The Long-Faced French-Canadian, Pt. 1

She was one of those typically long-faced French-Canadian women with dark curly hair and a nose like a polished rock. The only reason I bring her up now is because the story she told me was unlike any I had ever encountered, then or since. Even after I found out that the whole story was made up -- false -- a lie -- the story has made such a strong impression on me that I almost believe in it more than the truth. Almost.

She walked into my office like so many other women before me, seeking help. Except I could tell immediately that something wasn't entirely normal about her. Her tone was all wrong. You see, normally, a first-meeting will go something like this: woman walks in with a heartbreaking story about man, some lover, whom she can't let go of for whatever reason (love, money, etc.), but man has disappeared (murder? cold-feet? another woman?), and she has to know the answer.

I look for answers. Maybe I sleep with her in-between, maybe not. Curiously, that always depends entirely on how well the case is going, nothing to do with her or me. She could profess all the undying love in the world for this man I'm supposed to find, but if the case is going well and it seems like we have a good shot at some kind of reunification, she will sleep with me. She could be as furious as scorned women can get -- I hear it's like hell -- at the man, but if it looks like he's gone for good, I usually get nothing. Women are indeed curious creatures, I have learned this much. Men? They just barely make a little more sense, I think (running away is a natural and understandable animal response, isn't it?), but I suspect that I feel this way entirely based on my own bias. Perhaps men and women are both equally crazy.

Anyway, this French-Canadian woman's tone was completely wrong. I don't travel much, so I don't know that much about Canada, or Quebec, or French-Canadian culture, or French-Canadian women, so maybe there was nothing with her tone at all. But I still felt like something was amiss. This is what happened.

"Hello, detective."

"Have a seat."

"Merci. I have never done anything like this before. Please tell me how to begin."

"The beginning works."

A smile. "Oui, the beginning. When I was born, my father was an architect in Europe --"

"Hold on, hold on. I didn't mean THAT beginning. I meant the beginning of what brings you here."

"But monsieur, I only know of this beginning, and no other. This beginning and this beginning only could have brought me to you."

An interesting perspective on things. "OK, continue."

"My father was an architect in Europe, designing football stadiums. He was kind of obsessed with them. Naturally, he had no idea how to relate to me, a little baby girl. I was probably like a bewildering alien creature to him when I was born. He tried to be a good father, I think, but I don't think he was capable of it. Baby daughters can be difficult for certain men, I believe. Do you have any children?"

I wanted her to cut to the chase already. I wasn't used to long David-Copperfield expositions from my clients. They usually get right down to the emotional whallop of how they got hurt, first thing. This woman was slowly, deliberately, methodically building me up.

"No children. No time for them."

"Of course. Well, my mother worked just as hard as my father, two jobs, doing phones during the day and waitressing on weekend evenings. Yet I found she always seemed to have time for me in a way my father didn't."

"Stop right there. If your dad was a commercial architect, he probably could support all three of you with no problem. Why did your mom have to work so hard?"

"I see I have found the right man for the job. You are very keen. Yes, it was entirely unnecessary for my mother to be working two, even one job. I believe she did it because she wanted to set an example for me, on how to be a strong woman independent of a man. More than that, I know she believed in this principle for her own life because her father, my grandfather, never supported her in any way. He was an alcoholic and a philanderer and he died when my mother was still young."

"Typical boozer-schmoozer, huh?"

"Do you like to drink, monsieur?"

"Yeah, sure, I enjoy a scotch every now and then."

"Do you like women, monsieur? I am not asking if you are a homosexual. I know you are not, because your secretary is very pretty. But do you like women?"

"Only in very controlled doses."

Another smile. "You are an interesting man."

Warehouse 5 Treatment

LOGLINE:

Trapped in a mysterious warehouse containing all of time and the history of existence, a lonely video store clerk discovers meaning and meaninglessness in the universe and his own life.

SYNOPSIS:

David, who has just turned 33, works at a rundown, hole-in-the-wall video store which doesn’t even carry DVDs, only VHS tapes. He and his co-workers, Artie and Jon, take pride in their indie hipster cred while bickering about classic and obscure cinema. However, David secretly harbors longtime desires of becoming a great filmmaker one day, leading to his perpetual unhappiness. This malaise is manifested in his ambivalent relationship with longtime friend, Hannah.

Skeptical of coincidences and the other vagaries and mysteries of life and unable to relate to the world through any other lens besides the films he worships, David one day stumbles upon a strange warehouse he has never seen before, with a large red hand-painted “5” on the side. He steps inside to discover a lobby with a receptionist, Virginia, waiting.

