I'm sorry.
Why is apologizing the first thing I did when I had to tell everyone I had a tumor? "I'm sorry," I said, like I failed them.
This is how I die.
Some people fight, but why am I ready? I haven't even felt sick. "This is how I die," I told myself, before there was even a prognosis.
I haven't finished.
Regret? Drive? Or just a statement? "I haven't finished," I told the universe matter-of-factly.
I'm sorry.
I am compelled to find things of my past. The older I get, the more I seek those images and items that remind me of my childhood. The more I lose the items and the people I once had, the more I long to see them and be reminded of the feelings of comfort and safety and love and mystery and adventure and potential and of hidden worlds where everything that ever was still is. A nubbly sofa. A red, round chair. A green carpet. Wood ceiling. Quietly, they wait inside me. The feelings bubble up and my Daddy is there. My Mommy is there. My home is still Home.
Sheets folded in neat piles in the linen closet.
A squashed snake in the road.
Incense on clothes hung together.
Play-Doh, Crayola, Silly Putty.
Fresh cut grass.
Water from the garden hose.
Dandelions.
Fresh baked chocolate chip cookies.
Chocolate chip cookies inside a Ziploc bag opened at two in the morning.
"Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" by Wham! blares happily in WADE'S dimly lit room. It is too dark to see the space clearly.
WADE I'm up!
WADE stands in the slowly brightening darkness, stretching. As the light increases, we see how different is body looks, though we do not see his face. While WADE actually is taller, he appears even more so as he has lost weight. WADE has slim muscles, not overly worked-out. The bed reshapes itself into his haptic chair in the center of the room, above his omni-directional treadmill and below large, articulated arms attached to the walls and ceiling. The technology takes up most of the room and includes a sleek OASIS console, smell/air filter tower, and surround sound speaker system in the walls. WADE's haptic suit has been upgraded as has his gloves and visor. The window has been more carefully repainted black. The kitchen is also clean.
WADE (from behind and from the shoulders down) shuffles towards the wall with the tiny, stainless steel bathroom with shower. The wall's monitor changes from a rotating security camera view (hallway, lobby, roof, elevator) to MAX HEADROOM, his system agent software.
MAX G-g--good morning, Wade! Rise and sh-sh-shine!
WADE Good morning, Max.
MAX I think you mean "good evening", Rumpelstiltskin. It's 7:18 pm, OASIS Sta-sta-standard Time, Wednesday, December thirtieth. (looking down as WADE pees) Uh-oh! It appears you've sp-sp-sprung a leak!
Conversation continues just as it does in the book
MAX makes a pouting face and drifts out of the screen, turning it back into a mirror. WADE finds himself looking at his own image. WADE looks alien with only stubble and his thinner face. He looks away to finish peeing. Done, WADE reseals his haptic suit and exits the bathroom.
Exercise scene continues as in the book followed by showering, which seems very futuristic--like a car wash.
WADE finishes cleaning, drying, and dressing in a new haptic suit. While his apartment is no longer littered with garbage, it is dreary, empty, and lifeless. WADE finally looks like he registers his surroundings and he is sad/scared/depressed.
WADE Extend chair.
The haptic chair reassembles itself inside the room, dominating it, hulking in the middle. The metal looks like bars to a circular prison. WADE registers his acknowledgement of what it means on his face: sad/scared/depressed.
p. 194
After ART3MIS cut off contact with WADE and the Sixers crashed OG'S birthday party, there is a time jump (the book says eight weeks, but it should be longer... six months?) <--not sure if this should jump right to WADE in the future, or if we should see him despondent.
THE DESPONDENT VERSION
Sitting in a basic gaming chair, WADE fell asleep with his OASIS visor on again. He has Cheeto dust down the front of his haptic suit, which is not fully closed in the front. His apartment is a mess of empty bottles (soda pop and energy drinks) and pizza boxes. Dirty mugs and flatware, paper towels, tissues, and other detritus cover the floor. A War Door has been installed, locked in the open position against the ceiling. The window has been inexpertly spray painted black. WADE snores himself awake and shoves off his visor. Blinking and disoriented, he looks around and groans. Heaving himself out of the chair, he goes to the bathroom, wrestles with his suit, and we hear him peeing. Exiting the bathroom, WADE tries to pull his haptic suit closed, but he clearly has gained a lot of weight.
WADE (grappling with the two sides of his suit) Shit, shit, SHIT!
