneself and one's family... CUT TO: INT. IQUITOS COFFEE SHOP - DAY Garwood and Russell sit in a coffee/snack shop in Iquitos, a frontier jungle city of 350,000 inhabitants in Southeastern Peru. Outside, along the single-story streets, motokars (motorcycle taxis), emit clouds of pollutants as they pass. Inside, mestivo kids, wearing Nikes and NBA T-shirts, play X-men combat video games. Not exactly one's preconception of "Amazonia." Garwood continues speaking as Russ sips coffee, bites from a bread roll. VINCE ...They get this protection through the ayahuasca ceremony. The preparations, drinking the brew, the visions, the assistance of an ayahuasquero, a shaman. Huasca means vine, aya means souls or dead people, so it's the vine of the dead or the vine of the spirits... CUT TO: EXT. HUME HOUSE - DAY Hume and Allison, wearing jeans, nylon jackets, hiking boots and backpacks, exit, nod to the Plainclothesmen in the car across the street, get into the Camry and drive off. Hume's voice over picks up where Garwood's left off: HUME (V.O.) ...it's in the elite company of the most powerful naturally occurring psychotropic drugs, the harmaline alkaloids: ayahuasca, psilocybin, yage, iboga. DMT is the active ingredient in ayahuasca. Chacruna, a natural MAO inhibitor, makes it orally active, extends the effect. It's essentially a very long DMT trip... CUT TO: INT. PORTLAND AIRPORT - DAY They stand at the American Airlines counter. HUME (V.O.) ...nothing prepares you for it. It's the great unknown. The drug looks inside you and takes you there. The Jungian maps don't apply. Your chakras are of no use. It's a big forest and there are no markers on the trees. CUT TO: INT. AIRPORT WAITING AREA - DAY Allison, sitting next to Hume, asks: ALLISON It's dangerous? HUME No. That's the reason I support naturally occurring psychedelics. If they were dangerous, their use wouldn't have endured this long. ALLISON But is it dangerous for Russell? CUT TO: EXT. THE AMAZON - DAY Vince and Russ sit in a canopied river boat as it putt-putts down river. Around them sit mestivo peasants, a tourist couple and a local business type. Garwood's voice over resumes: VINCE (V.O.) Don Macita, the shaman we will meet, he's over seventy now, has a camp in the jungle. He believes the body is full of toxins and these toxins will emerge as demons unless purged. The preparations include four days of cleansing, external and internal, diet and meditation. It involves a sort of mud bath, drinking a diuretic tree sap, oye, eating yucca and rice. Russ turns to Garwood, says: RUSSELL But I thought the ayahuasca brew is purgative. VINCE It is. The first couple hours, "la purga," is vomiting and shitting. The visions will start at this time. RUSSELL You're taking this? VINCE We both are. CUT TO: EXT. IQUITOS AIRPORT - DAY Hume and Allison, tired, emerge into bright Amazonian sun. A line of motokars vie for their attention. Garwood's voice resumes: VINCE (V.O.) We will use this period to concentrate on our goals. We will define your areas of conflict, define the person you want to be when the journey ends... CUT TO: EXT. IQUITOS - DAY Hume and Allison stand in Plaza de Armas, approach likely strangers, struggle with their Spanish, get replies. VINCE (V.O.) ...At first you will feel like you're dying. You'll have to endure this. That's what the drug is about: dying and living... CUT TO: EXT. DON MACITA'S CAMP - DAY Garwood and Russell approach the Amazonian encampment. It's virtually unchanged from forty years before. The Ceremonial House stands in the distance. And, ahead, beside the river, the small figure of Don Macita. VINCE (V.O.) ...You will enter the wholeness of being. You will feel a satisfaction like you've never known... Don Macita turns, looks. Vince waves to him. CUT TO: EXT. LA BOULEVARD/IQUITOS - DAY Hume and Allison negotiate with a guide on the riverside walk. Charter boats wait. VINCE (V.O.) ...First come the patterns, then plants, then animals, then fantastic architecture, the little people, they are guides -- and, at some point, the serpent. Don't be