Virginia explains to David the nature of this mysterious place: it is a warehouse that contains all of time and existence, from the beginning of the universe to the end of the universe. She brings David through a maze of clean, white hallways before they arrive at one infinitely long hallway, with black door after black door. She tells David that the length of this hallway represents his entire life, and that each door represents a moment in his life. The rest of the warehouse similarly houses every other moment in time, from the Big Bang wing to the 42-billion-years-later endpoint of the universe’s existence. Finally, she tells him that he is free to explore the whole place as extensively as he wishes, in all time for all time. There are only two restrictions: he can never leave, and he must never enter one special door in the very center of the warehouse, the door of the Present, or his mind and soul will be ripped to shreds. She then hands him a brochure highlighting popular Warehouse 5 destinations and points of interest, replete with alien civilizations and visually spectacular cosmic phenomena, before disappearing down a hallway.

David begins by checking out the room of his death, which is utterly normal. Hannah and Jon cry. Moving words are said. No wife, no children. David can’t even concentrate on this pitiful, unwatchable, utterly unspectacular scene. He decides to follow the more exciting tour itinerary in the brochure.

After exploring everything in the brochure, David can’t figure out what to do next. He seeks Virginia for guidance, asking her if he must remain a space-time tourist his whole life, and she tells him that all people inevitably end up in the same place, which is the room in their own lives where they were the happiest, the most content, without a worry or desire in the world. She tells him that finding this room is like finding home.

David proceeds to examine room after room, trying to find his perfect moment, but as each room fails the test, he finally discovers that he has never had a completely happy moment in his entire life, that something has always been not-quite-right. Lost in the ultimate existential quandary, he mentally breaks down, choosing to relive painful memories and even reverting to the room of his infancy for a period of time. As he obsessively, psychotically relives his birth over and over, he suddenly snaps out of his condition, resolving to put an end to everything once and for all.

He marches nervously toward the room of the Present, glancing around to make sure Virginia isn’t around to catch him. He figures this suicide will be more honorable than the cosmic limbo he currently lives, and boldly opens the door and steps in. The room plunges him into total darkness. He waits. Nothing happens. Confused, he opens the door again and comes out. Everything is still there, nothing seems different. He goes back in tries again. Darkness. Nothing. He comes back out again.

Bewildered, he looks for Virginia, to ask her why the room doesn’t do anything. When he finds her, however, she wears a different hairstyle, and doesn’t recognize him. After trying some rooms, he realizes that the contents of his life have changed entirely. He returns to the room of the Present and tries it again, and discovers that his life is once again completely different. David believes he has discovered the true nature of the Present, as a variable “t” which unlocks the sole portal to an infinite array of alternate parallel universes, an infinite number of warehouses, from Warehouse 1, 2, 3, … and so on, each one housing a different set of choices and random outcomes, resulting in a unique universe. Here, he can find the perfect room in the perfect hallway of his life of the perfect warehouse, where he is a world-famous, critically-acclaimed film director. He happily enjoys many moments, from a dream-like wedding with a beautiful actress to winning Sundance and the Oscars in the same year.

However, as he encounters as many different Virginias as universes, none of them can fathom how he is able to accomplish this feat, when so many others before him have died, simply removed from existence for this transgression. The Virginia of David’s happiest universe continues to question and pester David on this mystery, and eventually comes to believe that David has achieved some kind of godhead or transcendent nirvana state. Where others like her only have omniscience, insofar as knowing the unchangeable past and future, David can move through the present, affecting the choices individuals make and the outcomes of random variables. In short, David has omnipotence as well as omniscience, the ultimate director, God himself.

Virginia posits this theory to David, who cannot begin to understand what he should do if she is correct. There is no direct way he can intervene in people’s lives and help people with this power, yet there is no way he can simply go back to living his happy director life with the knowledge that he could be a deity. He asks Virginia for help, but she has no answers. She, too, has never witnessed such an occurrence. But she has faith that as God, David will by nature make the right decision, and she begins to study his words and behavior as a model of moral rightness, in effect worshipping him as God. Still unsure of what to do with another new plane of existence at the lonely top, Virginia beseeches him to just go with his gut.

David decides that his purpose can only be to accumulate all the wisdom of time and existence and life in the pursuit of having that one perfect moment in one’s life, which he had never had. He commits himself to the study of happy moments all across the universes, determining this to be the meaning of life. To be sad that a loved one has died is silly when one realizes that this beloved is also happy, alive, and well a few rooms down the hall, in his perfect room. The meaning of life, he concludes, is the creation, pursuit, and experience of that one happy room to call home, which can only be achieved by living in the present. David forms this doctrine and resolves to spread it across the universe.