WADE drops his hands in frustration and looks around, seemingly seeing the mess for the first time. He kicks the garbage towards the kitchen for a while, but gives up. He goes to the window and looks through a part that he missed painting. The lights are on outside; it is evening. He sighs and goes back to his chair that groans a bit under his weight and puts his visor back on. Sitting up straighter, WADE speaks his passcode (**need to put in what it is**).
IN THE OASIS
WADE materializes in his half-finished fortress on an asteroid. WADE in the OASIS looks just as his avatar always has, but the contrast between the real WADE and PARZIVAL is even greater. We see PARZIVAL make a decision and sit purposefully at his virtual computer.
Note: my treatment of the Ready Player One movie opening was posted on 12/11/2017.
The battered, much-repaired electric bus slides into the terminal, cutting off the OASIS connection and turning on all interior lights. WADE is momentarily startled, then pulls off his goggles and gloves, packing them away carefully. Everyone is gathering their belongings and shuffling off the bus. WADE is still sitting looking a little overwhelmed. He is clutching everything he has: his OASIS gear in his old Star Trek lunchbox and a patched backpack. WADE finds and opening, stands and shuffles off.
Cleveland, exterior bus terminal. WADE is buffeted around, but finally makes his way to an autocab. He closes the door and puts his thumb on the cab's computer screen.
WADE [name of the apartment building]
The cab lurches off and WADE watches the city go by. It is much cleaner-looking and more lived-in than his hometown. This is a technological mecca: a new Silicon Valley. The people, however, don't look great. Homeless are begging, and the workers don't look much better. There are automated street cleaners, but the people are haggard. The city begins to look more decrepit as they get closer to WADE'S new apartment.
The autocab stops in front of what clearly used to be an old Hilton. It has visible security features. WADE enters the first door and must give retinal and fingerprint scans before entering the next. The security display clearly says, "Bryce Lynch, Apt. 4211" and the interior door releases. WADE enters the next door, which seals shut behind him. The apartment building still has hints of the hotel lobby though it is quiet and empty and utilitarian. WADE presses the button for an elevator, taking it up to the 42nd floor. WADE exits the elevator cautiously. He hears some yelling and explosion sounds (from a computer game or movie). The hallway is deserted, dingy, and unadorned. He finally makes it to his apartment at the end of the hall, scans himself again and enters, the door sliding shut behind him.
The apartment is a single, empty room, freshly painted white, with a single overhead strip light in the middle. There is a kitchenette with a bar counter to the left, a narrow rectangular window across from the short entry hall, and, on the right, a wall of yellowed plastic. The plastic wall houses a modular shower and toilet unit, a laundry unit, a monitor with small speaker, and a small closet. The doors on this wall are flush and are touch-open. The inside of the shower and toilet are stainless steel.
WADE still clutches his lunchbox and backpack, looking rather young. He looks out the window and starts to breathe heavily, beginning to cry. Scrubbing his eyes with the back of one sleeve, WADE sits on the floor in the middle of the room and puts on his gloves and OASIS visor, giving his passcode and making purposeful gestures.
The video only had forty-seven views, most of which were hers. Thea watched it again, full screen, headphones this time.
It was an amateur home improvement channel with a husband and wife, Matt and Claire, who had been posting videos for nine months as they renovated their old house. Only eighteen videos of the usual: touring, cleaning, finding, fixing, tips, mistakes, stray cats. All of them were live-streamed. And then the last video, posted a month ago.
MATT (off) Yes, we're going.
CLAIRE (waving) Hello! We're in the pantry today, fixing the floor, which is why I look short.
The camera pans down to show CLAIRE standing between joists.
CLAIRE (cont.) My feet are in the crawlspace under the pantry where I have been vacuuming and getting ready for us to build supports for the joists.
MATT (off) Hey, wait, did you hear that? Was that down there?
CLAIRE I didn't hear.
CLAIRE leans down a little to listen. There is a thump.
CLAIRE (cont.) I heard that!
MATT (off) That was it! What is it?
The camera jiggles as MATT sits on the floor, putting his legs into the crawlspace from above. MATT turns on the flash and the picture takes a dizzying drop as he reaches down, illuminating the small space below. CLAIRE'S legs are briefly visible before the camera swings to the left. There is a stone wall with spaces at the top between joists that disappear into the next room.
There is a growling sound, and both MATT and CLAIRE make startled sounds, the camera swings wildly before the feed cuts off.