afraid. He is a passage... CUT TO: EXT. AMAZON - DAY Hume and Allison ride down the river. VINCE (V.O.) ...and the end, well, it will be idiosyncratic. It will be what you are... CUT TO: EXT. ENCAMPMENT - DAY Vince and Russell stand, nude, as huito, a bluish fruit pulp mixed with clay, is poured, rubbed over their bodies by Don Macita and his native ASSISTANT. The same blue that caked Garwood years before. VINCE (V.O.) ...The brew is made by mixing crushed ayahuasca vine with alternating layers of chacruna leaves and boiling them... CUT TO: EXT. JUNGLE - DAY Garwood, Russ and others watch as Don Macita, 77, selects a section of the climbing ayahuasca vine, instructs his Assistant which portion to cut with his machete. VINCE (V.O.) ...the duration, including the purging, will last six to eight hours, although the intensity will slack off after four or five hours. CUT TO: EXT. ENCAMPMENT RIVERSIDE - DAY Hume and Allison step off the river boat, look around. A path leads to the Ceremonial Hut, the open MAIN HOUSE hung with hammocks. CUT TO: EXT. CEREMONIAL HOUSE - DAY Garwood and Russell watch as Don Macita and his Assistant prepare the ayahuasca brew: crushing strips of vine, laying them in an old metal pot. Atop the small table, like forty years before, sits the ceremonial bowl, its sides painted and repainted over the years with fantastic imagery, rainbow bands of brightly colored unreal creatures. Hume and Allison approach. Garwood greets them enthusiastically: VINCE Hume! Ally! HUME What are you doing here? VINCE Same thing you're doing here. (to Don Macita) Don Macita, this is Hume Rankin, Russ' brother I told you about. Hume exchanges greetings with Don Macita as Russ walks over, whom, he in turn greets. Hume turns to Vince, speaks softly, censorial: HUME We need to talk. VINCE Sure. Allison, taking the hint, says to Russell: ALLISON Show me around. CUT TO: EXT. ENCAMPMENT RIVERSIDE - DAY They stand at the edge of the Amazon, brown slow-flowing water, perhaps fifty meters wide. Around them, the jungle vibrates with life. HUME What you've done is illegal. I could report you. You could go to jail. VINCE If that has to be, it has to be. Just wait until we've done what we can for Russ. There's a program. HUME You absolutely baffle me. Garwood glances to the Main House where Allison and Russell walk, talk. VINCE I've done a lot of things I regret in my life, and a lot of the things I regret involve your family. When your father was vilified, when the witch hunt hit, he came to me for support and I turned my back on him. I protected my position. He left the country, left his family. I took the easy way when letting them fire you. Now this. I feel my life is defined by the sadness in your family. I believe I can help your brother. He was dying in there. (a beat) It's so good you're here. HUME Why? VINCE To help Don Macita. HUME You're tripping as well? VINCE (nods) I wasn't sure before, but now I am. I want to apologize to your father. His spirit is all around here. Come, you've got to talk to Don Macita. We'll go over the counseling -- HUME Don't you think I ought to talk to Russ first? CUT TO: EXT. MAIN HOUSE - DAY Hume and Russell sit inside the hammock strung house. Generations of visitors have left inscriptions and painted mystic, hallucinatory symbols (the Third Eye, the Serpent) on the beams and benches. HUME I brought along your meds, just in case. RUSSELL You're kidding. That stuff is poison. It's poison for the brain. HUME I know, I know, I just felt it would be irresponsible not to. I didn't know what condition you would be in. RUSSELL That last night in the sanitarium, I was holding on, just barely, concentrating every atom in my body to remain sane, like those kids in "Nightmare on Elm Street" trying not to sleep. Then I heard the door open -- he had come for me, the murderer, but it was Professor Garwood. Pause. HUME How are you now? RUSSELL All this cleansing and my conversations with Don Macita have cleared my mind. Everything is now directed toward the journey. I am prepared. I want to do this. Hume