DANCING WITH ALIENS

by
SKINNED MINK

Based on,
How to Talk to Girls at Parties
By
NEIL GAIMAN

SKINNED MINK
Skinnedmink@gmail.com
INT. BLACK. PHONE.

ENN
I don’t know. A party tonight? You
know I have chemistry.

VIC
No no no, you’re not doing homework
tonight. It’s Friday night. We’re
going out.

VIC (CONT’D)
Come on man, just come out with me.
I promise you’ll have a good time.

ENN
I don’t know. I didn’t have fun the
last time.

VIC
That’s because you didn’t talk to
any girls.

ENN
It’s not going to be any different
this time.

VIC
Come on. There’s lots of girls.
I’ll be your wingman. I promise.

ENN
Last time you snogged some girl
while I was in the corner alone.

VIC
(laughing)
Yeah the blonde, what was her name?

ENN
Angela? And I’m not going. Just let
me get this done tonight.

CUT TO:

EXT. STREET. DUSK.

Two boys saunter down an ally way. One of the boys, taller
and more confident walks in front. The other boy follows. The
boys turn the corner and continue on a path toward a more
residential looking area. Vic swinging a green bag with a
white tipped bottle protruding from the top.
 2.

ENN
I should be doing Chemistry.

VIC
No you shouldn’t. What you need to
be doing is getting out, meeting
girls.

ENN
(stops and with anger)
It’s not as easy for me as it is
for you.

VIC
(takes a step before
turning to ENN)
It’s not that hard. You act like
they’re from another planet. I’m
telling you, talk to them.

ENN
I’ll try ok, I’ll talk to them.

Vic sets down the wine and begins acting out the conversation
he jokingly hopes ENN will have with a woman at the party and
ENN takes a seat on a ledge to watch. This lightens his mood
and he smiles the entire time.

VIC
That’s all you had to tell me.
Tonight, it’ll be great. You’ll
walk up to them and say, “hello, I
don’t believe you’ve had the
pleasure of meeting me” and once
you’ve got them all interested
they’ll say, “oh really, and who
might you be?” To which you reply
“Let me make you a drink and I’ll
tell you the story proper.” After
that, she’s yours.

ENN
(smiling)
Yeah, I’m sure it will go something
like that.

ENN nods and hops off the ledge as VIC picks up the bag and
they continue down the street.

ENN (CONT’D)
You know where the party is right?
 3.

VIC
Sure I do. Alison told me and I
wrote it down. Just...

ENN
What? What’s wrong?

VIC
Lets go this way.

ENN
You don’t have the directions do
you. If you can’t find it we can
just go back, watch a movie or
something.

VIC
Look, I left the directions but
it’s down this road. We’ll walk
until we see the party.

As the boys continue to walk VIC looks more and more

uncertain yet maintains his general disposition.

VIC (CONT’D)
This is the one

They walk to the door. Vic sets the bag down and turns to
ENN. VIC straightens ENN’s collar and looks him over.

VIC (CONT’D)
What are you going to do tonight?

ENN
Talk. I’m going to talk with girls.

VIC
Exactly, now lets do this.

CUT TO:

INT. HOUSE.

Vic rings the doorbell and picks up the bag. Stella opens the
door.

STELLA
Hello?

VIC
Hello hun. We’re friends of Alison.
 4.

STELLA
Umm, She isn’t here. No Alison.

VIC
Well, not to worry. I’m Vic and
this is Enn. Where would you like
us to put this?

STELLA steps aside and lets them enter. Faint ambient music
is audible in the background.

STELLA
There’s a kitchen in the back. Set
it next to the others.

VIC and ENN proceed toward the kitchen and STELLA shuts the
door behind them. VIC stops and looks back at STELLA.

VIC
What’s your name beautiful?

STELLA
(smiling)
Stella. My name is Stella.

VIC
(grinning)
That has to be the prettiest name I
have ever heard.

VIC walks to the kitchen, dropping off the bottle as STELLA

returns to the front room filled with dancers. ENN looks in
on the people dancing slow and methodically with the
nondescript music. VIC brushes past ENN and begins a
conversation with STELLA. ENN looks on then turns back to the
kitchen.

CUT TO:

I/E. OUTSIDE. DUSK

ENN reviews the choices of beer before pouring himself a cup

of coca-cola. He steps outside. A woman sits alone looking
out, away from the building.

ENN
Do you mind if I sit here?

She looks at him for a moment before shaking her head and
shrugging her shoulders. ENN takes a seat beside her. A
moment passes.
 5.

