ANT Script
Art by Nyle Manzano
1. INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT
A bowl of fruit sits on a dimly lit table. We push closer to an orange—close enough to see every pore of the orange’s skin. We can read the small round sticker: “Fresh organic oranges.” We stop on the sticker. The sticker moves, a little bulge in the middle. Then it rips open, the head of an ANT, poking out, confused, timid.
We see what it sees. The kitchen counter, a total mess. A tin can becomes an ominous monolithic structure towering above us. Ant looks out over the counter wasteland; it looks like a crumbling apocalyptic city. Salt and pepper shakers become the bombed-out shells of crumbling high rises.
Ant scans its surroundings, climbing to the top of the orange and looking around. Across the room, through a window, a full moon glows. Ant’s head perks up, looking on in awe.
2. INT. KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS
Ant walks the counter. It’s a complete mess: half-eaten food, balled-up tissues, handwritten letters, torn envelopes, a bottle of spilled prescription pills, a vase of mostly-dead flowers. A wilted petal falls from the stem, floating down onto the countertop.
Aerial as the ant passes over unpaid bills, a funeral memorial card of a smiling man who looks to be mid-20s. Ant stops right on top of it. We see in macro the man’s smile, as Ant examines the photo curiously. Ant moves on. We stay on the photo, pushing in.
3. INT. KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS
Ant comes around the side of salt and pepper shakers. On the other side is a different ant. Its head starts coming into view. Ant continues to round the shaker and sees there’s no body connected to the head. It looks like an ant skull lying on the countertop. Ant scurries away, frightened, and meets the edge of the counter.
Ant looks out over the kitchen to find dead ant bodies scattered everywhere. Groupings around ant traps, body parts, hellish. Ant backs up slowly and into a wall. Ant spins around startled, seeing a box of ant traps. Depicted large on the box like a billboard above Ant is a cartoon picture of a dead ant, with a woman angrily holding a bottle of killing spray. Ant looks at the woman on the box, horrified, and scurries away.
Suddenly the lights flick on. Ant spins around. A woman enters the kitchen: a towering giant. Ant tilts its head back looking up as she passes by, frozen with fear. The woman’s back is to Ant as she prepares a sandwich on a different counter. Ant watches the woman. The woman finishes making the sandwich, and turns toward the counter where Ant sits.
A massive shadow comes over the table; a huge plate comes down from the sky blocking out the light. Ant stays hidden, barely poking its head out. The woman goes to take a bite of the sandwich. She looks very tired, with dark circles under her eyes. She slowly chews. She looks around at everything on the table and slowly sets the sandwich down.
A beat. She pulls the trash can over to the side of the table. Ant tips its head, curious. The woman starts clearing the table of tissues and old food. A stack of dirty dishes starts to pile up. Ant watches. The trash can, previously half-full, is now overflowing. The woman is only about halfway done cleaning the table and starts to tie up the bag.
Ant watches as she takes out the bag, walks around the room, and stands in the window under the moonlight. She opens a door next to the moon and exits the house. She passes in front of the moon in silhouette outside.
Ant’s head rises, looking at the bag in her hand. Filled with new determination, Ant steps away.
4. INT. KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS
The woman enters the kitchen again and pulls a new trash bag out in slow motion. She carries just the bag around the table and forgets the can. Ant watches, now carefully hiding in a balled-up tissue. The woman cleans gradually closer and closer until the tissue adjacent to Ant’s is picked up and placed in the bag.
Her hand comes down for Ant’s tissue. Ant braces for impact. She stops and picks up something behind Ant. It’s the memorial card of the man. She looks at it with a soft smile.
The woman drops the trash bag and walks across the kitchen, pinning it to the fridge. Ant watches from its hiding place. Rack focus to the foreground where a wedding photo of the man and the woman sits next to Ant like a towering monolith.
The woman turns around with tears in her eyes and sits at the table. She grabs one of the cards from the stack and opens it. She begins to cry more heavily as she reads it. Ant watches as a massive water droplet hits the table and explodes like a bomb.
Eventually the woman rests her head on the table, face-down in her arms. Ant looks at the box of ant killer, at the scary angry woman. The real woman sobs softly. There is no other sound.
A beat. Then, a rustle. In front of the woman’s arms in an open space on the counter, a tissue seems to be walking slowly toward the woman. We boom down below the tissue; with all of its strength, Ant holds the tissue ball above its head. It stops in the open space in front of the woman.
The woman timidly lifts her head. Ant grasps the bottom of the tissue. The woman grabs the tissue, lifting it to her eyes, softly patting the tears. Ant clings to the opposite side, just out of sight. A beat.
The woman tosses the tissue, Ant spins in a free fall that feels like forever. Everything goes black.
5. INT. TRASH BAG - CONTINUOUS
Ant crawls around the other side of the tissue, looking up eagerly to the table. The woman collects herself and grabs a few more pieces of trash from the table, tossing them into the bag. Rubble falls around Ant.
The woman grabs the bag. Walls of trash collapse around Ant. Once again, all goes black.
6. EXT. YARD - NIGHT
A towering heap of trash sticks out from a barrel. Behind it, the glowing moon. A rustling. Ant emerges from the heap, beginning to scale it. Climbing over the tissues, food scraps, pill bottle, and ant killer box, Ant looks at the moon. Ant looks triumphant, finally outside, finally home. Tranquil.
Ant turns and looks at the house. The woman stands silhouetted in the window. She looks at the now-clean kitchen, admiring her work. For the second time ever, we see a smile. Ant turns back around to the moon.
Rustling. Ant turns to see another ant, climbing up the side of the barrel and up the trash hill. They meet, silhouetted by the moon.