gives his brother a loving look, then a big embrace, which is returned and held. HUME You're not going in anger? RUSSELL No. HUME Remember this journey you're taking, this drug, what it's doing it's doing for your benefit. Pay attention. It wants to help you. (Russ nods) You know how I like to say they're not recreational drugs? That's not true. They are recreational. Re- creational. You must re-create your life. Remake it, heal it. (Russ nods again) If you get lost, if you get frightened, if you're in danger, repeat the mantra. If you hear me saying, "Om mani pene hung," you'll know that I'm with you, you're not alone. Hume reaches in his pocket and hands Russ a small souvenir replica of an elf-like Incan god, much like the one Garwood had in his office. HUME Russ, take this. I bought this in Iquitos. It didn't cost anything. It's supposed to bring good luck. Russ tucks it into his pocket: RUSSELL If only it were that easy. CUT TO: EXT. CEREMONIAL HOUSE - SUNSET Garwood and Russell, wearing white ceremonial ruanas, sit where Vince sat with Russ' father years before. Don Macita ladles out the ayauasca brew into two cups on the table. One cup contains almost twice as much brew as the other. Don Macita blows purifying smoke on Garwood and Russell. Allison and Hume sit to the side. He puts his arm around her shoulders. Russ looks at his fingernails: they are rimmed blue from the purifying dye. Don Macita places the cup with the larger dose in Russell's hands, the other in Vince's, then steps and begins to sing the soft, lilting icaros: "Maimandara shamuirimum, Yana puma chicunaca..." TIMECUT. Night. Garwood and Russell both bent over a long basin, vomiting. "La Purga." Russ watches his vomit as the camera zooms toward his eyeball, enters his myriatic pupil. INSIDE RUSS' MIND: his vomit emerges as blood, covering the floor, liquefying it. In the blood swim thousands of vibrating worms. The characteristic crackle, the rising hum (DMT particles crashing into the brain's synapses) as the worms, animated like sperm, jump bullet-like from the bloody below, pierce our skin. The voyage has begun. Russell's pupil expands, revealing the vast geography of hyperspace. Space first appears as GEOMETRIC FORMS, revolving kaleidoscopically. These quickly assume vegetable form, an inviting cardinal red CHRYSANTHEMUM, its petals beckoning, becoming a white LOTUS blossom. Into the blossom we fly, its core opening onto the JUNGLE canopy. We fly over the jungle, compelling images filling our field of vision: birds unlike any ever beheld, rippling trees and fauna, indistinguishable creatures in the undergrowth. To our left: the waterfall where dead souls bathe. We are the panther. We know this because we hear the panther's heart beating, hear its paws pounding the earth's surface, see its paws before us. We dive toward the surface. Into the jungle the panther plunges. But it is not a jungle, it is an OCEAN and we are under the water now, swimming shark-like alongside pink dolphins and glowing fish of the deep. Great primordial creatures, sea monsters extinct for eons, pass. We burst from the ocean Atlantis-like into a realm of RUINED PALACES and LABYRINTHINE CITIES. Empty unpopulated empires rise and fall. African mud cities become Palantine temples; pyramids become decayed skyscrapers. Throughout melodies mix with the music, snippets of sound contemporary and archaic. A guitar riff from the Fifties, a bit of Beethoven, third world instruments. Then, for a moment, above the ruins: a cascade of ADVERTISING IMAGERY: the pop culture of signs, slogans and logos rushing past. In the ruined cities, we enter the HALL OF ANCESTORS. We see our shadow before us, morphing the history of earth's life forms: sea-going, reptilian, mammalian, ape-like, humanoid. The ancestors are stacked in high-rise rows to our right and left. All of mankind's faces, Neanderthal, Homo-sapien, yellow, white, black -- some surprised, some merely curious -- morphing one to the other like falling dominos. At the top level, we notice, are the gods -- primitive, ancient