Sweeper of Dreams (submitted for the MiniOperas script competition)

"Sweeper of
dreams"
Screenplay by
Just Jo
Based on an idea by
Neil Gaiman


Cast:

MAN
Around 40-45. Ragged and haggard, obsessed with the dreams he's collected over the years.

THE SWEEPER of dreams
Creature from the dream worlds, sweeps up discarded dreams in the morning, collects selected dreams from dreamers.
Tall, faceless, skeletally thin but imposing. Occasional glimpses of ageless eyes can be seen when his face is illuminated by the countless hand-rolled cigarettes he smokes.


The City

EXT. Skyline

Night.
The skyline of the sleeping city; some medium-sized sky scrapers far off, a distant spire of a church.
Spacious, not too urban, slightly more ambitious than a town.

EXT. Street
A lamp-lit street with closed doors and windows with the draperies closed.

EXT. pan forward in 1st person POV to show
a thin but visible trail of finely glistening sand, as if casually spilled from a leaking bucket as its
distributor passed from door to door. Someone's been visiting houses, sprinkling sparkling sand wherever (s)he went.

EXT. City
The city sleeps while the sand twinkles in the moonlight.

EXT. City, pan and fade in/out on sleepy residences while the foreground
images flash, projected onto the buildings, or in on-screen animation. An illusion of falling papers, pictures and images, shards of dreams, brief stills of temporary reality, sweated out into the night by the dreamers.

OVERLAY - images of dreams,
drawn in lush charcoal strokes on sepia-toned paper, falling down one after the
other:
Mommy with a cake.
A trio of nuns jumping hop-scotch in slow motion.
A child on a swing in a playground. The camera is attached to the swing, making it seem as if it is the playground which is in motion, and this child utterly still, unsmiling.
A man with wings, jumping off a building.
A woman with a babe at her breast, smiling like a saint.
An apple with a chunk bitten off, from which wriggles a worm wearing a top hat.
A doll with an evil grin and sharp needles for teeth.
A woman running down an endless corridor lined with squirming brambles, doors slamming shut on all sides.
The sun setting, shattering to pieces as it crashes down onto the far horizon.
A man in a three-piece suit, briefcase in hand, standing alone in room full of naked bodies, sweating and contorted in ecstasy. A expression somewhere between longing and regret on his
face.
A dead pigeon lying on the cracked pavement, turning into liquid slush.
Mommy with a cake, with a candle.
The candle winks out, and the last of the dreams flutters down as the pale dawn encroaches.


EXT. the street, bird's POV
Paper dreams litter the street, partly covering the shimmering trail of sand.
THE SWEEPER, dressed in a ragged long coat with many pockets, crammed with papers. A wide-brimmed hat conceals his face, but the red flickering light of his cigarette is glowing
underneath, flaring up whenever he drags from it.
He's sweeping in slow, deliberate sweeps at the sand and the paper dreams with a large willow-twig broom with a gnarly handle. Slowly, persistently, he's sweeping up all the sand and the dreams, onto a big pile in the middle of the street.
Whenever he passes one of the houses and sweeps the sand from its doorstep, the door opens. In pajamas and dressing gowns, with curlers in their hair and steaming mugs of morning glory in hand, the newly risen occupants smile and nod at the sweeper, handing him their fondest dreams, which he stuffs into the bulging pockets of his coat.
The SWEEPER doesn't speak, and he never reveals his emotions. He sweeps, and his face lights up underneath his hat whenever he drags his cigarette. He collects dreams, and passes from door to door. The discarded dreams go onto the pile in the street, the ones he's offered into his pockets.


EXT. the street, back shot of the SWEEPER
Follow the SWEEPER down the street as he passes from door to door.


EXT. the house at number 8, POV over the SWEEPER's shoulder
He reaches number 8, the number hanging askance, horizontally skewed like an infinity symbol. This door does not open. The SWEEPER halts in front of the house, leaning on his broom.
From his pocket, he casually pulls a sheet crumpled sheet of paper.

CLOSE UP of a creased paper dream, of a young man, standing up at a festive dinner table, tapping his knife to his glass as he addresses the guests, whilst smiling at a woman. A look of happiness passes between them.
The SWEEPER casually rolls up the paper between his fingers, rolling it into a cigarette, which he lights, his face glaring up briefly as sepia-coloured smoke curls upward.

EXT. close up shot of the window,
the drapes drawn to a slit. The curtain flutters, and we briefly see the startled, heavy-lidded eyes of a MAN, heavy stubble on his chin and disheveled clothes and hair, and the glowing tip of a lit cigarette. The curtains flutter closed again. Zoom out to reveal the city, all swept clean, a sparkling bonfire of sand and discarded dreams in the middle of the street. The SWEEPER still leaning on his broom, exhaling sepia smoke, in front of number 8.

INT. number 8
A succession of cramped and untidy rooms, sepia papers with charcoal drawings everywhere. A pervasive sense of disarray, of personal neglect, and manic obsessions with the paper dreams.
Stale grey smoke is clogging the air, distinctly and significantly different in hue from the smoke curling from the SWEEPER’s dream-spiked cigarettes.
The MAN is hoarding his dreams, stacking and sorting them in piles and binders, stashed away in bookcases lining the walls of his cramped little house. Feverishly, he picks up dreams, putting them down again elsewhere, tipping over piles of them as he rummages through the crumpled remains of his dreams. Smoking constantly, nervously swigging from bottles of amber booze. Now and again, he peers through the curtains onto the street, shrinking away at the sight of the red glow beneath the SWEEPER's hat.