ENN looks back to see VIC making the universal “talk” hand
signal with his hand as he mouths the word “talk” while
having one arm wrapped around STELLA. ENN nods and turns
around. He waits a moment.

ENN (CONT’D)
Are you from around here?

She shakes her head. ENN turns around, awaiting further

instructions from VIC but he is no longer at the door.

ENN (CONT’D)
What’s your name? I’m ENN.

WAIN’S WAIN
Wain’s Wain. I’m a second.

ENN
That’s a different sort of name.

WAIN’S WAIN
It indicates that my ancestor was
also Wain, and that I am obligated
to report back to her. I may not
breed.

ENN
Well, it’s a bit early for that.
Isn’t it?

WAIN’S WAIN
(holding out a large
bracelet with awkward
symbols)
Look. When I was finished a
decision was needed. Would I be
retained, or eliminated? I was
fortunate that the decision was
with me. Now, I travel, while my
perfect sisters remain at home in
waiting. They are firsts. I am a
second. Soon I must return to Wain,
and tell her all I have seen. My
impressions of this place of yours.

ENN
Oh, well, I don’t actually live in
Croydon. I don’t really come from
here.

WAIN’S WAIN
(with understanding)
As you say, neither of us comes
from here.
(MORE)
 6.

WAIN’S WAIN (CONT'D)

I had expected it to be bigger, and
cleaner, and more colorful. But
still, it is a jewel.

ENN
(looking out away from the
building)
I’m not sure I’ve ever thought of
it that way.

A moment passes then Wain’s Wain yawns before covering her

mouth with her hand.

WAIN’S WAIN
(telling the story more to
herself than to ENN)
I grow tired of journeying, and I
wish sometimes that it would end.
Once, on a street in Rio at
Carnival, I saw them on a bridge,
golden and tall and insect-eyed and
winged, and elated I almost ran to
greet them, before I saw that they
were only people in costumes. It
seems like a planet of children or
elves. Where I am from, everything
is much bigger.

ENN
Umm, would you want to dance?

WAIN’S WAIN
I am not allowed. I can do nothing
that might damage property. I am
Wain’s.

ENN stands up.

ENN
Would you like something to drink
then?

WAIN’S WAIN
Water.

ENN steps inside. He takes a look around before heading to

the kitchen. Pours himself a second coke before searching for
a glass to fill with tap water. He steps outside. Realizes
that WAIN’S WAIN is no longer there and heads back toward the
room filled with dancers. He sees VIC and STELLA dancing. To
him VIC’s success is a familiar sight but still one that
manages to entrance him from time to time.
 7.

The room was no filled with more dancers than it was before
he stepped outside.

CUT TO:

INT. HOUSE.

ENN walks into the adjoining room and seats himself on a

sofa. A woman looks off as ENN sneaks a glance in her general
direction. She sees him. He pauses before speaking.

ENN
Um, this water’s going spare, if
you want it?

She nods before reaching out for the glass with extreme
concentration. Guiding it toward her mouth with care.

WOMAN 2
I love it. Don’t you?

ENN
Water?

WOMAN 2
(smiling and setting the
glass down)
No, I love being a tourist. The
last tour, we went to sun, and we
swam in sunfire pools with the
whales. We heard their histories
and we shivered in the chill of the
outer places, then we swam deeper
where the heart churned and
comforted us.

WOMAN 2 has another drink of water.

WOMAN 2 (CONT’D)
I wanted to go back. This time, I
wanted it. There was so much I had
not seen. Instead we came to world.
Do you like it?

ENN
Like what?

WOMAN 2 looks around the room implying what she meant by “it”

ENN (CONT’D)
It’s all right, I suppose.
 8.

WOMAN 2
I told them I did not wish to visit
world, my parent-teacher was
unimpressed. “You will have much to
learn,” it told me. I said, “I
could learn more in sun, again. Or
in the deeps. Jessica spun webs
between galaxies. I want to do
that.”

WOMAN 2 has another drink of water. ENN sips his coke.

WOMAN 2 (CONT’D)
But there was no reasoning with it,
and I came to world. Parent-teacher
engulfed me, and I was here,
embodied in a decaying lump of meat
hanging on a frame of calcium. As I
incarnated I felt things deep
inside me, fluttering and pumping
and squishing. It was my first
experience with pushing air through
the mouth, vibrating the vocal
cords on the way, and I used to
tell parent-teacher that I wished
that I would die, which it
acknowledged was the inevitable
exit strategy from world.

