Mute

Jostein Larsen

©2009
EXT: BUSY URBAN STREET - AFTERNOON

A stressed out middle aged business man is walking fast with

a great sense of purpose down an urban street in a large
city. Although everything and everyone around him look
perfectly normal, every person on the street including the
MAN, are lacking a mouth. Where the mouth usually is located
on human beings, these people only have skin. The MAN is
wearing a dark suit, accompanied with a white shirt
underneath and a dark tie, and he is holding a dark suitcase
in his hand. He looks at his expensive wrist watch which
tells him that the time is five to four. After acknowledging
this information, the MAN starts walking even faster almost
changing his speed to jogging. This results in him
inevitably bumping into strangers walking slower than him.
He puts his hand in one of his pockets and grabs a piece of
white paper with the words "EXCUSE ME" written in printed
black letters. When the strangers he bumps into sees the
piece of paper they immediately move away.

As he keeps walking fast down the street he can see that

further down there's an even bigger crowd of slow walking
people, so he turns his head to discover a narrow alleyway to
his left with no people or other obstacles in. He scratches
the area where there is no mouth and decides to start
walking this way instead.

EXT: DARK ALLYWAY - AFTERNOON

The MAN is still walking fast, but has a more concerned look
on his face than earlier. He suddenly hears the sound of
footsteps both behind him, he quickly turns his head around
to see if someone is there, but is relieved to see that is
was nothing.

As he turns his head back again he can now see a tall man
with a baseball bat and an evil smile looking at him with
greed in his eyes. The MAN gets terrified and starts walking
slowly backwards, only to discover another man standing
behind him. He is a bit shorter, more serious, and instead
of having a baseball bat in his hands he is writing
something on a white piece of paper, and shifting his
attention between the MAN and his own hand writing. The MAN
is holding his suitcase more and more tightly, and as the
criminal in front of him is done writing he shows him the
note that says: "IF YOU WANT TO LIVE, HAND OVER EVERYTHING
OF VALUE"

The MAN looks desperately at both of them, finds a piece of

paper and a pen in his pocket and starts writing panicky. He
then shows what he's written to the man without a baseball
bat, it reads "YOU CAN HAVE EVERYTHING YOU WANT, BUT THIS
SUITCASE HAS ONLY VALUE TO ME" He turns the paper around and
on the other side it says "THERE IS NO POINT IN YOU TAKING
IT".

Both of the men breath heavy out of their noses and the
short man gives a signal to the tall man, who strikes the
MAN in the head with his baseball bat. They then grab his
wallet, cell phone and wrist watch and the tall man starts
walking away. The shorter man grabs his bat and strikes the
MAN one last time, before grabbing his suitcase. He then
takes a good look at the MAN's right hand and then looks
back at his face. While staring deep into his eyes, the
shorter man breaks the MAN's hand and pulls a note out of
his pocket that says "GOOD LUCK EXPLAINING". He then runs
fast out of the ally towards the taller man who is waiting
for him.

The MAN uses a couple of seconds to realize what just

happened, but as soon as he acknowledges that the suitcase
really is gone he gets up and starts running towards the
same direction the robbers were running, despite his wounded
face and body.

EXT: BUSY URBAN STREET - AFTERNOON

The MAN is running down the street desperately trying to

seek out his suitcase. He stops a stranger on the street and
shakes him while desperately looking into his eyes. The
stranger pulls out a note from his pocket that says: "WHAT
IS IT?" The MAN takes out his own piece of paper and pen and
tries to write something down with his broken hand, but it
all just turns into unreadable scribblings and the stranger
just keeps walking and ignores him. The MAN then tries to
show the note to another stranger, but gets the same
reaction.

INT. POLICE STATION - AFTERNOON

The MAN runs desperately in to a busy police station, ignores

the long line of people in front of the counter and throws
the note with the scribblings on it in the face of a police
woman sitting behind a counter. All the people in the line
starts holding up signs that say: "FUCK YOU", "GET BACK IN
LINE", "WAIT FOR YOUR TURN" etc. The police woman calmly
shows him a sign that says "GET BACK IN LINE, OR I WILL CALL
SECURITY". This however, doesn't seem to affect the MAN's
behaviour at all and he keeps trying to show this note to
the woman. The woman eventually presses a big red button on
her desk that reads "SECURITY".

The MAN then hears footsteps walking up to him from behind,

and when they are all up close he turns around to see the
two men that robbed him earlier, dressed in police uniforms
with a sleazy look on their faces. This turns the MAN
completely mad and the robbers in police uniforms has to
take him down by force and drags him across the room in
through a door with the inscription "HOLDING".