unrecognizable divinities yielding to more familiar figures: the Egyptian hierarchy, the Greek pantheon, Nordic gods and goddesses, the manifestations of Buddha, the Hindu cosmology, Mohammed and his followers, Christ and the saints -- yet, looking closer, we see they are in pain, all writhing like crucified Jesuses. Not gods, daemons. We grow frightened: RUSSELL (V.O.) Hume, Hume... om mani... IN THE CEREMONIAL HOUSE: Hume cradles his brother, repeating with Russ: HUME AND RUSSELL ...pene hung, om mani pene hung... INSIDE RUSS' MIND: we burst from the Hall of Ancestors, fly over a great SAVANNA. There we see them, first as mottled dots, growing larger as we near: the self-transforming machine elves. And they see us. Recognizing our approach, they emit a communal joyful "ahh." The sound's after-image sails across the savanna like a green shooting star, trailed by a chartreuse neon echo image. The elves bounce brightly colored balls or are brightly colored balls. It's hard to tell, because they constantly transform into the balls, back into themselves. Garwood's voice echoes: VINCE (V.O.) They are guides. Saucers fly in a flurry overhead like comets: oval shaped, then chrysanthemum, then lotus, then oval again. Coming closer, walking amongst the elves, they offer us gifts: they toss their colored balls, which, as they touch us, turn into extraordinary objects: iridescent Faberge eggs, morphed by the sound of their voices into essences whom, it seems, are ideas themselves. It feels wonderful. All of which distracts us from a distant specter approaching at warp speed: the great speckled serpent. Time motion clouds, speed overhead, transforming the savanna into an endless DESERT. It's the rapacious serpent from Ethan Rankin's jungle trip. The serpent's jaws open wide, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth, a crimson red mouth. RUSSELL (V.O.) Om mani pene hung... We try to escape but cannot. We plunge past the teeth, down the esophagus, into the belly of the beast -- the "animistic roller coaster ride." IN THE CEREMONIAL HOUSE: Hume and Don Macita sit beside Russ. HUME Where are you? INSIDE RUSS' MIND: down and down we tumble, past reptilian ribs and pulsing organs. We suddenly emerge amidst a blaze of color, not in a Mexico City rave club, but in a blue throbbing room. We are in the SAUCER. Multi-dimensional walls of mutating shades of blue surround us. Up, down, right, left, each indiscernible from the other. Alex Trebek's voice: "The Taj Mahal, Solomon's Palace and Billy Joel's beach house all have this in common." Growing, in the distance, a woman lying on a hospital bed -- is she being operated on or giving birth? We know it's our mother, but do not say that word. A heavy metal grate falls before us, keeping the woman out of reach. The Murderer materializes through the grate, wearing, as before, jeans and a T-shirt. His face, however, seems different: cruel, mean, distorted. In his hands he tosses two balls: the miniature heads of Hume and Russell. The Murderer's eyes ooze puss, blood drips from his ears and nostrils. His expression is demonic. Behind him, through the grate, the hospital room, now red, is a torture chamber: a Boschian tableau of medieval pain and suffering. The woman in the hospital bed lies next to wretched creatures on racks and wheels. Black hooded inquisitors lean over her chest, employ instruments of torture. The Murderer squeezes the miniature heads as his own head swivels, Exorcist-like, on his base. He is now Ethan, insects crawling from every facial orifice. In his hands the knife and cross. We are terrified. The music is terrifying: discordant noise and a cacophony of angry indistinguishable voices. In the distance, Hume's voice struggles to be heard: HUME (O.S.) Om mani pene hung... And also, somewhere in the music, a repeat of an earlier voice: "What is your name?" We try to repeat the mantra, but the words come out wrong. Ethan's head swiveling again, revealing our own image, Russ' face, who is now, suddenly upon us, knife upraised, slashing, slashing. Russ' chest