Another

By

Bradley Thompson

2326 Wheeler St.

Cincinnat, OH 45219

678.848.1945

thompbh@mail.uc.edu

www.bradleythompsonproductions.com

INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT

MIKE NICHOLAS, a college student, is sitting in a chair in

his bedroom. Across from him sits JULES TELLER, another

college student. Jules is sipping at a cup of tea. Mike’s

eyes are closed.

Ambient jazz music plays in the background.

JULES

Mike?

No response.

JULES

Mike buddy!

Mike WAKES UP. He blinks a few times.

MIKE

Hm, what?

JULES

You alright?

MIKE

Yeah, sorry.

Mike adjusts his posture.

MIKE

Running on empty here.

JULES

You, my friend, need a cup of this.

Gimme a minute.

Jules gets up, leaving Mike sitting in his chair.

MIKE

Nothing too strong?

Jules points at Mike as he leaves the room. Mike relaxes his

posture, slumping back into his chair more. He looks around,

noting his surroundings.

Posters. Tables. Lamps. He stares around at the contents of

the room he’s in.

JULES

What about question four?

Mike looks up, seeing Jules sitting on the bed. Mike looks

confused.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED: 2.

MIKE

Back already?

Jules looks back in confusion.

JULES

Back? No, we need Y to equal X so

we can’t work backwards.

Jules walks back into the room, holding a fresh cup of tea.

Mike looks SHOCKED, seeing TWO JULES.

JULES

You alright man?

JULES

You alright man?

Mike blinks a few times again. The Jules on the bed has

disappeared, leaving the normal Jules standing in the

doorway.

MIKE

Man I am too zonked out right now.

Jules walks over to Mike, handing him the tea.

JULES

You seein’ things?

MIKE

I swear you were just sitting on

the bed asking me about homework.

JULES

Dude it’s a snow day. School’s

canceled for tomorrow.

MIKE

You were asking me about some math

problem.

Jules smiles.

JULES

Man we haven’t had to take a math

class since Freshman year.

Mike takes a sip of the tea.

MIKE

Thanks.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED: 3.

JULES

Not a problem.

Jules takes a sip of his own tea.

MIKE

What is this?

JULES

Yerba Mate. South American tea.

MIKE

It’s weird. Strong too.

JULES

It’s a detox tea. Wakes you up,

cleans you out, makes you feel like

a new person.

MIKE

I like it.

JULES

Yeah it’s the traditional drink of

the Guarani. They say that Yari,

the moon spirit, came down to Earth

one day accompanied by Arai, the

spirit of dusk. As they walked the

forests of the Earth, a Jaguar

attacked them. An old human man

pierced the heart of the Jaguar

with an arrow.

Mike takes another sip, looking down at the tea.

JULES

After the old man saved them, the

spirits abandoned their human forms

and went back up into the spirit

world. They thought of a worthy

prize for these humans, and decided

on the yerba mate plant.

MIKE

So they just gave the humans a cup

of this stuff?

JULES

No man, they set a deep sleep over

the family that saved them, and

while they slept they planted the

mate seeds all around their home.

When the people woke up, mate trees

(MORE)

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED: 4.

JULES (cont’d)had grown all around them. The gods

blessed the family’s daughter,

saying that she would never die and

that the tea was a symbol of

friendship towards humankind.

MIKE

Quite the story for a cup of green

tea.

JULES

Hey, yerba mate is different form

green tea. Has a leafier flavor,

darker color. Tastes better too.

MIKE

Yeah I can see it.

JULES

Legend has it that every once in a

while, a young blonde girl appears

in the mate fields. Pure of heart,

just as the day she left the Earth.

MIKE

The spirit of the tea.

JULES

That’s just one story of how the

tea came to that area. The Spanish

have their own story, different

tribes tell it differently too.

MIKE

Makes you wonder who’s right about

it, doesn’t it?

JULES

Well that can be said towards and

myth, and legend. Look at religion.

Every translation tells the stories

differently. It’s all objective,

how the storyteller wants to tell

it.

MIKE

Like how the apostles left certain

manuscripts and books out of the

Bible to paint Jesus in a better

light.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED: 5.

JULES

Yeah! Ever wonder why there are no

stories of teenage Jesus

circulating around in the Vatican?

MIKE

Tween Jesus was a dick. He blew the

heads off of snakes to scare his

enemies and bullied kids.

JULES

Exactly, but to base an entire

culture around a figure like that,

you can’t promote those kinds of

stories. It’s like that for any

religious figure though.

MIKE

Every good story deserves

embellishment.

JULES

But not every good story needs to

be told in the first place.

MIKE

Uncovering the stories untold can

be eye-opening though. Gives you a

different perspective on it all.

JULES

I guess so.

They each take another sip. Mike continues staring down at

his cup.

MIKE

Makes you wonder.

JULES

Wonder what?

MIKE

Yari and Arai, think they’re

looking down at us right now?

JULES

Who knows.

MIKE

We’re drinking the very drink meant

to be a symbol of friendship

towards them. I think they are.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED: 6.

JULES

Then are other dieties looking down

on us too? If Yari is up there

looking, who’s to say more aren’t

looking down with him?

