AN UNFORTUNATE SHRINKING, 2025

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BACK TO PART ONE

AN UNFORTUNATE SHRINKING

(text only)

1.1 Scene 1.

Establishing shot of inn from outside with title: “An Unfortunate Shrinking.” A 1961 Mercury Comet goes up a forest road and into the parking lot.

 

 

1.2 View from within car out windshield as it pulls up to inn. There’s another car already parked. Old DR. HATCH is slumped on the porch.

 

 

1.3 JACK: (driving car, speaking to PARTYGOERS in back seat) There’s Abby’s Toyota. (all exit car carrying bottles) (walking past car, speaking to PARTYGOERS) Check her car for duffel bags. Let’s say hello.

 

 

1.4 JACK: (to DR. HATCH) Hey Doctor Hatch. What’re you doing here? Wife kick you out again?

DR. HATCH: Thought I’d get some air is all. Hear about the bank robbery?

 

 

1.5 JACK: (ignoring question) You know Wiser lost his license too, right? No booze.

DR. HATCH: (slowly getting up from porch) But you always bring a party, Jacky!

JACK: Abby inside?

DR. HATCH: Oh yes! She and her soldier boyfriend just checked in. Great to see her here again! Old times!

JACK: Shut up, Doc.

 

 

 1.6 Interior: Main room.

MRS. WISER medium-sized, Wisers sitting around.

MRS. WISER: Hear that, innkeeper! More of your hens coming home to roost!

 

 

1.7 JACK and PARTYGOERS arrive, loud crowd talking.

DR. HATCH reels in with crowd. Puts hand on JACK's shoulder. JACK throws him off.

 

 

1.8 JACK: Get off, Down-the-Hatch!

DR. HATCH staggers over to MRS. WISER.

 

 

1.9 DR. HATCH: Why Mrs. Wiser, you’ve shrunk!

MRS. WISER: Oh Doctor Hatch, what can an old woman do? I’m in such pain unless my boy rocks me like a babe. (getting on TOBY’s lap) It’s a sad state, cheese and crackers, got all muddy, a sad state.

 

 

1.10 DR. HATCH: Now I know I’ve been out of office lately (lodgers snigger) on account of mourning my recently departed clients. But I can (swaying, pontificating) still advise an old patient, can’t I? 

TOBY: She’s gonna shrink away Dad says.

 

 

1.11 WISER: (butting in) If he keeps rockin’ her! That’s what does it! The boy can’t stand her moanin’ and won’t leave her be. He’s babying her!

 

 

1.12 DR. HATCH: Tut tut. 

MRS. WISER: This is my sweet boy, Toby.

DR. HATCH: Toby. Toby. (pause) Toby. Toby. Toby.

TOBY: Why are you saying my name over and over?

 

 

1.13 DR. HATCH: (ignoring that, to MRS. WISER) Hats that smoke! Lice cookers! Hypochondriacs! Diarrhea diadems! (strange voice) AL-BI-NO abortions!

MRS. WISER: Cheese and crackers!

 

 

1.14 ABBY and SOLDIER stick their heads out of the guestroom door, into main room. JACK intercepts and gently persuades them back inside.

 

 

1.15 TOBY waves to ABBY but she’s gone.

TOBY: (fleetingly) Everything OK Abby?

MRS. WISER: (yelling at closed door) Ahh! You two are paying extra for an orgy!

 

 

1.16 WISER: Shh! He’s a serviceman.

MRS. WISER: Faugh! He’s a serviceman and she services men! Wonderful! Ahh!

TOBY: Mom! Don’t get upset! Your pains!

DR. HATCH: (pot-valiant) As of the latest research in oss-tee-oh-puh-ro-sis, when we say older people shrink, we don't mean they become tiny enough to live in your pocket! Like a baby mouse or a …a…

 

 

 

1.17 TOBY: Watch?

DR. HATCH: Right. We just mean that it’s common for old maids to become a little shorter. It isn’t dramatic or sudden. It takes place over years and may add up to only an inch or so maybe a little more, maybe less. A foot at most. This kind of shrinking can’t be reversed. (impressively) But why does shrinking happen at all?