opens, he is inside us. We stand in a HALL OF MIRRORS, our image reflected over and over again. We are The Murderer, we are Ethan. And behind us, in every duplicating reflection, behind the iron grate, the red chamber of horrors -- and a woman's scream. Our reflection stands at the door, preventing entry. A tug at our side: it's one of the smiling elves. He offers us a colored ball. We look again, the elf is gone. The brightly colored ball glows, continually morphing human and animal images, ancient and contemporary. We throw the ball at our reflection, hitting first one reflection, then the others in a rippling chain effect. Our image transforms into an angry mass of wasps, which, buzzing, fly away, diminishing in size until they are nothing more than faint gold crosses in the distance. The cacophony subsides, a voice emerges from the chaos: VOICE They were all built for love. The grate lifts with a Mozartian cresendo. The torture chamber is again shifting shades of blue. We walk to the hospital bed, pull back the sheet which covers the woman on the bed. Her chest is exposed X-ray-like: ribs, a beating heart and lungs. And, in one lung, a diseased black cancerous clump, crawling with maggots. We reach in, forcefully yank out the clump, toss it heavenward where it bursts into brightly geometric forms, flies away. The woman on the bed -- she is our mother -- smiles: EVANGELINE Russell. A blue dot appears on her forehead like a Third Eye. Music welcomes us as we move toward the dot until it fills our field of vision. We hyper-zoom into the blue dot, earth. Recognizable configurations appear, North America, the Pacific Northwest, Oregon, Portland, downtown... Until the dot is nothing but a large human eye. CUT TO: INT. CLINIC - DAY Lights come up on a reostat. Hume, wearing a blue button down collar shirt with a dark tie, in the lounge chair. An Assistant extracts the IV line from Russ' arm prepares to remove the EKG sensors. Garwood steps over as the Assistant goes to help another participant in the DMT trial. HUME How do you feel? It takes a moment for Russ to orient himself. VINCE How was it? RUSSELL (thinks) Idiosyncratic. VINCE That's the amazing thing. Every experience is absolutely unique. Russ, still somewhat stunned, stands, says to Hume: RUSSELL Let's go over to Mom's house. I want to apologize for that stunt I pulled the other day. HUME You're still groggy. And you've got to do the questionaire. RUSSELL Yeah, but after. HUME Sure. Okay. CUT TO: EXT. MOTHER'S HOUSE - DAY The Camry and van in the drive. CUT TO: INT. MOTHER'S LIVING ROOM - DAY Day old cut flowers sit in a vase. Evangeline, Hume and Russell sit across from each other, cradling cups of Kona coffee. "Jeopardy" plays on the TV in another room. EVANGELINE It's so amazing you came over. I was just getting ready to call you. HUME What happened? EVANGELINE It's hard to explain. (they wait) Dr. Klein called. He had gotten the latest x-rays. I didn't understand. I called him back to be sure. He repeated it. (voice cracks) The tumor is diminishing. It's responding to treatment. It's almost gone. The boys stand, embrace her jointly. HUME AND RUSSELL Oh, Mom. HUME It's miraculous. RUSSELL I'm so happy. EVANGELINE I love you boys. RUSSELL Me too. HUME I can't wait to tell Ally. Russ reacts to a particularly loud burst of applause from the TV: RUSSELL How can you stand to have that thing on all the time? EVANGELINE It's just background noise. It's comforting. Russ steps into the DEN, turns off the TV, interrupting Alex Trebek mid-sentence. Russ feels something in his jeans, reaches in his pocket, pulls out a small replica of an elf-like Incan god. He doesn't know quite what to make of it. Then he looks at his fingernails: they are rimmed pale blue with a clay-like substance. Hearing his mother's voice, he returns to the LIVING ROOM. EVANGELINE Come, boys, sit with me a while. Just hold my hands. They sit beside her, take her hands. EVANGELINE Let's enjoy what we have while we have it. Reality is so fragile. THE END in memory of Terence McKenna 1946-2000