Stories That May Never Get Written - Special Delivery

First post in a series of "Stories That May Never Get Written".

Synopsis

For a while I've been incubating this story in my head. It's the tale of Charles, a postman who lives at home with his overbearing, royalist mother. He's black and adopted by an almost painfully white, agonisingly English, patriotic, matriarchal family who treat him as the runt of the litter. His mother, a bitter old woman who eats on Princess Diana commemorative plates, idolises Charles' successful brother whilst she suppresses and degrades him in every way she can. Charles' only outlet for rebellion is the civil war reenactments he takes part in, where he takes great pleasure in playing on the side of the Roundheads to spite his mother's tireless adulation of the royal family.

Charles' work routine is repetitive and drab until one day he discovers a puppy, sickly but alive, in one of his parcels and decides to keep it a secret and adopt it. This sparks a chain of events that drives the other dogs in the neighbourhood into a frenzy, making his next delivery round a gauntlet of fangs, rabid maws and terrifying chases.

Subtext

Running through the tale is an undercurrent of needing to break free from the boredom of the suburban machine that you grind as if a gear slowly wearing down and the burning need for companionship and love. However the caution is that you can get a lot more adventure than you bargained for.

Despite devising this story before Brexit was even a glint in David Cameron's piggy winking eye, it harbours all of the uncomfortable tension I feel around national pride and the tolerance of other cultures and race in the UK. The patriotism of Charles' cruel mother, his racial individuality, so stifled in his own home, the diversity of the suburban neighbourhood he delivers to and the real anger and violence that feels like it lies just below the thin tarmac in some of our provincial towns.

I visualise this story in my head as a weird hybrid of The Birds, Gremlins and Sean Of The Dead with some of the grim British humour of Sightseers thrown in.

Short Film Script

I wrote a short film script intended to last only a couple of minutes to demonstrate the bleak confinement of Charles' home life. As it'll never have any other application, I might as well share it here:

OPEN to a PLATE (swimming with mashed potato, pie, peas and gravy)

Distorted sounds of a TV soap opera argue

Cutlery CLACKS against the crockery, the plate is emptied unrealistically swiftly, within ten seconds. 

The last forkful wipes the plate clean revealing a likeness of Sarah Ferguson on her wedding day to Prince Andrew. The soap opera SCREAMS.

CHARLES (male voice off screen)

Finished.

His cutlery is placed correctly together on the plate with a CLANK.

CUT to INT. KITCHEN / DINER - CHINTZY SHRINE TO THE MONARCHY.

CHARLES (45) sags at the table. Charles who is mixed race, wearing a Royal Mail shirt, looks uncomfortable, nervous to leave.

GUNSHOT

FAST CUT to EXT. MUDDY FIELD

ROWDY MALE VOICES

(Nerdy battlecries)

Charge. Aaaaagh. Die.

GUNSHOTS

Armoured Parliamentarians surge forward.

A CAVALIER’s sword strikes a ROUNDHEAD’s wooden pike with a CRACK. 

CHARLES' eyes lightened by makeup strain beneath a helmet’s visor.

FAST CUT to INT. KITCHEN / DINER

A clock TICKS.

MOTHER (70) A white woman, a pound-store likeness to the Queen makes eye contact with her food, she chews every mouthful 10 times, as if she’s plotting.

Occasionally she makes open mouthed SMACKING sounds.

CHARLES

What did I do wrong?

MOTHER

(makes her loudest open mouthed SMACK yet)

CHARLES

I got the Fergie plate mum, so what did I do?

FAST CUT to EXT. FIELD

AAAGH (a cry in mock death)

CAVALIER’s blade thrusts through ROUNDHEAD’s body (under the arm)

ROUNDHEAD THUDS to the ground

ROUNDHEAD’s helmet falls off, revealing CHARLES' face covered in flesh coloured face-paint, his glasses are wonky.

CAVALIER

(Throwing his hat to the ground)

For fuck’s sake Charles, what’s the point in putting on the makeup if you go and wear your fucking glasses.

ROUNDHEAD CHARLES

Sorry Ken

CAVALIER

I swear you want me to look a fool. You do realise just by being here you threaten the authenticity of this experience for everyone else?

ROUNDHEAD CHARLES

(Straightening his spectacles)

But I can’t see...

CAVALIER

Fuck off home and come see me at work on Monday.

A WOMAN in full Hi Viz walks her DALMATIAN across the horizon.

DALMATIAN

(BARKS)

SEMI-DISTANT GUNSHOT

FAST CUT to KITCHEN / DINER

CHARLES

Can I leave the table?

MOTHER stands with her plate and drops it in the sink with a CLANK.

CHARLES

May I leave the table?

CUT to a CORGI begging at CHARLES' side, chops encrusted with gravy and potato, it GROWLS.

MOTHER takes a pan and heaps mash onto Charles' plate

MOTHER grabs the gravy jug and slops on congealed dollops, making a well with a spoon to accommodate more. Her glasses steam up.

CHARLES looks up warily.

MOTHER derisively sucks her loose upper dentures with a tight SQUEAK.

CORGI

(BARKS)

CUT to a PLATE

There’s insufficient mash to soak up the gravy, which washes over Fergie’s portrait like waves, concealing and revealing her stained face.

The soap opera argument intensifies

BARK

GUNSHOT

FAST CUT to CLOSEUP of gravy, a bubble breaks surface

END