EXT. the street, POV just outside the window of number 8, looking at the SWEEPER
The SWEEPER is still out there, leaning on his gnarly broom, watching the house at number 8.


EXT. the city, bird's eye POV, the house at number 8 at centre shot
Fast forward. Speed up the outside city life, with the head- and taillights of cars making red and white ribbons as time passes.
Every night, a sparkling trail is poured by an unseen force, stopping at every door. More paper dreams flutter every night, too many and too rapid to clearly make out, although each clearly
shows a fragment of a dream. Every morning, still in fast forward, but moving at a slower pace than the speeding world, the SWEEPER is clearing up the discarded dreams, sweeping them onto a pile, stopping at every door, which briefly opens as the residents pass their cherished dreams on to the him.

Overlay with the SWEEPER’s hands rolling more cigarettes from the dreams he’s collected. During the speeding day, the SWEEPER can be seen, outside of passing time, smoking up cherished dreams as he watches the house at number 8.

INT. number 8
The MAN is haggard and thin, eyes blood-shot, cigarette butts and empty bottles strewn all over the house.
Everywhere are hoarded dreams, crumpled papers and bulging binders. The MAN is frantically searching through them, clutching and tearing at them in an attempt find that one elusive dream. He pulls at a sheet at the bottom of a stack, straining at the effort, ripping the dream from under the teetering stack. He turns to the curtain, torn dream in hand, to peer at the red glow underneath the SWEEPER's hat.
The stack teeters and sways, topples and crashes, sheets with dreams fluttering everywhere like leaves from a tree.

CLOSE UP of a sheet showing
the severed hand of a statue, finger extended like Michaelangelo’s Creation of David, nudging a massive cogwheel, which clicks and spins.
When it comes full circle, we see the MAN is tied to it, helpless to stop the karmic turnings of fate. The turning wheel’s motion merges into a see-sawing motion of the paper falling down. It lands on the table, amidst the empty bottles and books and papers, onto an overfilled ash tray. Hold the shot, to show a warm circle of illumination shining through the paper from underneath. A small brown stain appears at the center of the circle, darkening, and a tiny wisp of sepia smoke
curls upward. The stain turns black, and then into a swiftly expanding red-rimmed hole, revealing the ashtray and a smoldering cigarette butt. The paper dream curls up in flame, igniting another which it partly covers.
Swiftly, elegantly sinister, the flames run from dream to dream, curling them up as the fire expands.

EXT. the street, POV over the SWEEPER's shoulder, looking at the window of number 8, a wisp of sepia smoke curling from under his hat.
The MAN startles from the window as he realises his predicament.

PAN slightly backwards, to a back shot of the SWEEPER with the house in the background, curtains sliding shut again.
The SWEEPER straightens in increased alertness; he senses the time has come.


ZOOM through the windows into the house, to the MAN
who struggles with the fire, torn between a mad desire to save his treasured dreams and combating the fire trying to steal them from him. He swats impotently at smoldering sheets, attempting vainly to stop the fire by dabbing at it with a hastily grabbed pullover, pulling dreams from piles and clutching them to his heart, but the fire is too far gone already, rearing up and
belching dream-scented sepia smoke. Everywhere, papers rustle with the updraft of the spreading fire.

HANDHELD shots following the MAN,
overcome with a mad panic, clutching at random dreams, some already burning, singeing his hands but unable to forsake them. The camera races around the house as it turns into an
inferno, sepia smoke billowing from the blazing shelves and cabinets, with the MAN, still grasping at his burning dreams, collapsing in the middle.

CLOSEUP of the MAN's hand,
feebly reaching for a smoldering sheet as it is snatched away by the updraft. The MAN's fingers
twitch and become limp as we
FADE OUT

FADE IN
EXT. the street, the smoldering husk of number 8 central shot.
A fire truck, with firemen rolling up their hoses and packing up their gear. Neighbours with their arms crossed across their hastily tied nightgowns, wide-eyed and shocked. The neighbouring houses are conspicuously unaffected.
The SWEEPER, unseen by all, leaning on his broom, watches the smoldering ruins of number 8. Ash and bits of paper spiral up from the burnt-out husk of the house, and flutter down again
onto the street.
A piece of paper, badly burnt, trailing a frail wisp of sepia smoke, flutters into focus, and the long
and spindly fingers of the SWEEPER snatch it from the air.

CLOSE UP of a piece of partly burnt paper,
a drawing of a photograph of the MAN, younger, healthier, clean-shaven. Smiling. Holding and held by a woman who can't be seen, as she's been burnt from the drawing. A background of sea
and sun and carefree happiness.

FROG's POV of the SWEEPER looking at the out-of-focus piece of dream. He nods, and the light under his hat slowly dims, as if he's blinking, just once.

PAN OUT slowly, turning to a back shot of the SWEEPER
walking down the street, rolling the smoldering remnant of the dream into an already lit
cigarette, and ing it to his mouth.

FAST FORWARD to more tail-lights and
glittering sand and falling sheets of dreams appearing and being swept up and the SWEEPER, outside of time, striding off-screen down the street, sepia smoke curling from under his hat.

THE END