MIKE

And who else are they looking down

upon? Not just us, but thousands

across the world.

JULES

Anybody who drinks it.

MIKE

Anybody who pays respect to them in

the first place. I bet that any

ancestors of the Guarani get a

visit from the gods every once in a

while.

JULES

Once in a blue moon maybe?

Mike chuckles.

MIKE

Maybe.

Mike looks up at the bed, then back to Jules.

MIKE

Man I swear I saw you on the bed a

couple minutes ago.

JULES

You just need to get some more

sleep.

MIKE

It was vivid. You were asking me

about some quadratic something.

JULES

Maybe it was me.

MIKE

What like a second Jules?

JULES

Yeah, why not? Who’s to say there

can’t be two of me?

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED: 7.

MIKE

Like how though?

JULES

If we consider it plausible that

ancient South American gods might

be staring down at us from the

heavens, why can’t there be two

Jules Tellers?

MIKE

Well then there could be a second

Mike Nicholas.

JULES

Right! What’s that theory that

there are different versions of us

floating around out there? Parallel

something or other...

MIKE

Multiverse.

JULES

That’s it!

MIKE

Yeah the multiverse says that there

are infinite possibilities of

functional human society out in the

universe. We might be drinking tea

and talking here, but somewhere

else we could be...

Mike looks back up at the bed.

MIKE

Sitting up there doing math

homework.

JULES

Or we might not even know each

other.

MIKE

We could live in different

countries even.

Jules looks somber for a brief second.

MIKE

What?

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED: 8.

JULES

Hell, there’s a chance we were

never born somewhere out there.

MIKE

And another version of you could be

thinking the same thing about

themselves. While they drink a

different tea or work on homework

for a class that, from our

perspective, doesn’t exist.

JULES

I could be married with kids

already!

MIKE

Our kids might even know each

other.

JULES

Or they’ve never heard of one

another before.

MIKE

Another world. Makes you wonder

man.

A sip.

JULES

Makes you wonder. Would we be made

up of the same things?

Mike looks confused.

JULES

Like the same molecular structure.

Carbon based, same cells...would

the cells function the same? Is

Jules from another realm made up of

the same quarks, same cells, same

molecules that I’m made up of?

MIKE

Well so far that form of life is

one of the only types that we’ve

seen. I can’t imagine a set of us,

having this same conversation, that

were made up of bacterial cells. We

wouldn’t eat or sleep. We’d thrive

on moisture and other forms of

bacteria.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED: 9.

JULES

We would just be. We wouldn’t have

personalities. No lives. We would

just be sitting here, living off of

whatever was available.

Another sip.

MIKE

Imagine if we could visit one of

them.

JULES

See another set of us.

MIKE

Honestly, who’s to say I didn’t

just see another you?

JULES

On the bed just now?

MIKE

Yeah, right up there.

JULES

So somehow your sleep-deprived mind

managed to glance into a different

reality?

MIKE

Why not? With gods functioning in

an entire multiverse, I very well

could have seen Jules Teller,

sitting on his bed, working on math

homework.

JULES

Think you could do it again?

Mike takes a deep breath. He exhales.

MIKE

I doubt it.

JULES

Nah, think about what you were

doing when you saw me. The other

me.

Mike stops to think for a moment.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED: 10.

MIKE

You had just left, and I was a

little zoned out.

JULES

Try it again?

MIKE

What, you want me to?

JULES

If you can transcend our reality

just by me leaving the room, I

think we should try it again.

Mike laughs.

MIKE

Alright. Let’s try it. What the

hell.

Jules smiles.

JULES

I’ll give you about five minutes or

so.

MIKE

Works for me.

Jules stands up.

JULES

Five minutes.

Mike nods, then laughs to himself.

MIKE

This is insane.

Jules smiles as he leaves the room, leaving Mike alone.

Mike looks around at the room again, taking in his

surroundings. He closes his eyes, trying to clear his

thoughts.

Mike becomes more and more relaxed. He seems to drift off

into slumber.

CUT TO:

11.

INT. BEDROOM - ALTERNATE UNIVERSE - NIGHT

Jules is sitting right where Mike was just sitting. He is

asleep.

MIKE

Yo yo.

Jules opens his eyes. Mike is walking into the room.

MIKE

You see anything?

Jules shakes his head.

JULES

Nothing this time.

MIKE

Once in a lifetime chance I

suppose.

JULES

Maybe.

Mike sits down on the bed.

MIKE

We could always try again sometime.

JULES

Maybe. Maybe not though. Maybe were

supposed to just leave it be.

MIKE

Maybe the gods let us see our other

selves, just that one time.

JULES

We should feel lucky.

MIKE

Yes we should.

Mike holds out his cup of tea. Jules holds his up too. The

cups CLINK together. Each takes a sip.

JULES

Thanks for the tea man.

MIKE

No problem. Love this stuff.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED: 12.

JULES

And the legend behind it. I hadn’t

heard that before.

Mike smirks.

MIKE

One of many.

Jules’ cup of tea sways back and forth as his hand moves the

mug.

CUT TO:

BLACK.

The End.