TOBY: Why?

 

 

1.18 DR. HATCH: Now listen Tony, as people get older, they generally lose some muscle. Gravity, that force

that keeps your feet on the ground (TOBY looks

at his feet), takes hold, and the disks, or the

cushions between the bones in the spine,

get compressed. (acting it out with

hands) The back bones end up

pressing closer together, which

makes a person shrink. Once

you get a goodnight’s

rest, your body

recovers,

and the

next

day

 

 

1.19 DR. HATCH: …you’re standing tall again. (DR. HATCH falls to the ground)

MRS. WISER slips off TOBY’s lap.

 

 

1.20 Exterior: Looking back toward inn.

JACK: (grabbing the stumbling doctor and throwing him out of the house; then grabs his back) Dead weight! Get out of here you slur-bones! 

 

 

1.21 DR. HATCH: (splayed on ground near cars) Where am I supposed to stay then?

JACK: Out of practice? Sleep in the woods, it’s good for the constitution. Look me up when you get your prescription pad back!

 

 

1.22 Interior.

JACK: (turns to inside smiling) That’s some doctor.

TOBY: (softly) I heard Doctor Hatch steals medicine.

 

 

1.23 JACK: (to TOBY) The dying don’t need medicine

do they?

PARTYGOERS giggle.

End scene.

 

 

2.1 Scene 2.

JACK opens door to guestroom. Does not enter.

JACK: (to PARTYGOERS) Go introduce yourselves. Give my Abby something to relax her. (yelling now after them as they file into the guestroom) Blonde women must drink white wine! I’ll be right in.

 

 

2.2 JACK returns to Wisers; sits on bench.

MRS. WISER: (leaning forward; to JACK) Go on get. (to TOBY) Toby, my pains! 

TOBY pulls her back up on his lap.

WISER: What you want now Jack?

MRS. WISER: (to JACK, with dignity) May your arguments drive nothing home but your guests. 

 

 

2.3 JACK: (calm, ignoring MRS. WISER) I don’t know if you’ve seen the posters but there’s been some horrible mix up and the cops might be looking for our Abby. Now, of course they’ve got it all wrong. Abby wouldn’t steal a glance. We’re just going to keep her here tonight at your inn. Tomorrow she’ll be on her way.

 

 

2.4 WISER: I don’t want to know—We don’t go milling around for trouble.

 

 

2.5 MRS. WISER: (shrinking; voice rises in pitch) We should call the police is what we ought to do! 

JACK: (calmly playing with a knife now to general alarm) Oh short stuff, you know I’m on probation. Can’t have that, little lady. No, Abby and her soldier are going to have a little party here tonight—a going away party. That’s all. It’s nothing to get upset about. She’s completely innocent as I've told you.

 

 

2.6 TOBY: (earnestly) I knew it.

 

 

2.7 MRS. WISER: Pshaw! Rock me a little, Tobias. Just a little for my pains. (he does)

TOBY rocks her and she slowly shrinks.

 

 

2.8 MRS. WISER: (in an eerie, sing-song voice no one seems to hear) An outlaw will come to cauterize the family house for its crimes! There is no escape from fate. It’s always been too late!

 

 

2.9 JACK: Hey Toby, you want to go run an errand for me? You’re not scared of [SFX: a long censoring beep] are you? 

A giant black spider smiles in back corner.

TOBY: Yes.

 

 

2.10 JACK: Oh, yes. That’s right. Thought you might want to make some money. Now that your bar’s barred. (to WISER, speaking falsely) How’d that come to pass again, older-and-Wiser?

WISER: Who knows.

JACK: Maybe Abby knows why your bar’s closed. Maybe she has some girlfriends who know something about it.