WOMAN 2 plays with her necklace. ENN moves in closer to WOMAN

2.

WOMAN 2 (CONT’D)
But knowledge is there and I will
learn from it.

WOMAN 2 is looking down still fiddling with the necklace. ENN

puts his arm around her slowly. Sliding it toward her back.

WOMAN 2 (CONT’D)
(looking at ENN and in a
way examining her own
eyes)
The thing with the liquid in the
eyes, when the world blurs. Nobody
told me, and I still do not
understand. I have touched the
folds of the whisper and pulsed and
flown with the tachyon swans, and I
still do not understand.

ENN lets his arm rest on her shoulder.

 9.

VIC calls for ENN from the doorway. ENN, surprised, looks
toward him, back to WOMAN 2 and then back to VIC. He uses his
head to point to WOMAN 2 as she looks the other direction,
has a sip of water and starts up a conversation with someone
else seated next to the sofa. VIC calls again. ENN reviews
the situation and decides to go to VIC. VIC’s arm rests
comfortable around STELLA. She hugs him around the
midsection. VIC holds a cup in his right hand.

ENN
What’s up?

VIC
Hey, are you doing it? Are you
talking to them?

ENN
(looks toward WOMAN 2
before turning back to
VIC)
Yeah, one or two

VIC
See? What did I tell you man, it’s
easy. You’ll have a phone number by
the end of the night. Stud.

ENN blushes and looks down.

VIC (CONT’D)
Oh hey, what I wanted to say was
that I don’t think we’re at the
right party.

ENN
(concerned)
Does that mean we have to leave?

VIC
(looking toward STELLA)
No, no. You’re glad we’re here
aren’t you baby?

STELLA
(now with only one arm
around VIC’s midsection)
Umm hmm.

ENN
So what party are we at?
 10.

VIC
(tightening his arm around
Stella)
They’re tourists. It’s an exchange
program or something. Stella
explained it to me.

VIC smiles.

VIC (CONT’D)
Anyway, just thought you should
know. Carry on.

CUT TO:

INT. HOUSE.

ENN watches as VIC and STELLA head toward the bedrooms. He

turns back and sees that his spot has been taken on the sofa
and is now filled. He leaves the room and again looks in on
the dancers in muted admiration. The dancers are more sparse
than before. ENN walks to the kitchen. Finding a cup and
taking his time reviewing the liqueur before pouring himself
a coke and pernod. As he finishes pouring the drink, a new
woman speaks.

WOMAN 3
What’s that you’re drinking?

ENN
(startled and almost
spilling the drink)
It’s pernod. It tastes like
gobstoppers only alcoholic.

WOMAN 3
(moving closer to ENN)
Can you pour me one?

ENN
(begins to fumble around
finding a cup, coke and
pernod)
Umm, sure.

WOMAN 3 takes a seat by the counter.

ENN (CONT’D)
(focused on opening the
two liter of coke)
What’s your name?
 11.

TRIOLET
Triolet

ENN
(passes her the drink)
That’s a pretty name. One pernod
for Triolet.

TRIOLET
It’s a verse form, like me.

ENN
(confident and skeptical)
You’re a poem?

TRIOLET takes ENN’s usual role. Bashfully she smiles and

buries her head on the counter before answering. ENN smiles
at her reaction, seeing himself in her.

ENN walks over and sits next to TRIOLET on a bar stool.

ENN (CONT’D)
No really, you’re a poem? Come on,
tell me.

TRIOLET
(still smiling, looks up
at ENN and
philosophically answers)
If you want, I’m a poem, or a
pattern, or a whole race of people
whose world was swallowed up by the
sea.

ENN
(confidence building)
Tell me, Triolet, is it hard to be
three things at one time?

TRIOLET
(still smiling)
What’s your name?

ENN
Enn.

TRIOLET
Well Enn, you tell me. You’re a
male, a biped and Enn, All at the
same time. How hard is it?
 12.

ENN
(Hides a smile as he sips
his drink and struggles
to say contradictory)
Yeah but, those three aren’t
different. Well, they are but they
aren’t contradictory.

TRIOLET and ENN share a smile and sip their drinks. ENN looks
toward the bedrooms before turning back to TRIOLET. She
begins the story that she loves and has told hundreds of
times. IT is her passion, her desire and her past.

