A REJECTED PROPOSAL
THE X-MEN
FADE IN:
A grainy television image. Streams and eddies of
blue pixels. From the blur of electronic protoplasm
emerge the outlines of a large head, a snub nose. A
fluttering of little fingers.
The sonogram freezes. A pair of tiny horns twist
like whelks from the unborn child's head. We hear the
whine of a printer.
A technician tears off a hard copy image of the
horned baby. A man in a suit studies the printout. He
smiles. Then he reaches for a phone.
ON A DESERT HIGHWAY
A battered pickup blows past. The driver is a young
Latino man, his wife beside him, hugely pregnant, grim
and silent with the pain of labor. They race by a gas
station hung with X-mas lights. The young man looks in
his rear-view. Flashing lights.
An old-fashioned ambulance--a white hearse--is in
hot pursuit, siren wailing. The young man desperately
tries to coax more speed out of his rattling truck.
The landscape is empty again but for the deserted
gas station wasting its light on the desert evening.
Twilit mountains loom behind it. Faint strains of
"Silent Night" from the office radio. The
dust of the two vehicles hangs, motionless.
SOMEWHERE IN THE CANADIAN ROCKIES
Ribbons of diamond dust twist across a white
expanse. Gray winter sky, distant black treeline. A
figure runs across the waste, naked, bleeding from a
dozen wounds, caught in the terrible jaw of the
mountains. A small, muscular man, his limbs thatched
with black hair.
Forty men in white uniforms, riding forty white
maglev pursuit vehicles, like treadless snowmobiles
skimming along on a superconducted cushion of force,
fan out across the mountainside behind him. They are
gaining rapidly on the naked man. Then the lead
vehicle slows, and circles around. Its driver points
to his helmet, and waves them back.
The man runs, scrabbling across the rocky outcrops,
half-mad with pain and his longing to reach the
shelter of the trees.
He stops running, sucking in lungfuls of sharp air.
The drone of the snowskimmers fades.
The man looks up at the sky, listening. His
nostrils flare. For someone in his dire condition his
eyes are clear and alert. Soon there is nothing to
hear or see but snow and wind. Yet he is alarmed. He
begins to run again, toward the treeline, leaving a
trail of bright blood. A moment later, we hear the
faint thumping of a helicopter.
THE SKY OVER MISSION VIEJO, CALIFORNIA
A police chopper circles lazily over a sea of
red-tile roofs. The pilot is wearing a Santa hat. As
he makes a pass over a small cul-de-sac we tilt down
to see the street below, awash in synthetic cheer: an
unofficial but hard-fought yearly contest to
out-reindeer, out-elf, and out-Jesus the neighbors.
The home of this year's winners: the Lees. Five
thousand dollars' worth of lights and lawn ornaments.
A creche scene like the Rat Pack gathered round to
adore the infant Liberace.
The Lees' living room. Fabulous plastic tree,
mountain of gifts. Irish setter asleep next to a gas
fire, at the feet of a pipe-smoking dad, an Asian man,
in tweeds, standing by the tree, stringing popcorn.
Suddenly he tenses, pulls a Glock 9mm from his
shoulder holster, whirls, ready to kill. But it's just
his lovely wife, also Asian, carrying a tray of
homemade cookies. They both smile. He shakes his head
sheepishly as he reholsters the gun. He puts his arm
around her and they stand by the window, their perfect
mom and dad faces hellish in the light coming from
their front lawn.
IN THE HUDSON VALLEY OF NEW YORK
A candle flame swells, throwing its small solemn
glow on the face of a young woman with bright red
hair. She is lighting the last candle on a tree
covered in blazing white tapers. She turns, smiling to
the room behind her, where other young people, four
men and a woman, all dressed like her in private
school blazers and gray trousers or skirts, come and
go, setting a dining room table for a feast. We pull
back, through the leaded lozenges of the frosty
window, away from this grand old house, under its
mantle of snow, spilling its warm yellow light onto
the fields around it, at the end of a rustic country
road called Graymalkin Lane.
IN THE DESERT
The pickup pulls off the desert highway at a stand
of cottonwoods, cuts its one headlight. Bumps along
toward a distant cluster of lights. The ambulance
passes right by.
The pickup pulls up in front of a small collection
of trailers. The man leaps out to help his wife down.
People emerge from the trailers and gather round.
Strangers. An old man helps them into his trailer.
Clear liquid streams down the woman's leg, pooling in
the sand.
IN THE ROCKIES
The trail of blood leads to the trees. Just before
the bleeding man can reach the treeline, a small
attack helicopter, ghostly white, swoops in and cuts
him off. The man whirls, then spreads his arms wide,
defiant, roaring an inarticulate challenge.
Inside the helicopter. A technician withdraws a
serum tube from a red biohaz cooler. Quickly,
carefully prepares an injection dart, passes it to a
sharpshooter, who takes aim and fires.
The dart lodges in the naked man's shoulder. He
growls, animal and low. Pulls it out. With a roar he
throws himself into the snow, rolling down the slope
toward the trees. The helicopter banks and takes off.
The man stands up in the sudden silence. Waits,
breathing deep and steady. Nothing happens. The man is
puzzled, seems on the verge of smiling, then stiffens.
Sniffs the air. Turns. We hear another, different low
growl.
The wolves emerge from the trees.
THE LEES' HOUSE
Mr. and Mrs. Lee, expressions blank, stand outside
a closed door in their upstairs hall. Oasis poster on
the door. Mr. Lee knocks. He calls out, "Honey,
are you all right?" A young girl answers, her
voice repressing tears and panic, "I'm fine. I
just have a really bad headache." "Another
one?" Mr. and Mrs. Lee look at each other, faces
unreadable. She looks down, then taps his arm. He
looks down at the bottom of the door. Weird flashes of
colored light: neon, sparklers, flashbulbs. A tiny
liquid finger of light reaches out from under the door
and burbles between their feet before dissipating.
They step aside, strangely unsurprised.
IN THE MANSION DINING ROOM
Six young people sit around the table laden with
turkey and trimmings. At the table's head, in a
vintage wicker wheelchair, an older man with a
clean-shaven pate. He raises his glass of wine, and
the young people raise theirs. They toast the season
of peace and understanding with unusual feeling. One
of the young people, slight, with very dark hair, has
his back to us--we can't make out his face.
THE DESERT RAT'S TRAILER
By lantern light an old Indian woman crouches over
the supine young mother-to-be, chanting to her. The
final work of delivery has begun. The husband and the
old man watch, surrounded by several cats, a rooster,
and a dog.
IN THE ROCKIES
The seven wolves circle the naked man. Then they
come at him. SNIKT! Three long, glinting steely claws
thrust out from the back of each of his hands. He
takes a long lateral swipe at the alpha wolf. Three
long strands of blood trail his flashing claws. The
wolf yelps, then falls. The others press the attack.
But the naked man is no longer completely a man.
OUTSIDE THE LEE GIRL'S ROOM
Mr. Lee pounds more urgently on the door. "Jube!
Jube!" There is no answer. The light under the
door is brighter than ever. He looks at Mrs. Lee, and
eyebrow raised. She nods.
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