 

 

2.11 WISER: Leave us be, we won’t tell nobody.

JACK: (leaving for his room) Sure sure, Mr. None-the-Wiser.

MRS. WISER: Are you going to apologize!

JACK: Sorry, no.

 

 

2.12 JACK: By the way, Abby didn’t have any bags with her when she came in did she?

WISER: (slightly staggered) I don’t think so Jack. Just her pink purse.

JACK: Wouldn’t want the girl to leave without her

bags, now.

WISER: I didn’t see no bags, I said.

JACK: Well, so you did.

 

 

2.13 Guestroom door opens and SOLDIER is about to storm out of the house, intercepted by JACK from front and ABBY tugging from behind.

 

 

2.14 They all go back into the guestroom.

End scene.

 

 

3.1 Scene 3.

Interior: Guestroom.

Establishing shot: Drinking PARTYGOERS at far wall.

SFX: Indistinct talking and music.

 

 

3.2 Establishing shot: SOLDIER, JACK, and ABBY huddled by closed door.

SOLDIER: Who are these people? (motions toward door with a “knife hand”) This is a real hotel?

JACK: He talks! I thought Iraq got his tongue. 

ABBY: (ignoring comment, to SOLDIER) We’ll leave in the morning like we said. Jack’s going to help, aren’t

you Jack?

 

 

3.3 JACK: Said I would. (looks around)

Shot of animal trophies on walls.

JACK: The smell here is unsolvable.

 

 

3.4 SOLDIER: Enough with your talking. There’s no end to people talking.

JACK: At ease, hurt locker! (Still to SOLDIER, but offhandedly) Where’s your bomb by the way? The one for today’s withdrawal mission.

 

 

3.5 ABBY: Shut up. (to SOLDIER) This is Mrs. Wiser’s place. I’m the one with a reason to hate it here. It’s

one night.

JACK: (to ABBY) Abby damned.

 

 

3.6 JACK: (as if confidentially, to SOLDIER) Beauty is in the mind of the beast. (hand to side of mouth as if confiding) She’s like looking into someone else’s refrigerator.

 

 

3.7 ABBY: Stop it.

JACK: (big smile) Of course. My word is my blonde. Let’s drink to your good fortune!

ABBY: Why won’t you let me go to sleep? (clutches bomb purse to her chest; spacey) It takes a lot out

of you. 

JACK: What does, sleep?

 

 

3.8 JACK: (to SOLDIER, hand to side of mouth) She pulls off a heist like she pulls off her dress.

SOLDIER pushes JACK in the chest half-heartedly.

 

 

3.9 ABBY: (spacey, pointing vaguely at PARTYGOERS) Who are these people?

 

 

3.10 Shot of PARTYGOERS on chairs.

End scene.

 

 

4.1 Scene 4.

Interior: Main room.

Establishing shot: Wisers cleaning up, settling down to watch TV. Muffled music from the guest room.

 

 

4.2 MRS. WISER: That boy is a class-A hoodlum. What kind of name is Jack?

WISER: My name is John…

MRS. WISER: So what?

WISER: Quiet now.

 

 

4.3 MRS. WISER: HOODLUM! HOODLUM! Why should I be quiet in MY OWN HOUSE? First we have the bar of all sinning things and all the swearin’ and dumb drunks stomping ’round in muddy boots and the glasses chipped so they cut my lip when maybe I want a little warm feeling for myself before bed, and now no bar and my home’s a whorish MOTEL! My FATHER would tell you something … (exaggerating name) JOHN!

 

 

4.4 WISER: (dry) Your dad would be 110 years old.

MRS. WISER: (bends over whimpering) Oh my belly my back oh everything! Toby!

TOBY picks her up and sits in rocking chair.

TOBY: (to WISER) I’ll only rock her for a minute.

Rocking and shrinking.

 

 

4.5 MRS. WISER: (in an eerie, sing-song voice no one seems to hear) My hour has come—Destruction to this house of bums and dastards! Scattered thus you’ll give me my revenge; go and enrich some other woman with pruriency and

lazy ruin!

