I Disappear: 3 Short Screenplays

By Lee McQueen

To test a person's character, give that person power. Then wait.

 

These screenplays examine the moral depths and horror that extreme income inequality and  deprivation would drive people to explore. Horror fills the lives of those forced into a corner by systematic, destructive greed. These are the people who have to decide which child can eat dinner tonight and which child has to wait until breakfast tomorrow. They sell everything they own until there is nothing remaining to sell but themselves. Open this book, if you dare, visualize the degradation that unrestrained and unregulated capitalism visit upon 99% of the population. Feel something, even if it is to be driven insane, and know that you too are human and that what happens to the characters in these stories can also happen to you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: McQueen Press
• Release date: Jul 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781735236964

Book preview

by

Lee McQueen

OLE-object

Published by McQueen Press

http://mcqueenpress.wordpress.com

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the publisher.

The screenplays and short stories are works of fiction. The names, characters, incidents, and locations are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. No character in the short stories or screenplays is based upon an actual person. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and unintentional.

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Cover image and design, interior design, typesetting by McQueen Press.

Author photo by McQueen Press.

Logo is a registered mark of McQueen Press and should not be copied without permission.

Copyright 2020 Lee McQueen.

Deep in the Woods screenplay previously published in The Dark Fantastic: 12 Short Screenplays [McQueen Press, 2013].

Publisher's Catalog-in-Publication

McQueen, Lee, 1970-

I Disappear: 3 Short Screenplays/Lee McQueen

p. cm.

ISBN  978-1-7352369-0-2

1.  Motion picture plays

I.  Title

Works by Lee McQueen

Short Story Collection

Imaginarium

Poetry Collection

Things I Forgot to Tell You

Novels

Kenzi

Celara Sun

Windrunner

The Cadis Evening

Screenplays

Kindred

SUDAN: The Lion of Truth

The Dark Fantastic: 12 Short Screenplays

Non-Fiction

Writer in the Library! 41 Writers Reveal How They Use

Libraries to Develop Their Skill, Craft & Careers

Road Romance: Tales From the Book Tour

To truly test a person's character, give that person power.

Then wait.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Screenplay 1   I Disappear    1

Storyboards   I Disappear     12

Screenplay 2   Alone With You Last Night  43

Storyboards   Alone With Your Last Night 50

Screenplay 3   Deprivation: The Apocalypse 74

Storyboards   Deprivation: The Apocalypse 99

BONUS Screenplay   Deep in the Woods   106

BONUS Storyboards Deep in the Woods   119

About the Author

Author's Note

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION

These three screenplays, I Disappear, Alone With You Last Night, Deprivation: The Apocalypse, present an examination of the moral depths and horror that extreme income inequality and  deprivation would force people to explore. In fact, the themes reflect two previous screenplays, Deep in the Woods (a man trades his daughter's life to save other members of his family) and You Have to Pay the Cost to Be the Boss (a man sells his body for  medical science experimentation). Both were published 2013 in The Dark Fantastic: 12 Short Screenplays [McQueen Press].

I kept writing on the same speculative themes until I had five total stories that occur in the same near future universe, a North America on the brink of dystopia.

I Disappear is told from the perspective of a theatrical actress breaking down on stage as a result of post-traumatic stress from unknown events. Alone With You Last Night is somewhat lighter given the twist, however the story still reveals the predatory acts that desperation inspires. And the final warning, Deprivation: The Apocalypse brings it all home with the utter destruction of a society plagued by income inequality.

These three screenplays and their accompanying storyboards were actually ready for publication in 2014! I held them for six years because I felt, somehow, they went too far. Way too far. Much too far, further even than The Dark Fantastic. They cast unfair aspersions upon society. They were over the top. They did way too much!

And then, MeToo. And