TRIOLET
You just have to understand. We
knew that it would soon be over,
and so we put it all into a poem,
to tell the universe who we were,
and why we were here, and what we
said and did and thought and
dreamed and yearned for. We wrapped
our dreams in words and patterned
the words so that they would live
forever, unforgettable. Then we
sent a poem as a pattern of flux,
to wait in the heart of a star,
beaming out its message in pulses
and bursts and fuzzes across the
electromagnetic spectrum, until the
time when, on worlds a thousand sun
systems away, the pattern would be
decoded and read, and it would
become a poem once again.

This si the most profound thing ENN has ever heard. He is

stunned. Here is a woman, talking to him and telling him the
most unbelievable tale.

ENN
(enthralled, leaning in
closer)
Well, what happened?

TRIOLET
(analytical, taking a sip
of her drink)
Poems, have a way of changing
people. They heard our poem and it
became part of them. It inherited
and inhabited them. Our metaphors,
our verses, our outlook, that we
had wrapped in this poem became
theirs.
(MORE)
 13.

TRIOLET (CONT'D)
The poem had taken flesh and walked
and spread itself throughout the
galaxies. There are places we are
welcomed, and places where we are
regarded as a noxious weed, or as
some disease, to be immediately
quarantined and eliminated. But
where does contagion end and art
begin?

ENN
(focused)
I don’t know.

ENN and TRIOLET kiss. Triolet looks toward the floor. Her
forehead rests against ENN.

TRIOLET
Do you want to hear it?

ENN locks his eyes with TRIOLET and nods his head. He turns
his head as TRIOLET begins to whisper the poem into his ear.
ENN’s mind is locked into this moment. Time slows as “Heart
of Gold” begins to be heard in the background. It increases
in intensity and volume matching the poem and ENN’s numbed
reaction to the same. ENN, TRIOLET and the room begin to
brighten, colors are enriched and everything becomes crisp.

VIC hurriedly stumbles into the room. Shirt untucked and

ruffled, he bursts toward ENN in a panic. His voice fades in
faintly. ENN remains in a daze.

VIC
Enn! Enn! Come on, we’ve got to go.

FADE OUT.

EXT. STREET. NIGHT.

The boys run at full sprint visible only from streetlight to

streetlight. VIC gripping ENN’s shirt as they run. They slow
to a stop with a streetlight overhead. VIC pushes ENN out in
front of him. ENN’s slows to catch himself before collapsing
on the ground. VIC hunches over with his arms to his knees.
Out of breathe and coughing. ENN also out of energy. The boys
pause for a breathe, both trying to regain normality. ENN
props himself up, his back against the wall.

ENN
(upset and confused)
What the hell? What is going on?
 14.

VIC
(still out of breath)
Shut up. Just shut up.

CUT TO:

INT. PARTY. NIGHT.

VIC runs toward the kitchen. VIC’s shirt is ruffled and no

longer tucked in. Eyes and body are in a sense of panic. He
spots ENN talking to TRIOLET. He rushes toward him.
Explaining “Enn, Enn we’ve got to go.” ENN looks toward
TRIOLET as she pleads with her eyes. He looks toward VIC,
shaking his head. VIC grabs him and heads toward the door.

TRIOLET’s grasps for his hand as VIC holds on to them as they

head to the door. ENN turns as he is forced to walk ahead of
VIC. As they reach the door ENN turns around, looking for
TRIOLET, he spots STELLA, clothes in disarray, lipstick
smudged, unforgiving, cold and vengeful. ENN remains unmoved.
Unable to process any feeling beyond the shock of leaving
TRIOLET.

VIC (V.O.)
(talking between long hard
breathes)
She...She wasn’t...

Pause

CUT TO:

EXT. STREET. NIGHT.

VIC
You know...I think there’s a thing.
When you’ve gone as far as you
dare. And if you go any further,
you wouldn’t be you anymore? You’d
be the person who’d done that? The
places you just can’t go...I think
that happened to me tonight.

ENN
What? Screw her?

VIC stands, favoring one leg, and swings at ENN. The fist
connects with ENN’s jaw. ENN feels it before losing his
balance and falling to the ground.
 15.

VIC stumbles but remains standing. His hands return to his

knees. ENN looks at VIC. VIC begins to cry. A moment passes.

He guides himself over to ENN, offering his hand to help ENN

get up. ENN takes it. They stand for a moment, both looking
at each other. Both trying to understand the events of the
night. ENN takes VIC’s arm over his shoulder, allowing VIC to
take pressure off of his hurt leg and they both walk out of
the spotlight. They head home.

FADE TO BLACK.