 

 

4.6 We hear the murmur of a nondescript show. Blue light on family, lowered light. The rest of the scene spoken as if in a stupor as they are also watching

the TV.

 

 

4.7 TOBY: I love mommy.

MRS. WISER: Toby is strong. 

WISER: I used to be strong but now I’m old. 

MRS. WISER: I was never strong and now I’m less strong. I’m worse than old. I’m sick.

 

 

4.8 WISER: You are fouling up my life. No one likes sick people. They smell like wet potato chips.

 

 

4.9 TOBY: I love my little mommy!

MRS. WISER: (to WISER, crying now) You shouldn’t say such things! My daddy left me this house! Because you can’t take it with you. My house!

 

 

4.10 WISER: I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

TOBY: He’s sorry, mommy. He’s just a weak old man. 

WISER: (crying) I know. And they’ve shut down my bar. My bar!

 

 

4.11 TOBY: Because daddy let the high school

kids drink!

MRS. WISER: At least he let the girls drink! 

TOBY: Daddy let the girls drink for free. 

WISER: I did! I did! Oh! But not for free. (smile) It wasn’t exactly free!

 

 

 

4.12 MRS. WISER: (not complicit, in a trance) Not precisely free!

TOBY: (not complicit, in a trance) It wasn’t free at all!

 

 

4.13 WISER: (calm, all falling asleep) Oh well.

Wisers fall asleep in their chairs as party sounds go on in unseen guestroom. MRS. WISER in TOBY’s arms.

End scene.

 

 

 

5.1 Scene 5.

Establishing shot: Shot of Wiser family from behind with TV in background. Zoom in on screen.

SFX: TV gets audible, we hear an old movie interrupted by a newsbreak about ABBY’s bank robbery.

 

 

5.2 ACTRESS: (close-up; smoking; speaking slowly) Sleep comes like a clear, canceled wave. Yet our minds dart untouched in all directions.

SFX: Saw and violin background music swells.

ACTRESS: He says people who smoke have ghosts. This policeman.

 

 

5.3 ACTRESS looks out window, we see a charging mob in the dark.

ACTRESS: How different at night is listlessness.

Mob shown approaching.

SFX: Film is cut off with an emergency tone.

 

 

5.4 Interior: A news studio.

ANCHORMAN: (at desk) We interrupt this broadcast with breaking news. We have security footage of the recent bank robbery. The criminal at large? A young lady now being called the Barbie Bandit. Roll tape.

 

 

5.5 Interior: A bank lobby shot through security cameras.

TELLER: Look at that smile! Can I help you?

ABBY: (holding her purse in both hands) Scooby Doo. Help you. Skip to my lou. Kaboom kaboom.

 

 

 

 

5.6 Shot of Wiser family asleep, lit by TV.

MRS. WISER slips off TOBY’s lap and finds a trap door to enter the following frame.

 

 

5.7 MRS. WISER flies through outer space and spider webs until she finds another frame.

 

 

5.8 It’s a ¾ shot of the TV.

MRS. WISER finds a small door in the side of the TV and enters.

 

5.9 Interior: A bank lobby shot through security cameras.

MRS. WISER appears, child-small and flustered.

PERSON IN LINE: Where did you come from? This is a line, you itty-biddy!

MRS. WISER: (panicked) Wrong is something. Something is growing in the wrong—

 

 

5.10 TELLER: (to ABBY) You look like a fun gal. I must be dreaming.

ABBY: You look tired.

TELLER: All tellers are tired.

ABBY: (spacey) I feel like someone in someone else’s dream. If you ever see me when you’re awake, tell me I said… “Don’t be afraid. They will tell us exactly what

to do.”

 

 

5.11 TELLER: (slyly) We could meet later and talk if you like. But (normal volume) what’s your name and account number? (slyly again) The people behind you are going to kill you!

 

 

5.12 Shot of line of bank customers.

MRS. WISER disappears.

 

 

5.13 ABBY: Don’t worry about people. There’s enough skin in this world to cover the moon.

TELLER: (looking past Abby) Did you see that little

old woman?

 

 

5.14 ABBY: Guess what? Stick ’em up! (giggling) I’ve got a bomb; put all the money in a bag. (to line of people, loud) I’ve got a BOMB in my purse! (ABBY hoists purse high, unzips it, and shows it to all around her.

Screams heard.)

 

 

5.15 Pull away from screen; lights and TV out.

End scene.

 

 

6.1 Scene 6.

Interior: Main room.

Establishing shot: WISER and TOBY sitting around TV, sleeping.

 

 

6.2 WISER: (wakes up) Toby! Where’s your Ma?

TOBY: What? Where’s Ma? (gets up; looks down) Oh!

WISER and TOBY get up, looking at floor. They are

on tiptoes.

 

 

6.3 ABBY (with her bag in hand), JACK, SOLDIER, etc. enter from guestroom hearing the ruckus.

 

 

6.4 WISER: You done shrunk her—she’s like a little bug now, dummy. (to floor) Honey pie, where are you? Mooshy! Moo-moo!

TOBY: I saw her fall down off my lap. She’s gotta be here somewhere!

TOBY and WISER are on hands and knees, upset.

Time passes. They search without speaking.

 

 

6.5 From MRS. WISER’s perspective, running from huge shoes, etc.

 

 

6.6 WISER: (to guests, finally) You galoots get back in your room or get lost!

The guests laugh. The PARTYGOERS stay to watch.

 

 

6.7 ABBY, SOLDIER, JACK return to their room.

ABBY returning to the couch; clutching purse.

ABBY: Sirens. I hear sirens s-somewhere. 

 

 

6.8 TOBY: She’s gotta be here s-somewhere!

WISER: Maybe in a mouse’s belly, you dope! Momma’s-boy bastard! (mimicking TOBY) “Jes rockin’ jes rockin’, Sweet Saint Andrew, she needs a comfurt’” WE need a flashlight!

 

 

6.9 TOBY: Oh NO! I found her, Pa! She’s been stepped on by somebody.

 

 

6.10 TOBY swings his head around room; he’s picked up something and holds it in cupped hands.

TOBY: Look!

PARTYGOERS try to see; almost drops her again.

 

 

6.11 Interior: Guestroom.

ABBY in background looking in her bag; SOLDIER and JACK in foreground talking to each other.

ABBY: (to herself) Sirens! Louder and closer. And shrinking in.

 

 

6.12 Interior: Main room.

WISER: Give her here boy! (shakes head) Gawd

all muddy.

TOBY: (shouting) Someone call Doctor Hatch!

TOBY and WISER huddle over speck in WISER’s hands.

 

 

6.13 TOBY cries.

WISER walks to front door.

TOBY: (upset) What you DOIN’ Dad? Where you goin’?

SFX: Faint sound of police sirens.

 

 

6.14 Exterior: Establishing shot. Front of inn, surrounded by dark forest.

 

 

6.15 The stars grow white spider legs, these shrivel, and the stars expand out into large white cones, headlights, to the sound of crying.

 

 

6.16 TOBY on porch in front of open door; WISER walking into darkness.

 

 

6.17 WISER: (calling back) She’s left us, son. I’m gonna bury her by the apple tree.

SFX: The loudening sound of police sirens, cars on gravel.

Blue and red lights in the trees.

 

 

6.18 WISER digging a divot with one hand, other holding MRS. WISER. He’s lit red and blue from front.

 

 

6.19 Then suddenly bright white from back.  

SFX: Sound of an explosion.

 

 

6.20 Shot of burning building, then rising to sky.

Stars are white spiders.

 

6.21 Zoom in on one smiling spider in the sky.

 

 

6.22 All white. End.