SOP
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Somewhere in the region of seven-hundred-and-fifty-thousand medical files are stored in a remote warehouse leased to a well-regarded medical insurance company. The project is as follows; to manually re-organise each file into three distinct sections, digitally scan each section, and upload to the company’s state-of-the-art archive and retrieval system. The end result of this endeavour is to ensure that at the push of a button some drone in the Stockholm office or in the Buenos Aires office or in the Dundalk office may easily access a detailed description of Mrs So-and-So’s stool samples. Despite the considerable time and resources invested thus far in the project, acceptable progress has not been achieved by the company.
2.0 SETTING
This warehouse we are speaking of is a cold draughty place – the sound of the same inane radio station echoes through it all day long, as an ongoing crime against sanity. The warehouse is positioned at the end of an otherwise deserted cul-de-sac, in the middle of a derelict industrial estate, two miles from an isolated midlands town. Random graffiti covers gable end brickwork. A shopping trolley containing a traffic cone has been abandoned in the rear car-park. Roads in this estate end abruptly in undeveloped wasteland. All of the other businesses in the industrial estate have failed: their shutters are permanently drawn. Inside this particular warehouse we are speaking about – people feed machines with paper. Talking is not permitted. Break times are strictly monitored. High staff turnover has been identified as a key hindrance to the project’s success. The deadline has been extended on four separate occasions. Another extension to the deadline has been sought by the Project Manager. His name is Dunphy. He is currently experiencing a moment of self-doubt in the disabled toilets.
3.0 REFERENCES
A meeting has been scheduled among the directors in each department of the organisation so they can learn more about the progress of this crucial digitization project. The directors are already seated in a makeshift boardroom; tables have been pushed together and covered with white cloth; there are bottles of still and sparkling water. Upside-down glasses stand patiently next to the bottles. At lunchtime a company of caterers will arrive with platters of expensive sandwiches and gourmet coffee. The directors are clock-watching; privately hoping that this bloody thing won’t go on too long i.e. all day. They have laptops open – to continue to work on other – more pressing concerns. I have no record of these other concerns to discuss.
4.0 RESPONSIBILITY
In a toilet cubicle. Pale light caresses the forehead of a skeleton. His eyes are hidden within darkened sockets as he witnesses the steady birth and death of droplets. Cramp moves sneakily up the back of both thighs. This is the only place in the whole warehouse where he can hide with immunity. Everything in the digitization project has been building over the last eighteen months – to this moment of truth. He must get the presentation right. If any hope remains of escaping from the warehouse and re-igniting his damp career then this presentation must impress all those assembled. But first he must regain control of bowels that have been vigorously chiming through the morning and the greater part of the previous night.
Inside the boardroom there is a growing sense of unease among the directors. They all want to get started on ‘this bloody thing’ as it has been unlovingly christened. A low hum of mutiny floats in circular fashion around the room and Mr Spence, who checked on Dunphy’s whereabouts earlier, is asked what the hell is going on and where is he? Spence first colours around the cheeks; before quietly informing the room that Dunphy is still in the toilet. Well perhaps someone should go and check on him? Spence already did. Ten minutes ago. Who is the least senior person in the room that can be dispensed to the bathroom to check on Dunphy? With nobody willing to concede seniority Spence is sent again, muttering angrily.
Moments later, as Dunphy mentally runs through the slides in his presentation, the door of the toilet cubicle is rapped. Dunphy’s unwilling to give away his location. The last thing he wants is to identify that it’s him with his pants down; fretting, wondering why he had to drink that second cup of coffee – half-paralysed (excepting his sphincter) with anxiety; and feeling so very uncomfortable inside his own skin. It would be much better if that person left him alone, to gather his thoughts, to run through them one more time. He silences his breathing, plugs his two lips together. This is supposed to give the impression that he is not there. Where else could he be? The cubicle door is rapped again. Cheeks burning, eyes bulging. He refuses to allow himself be identified. “Dunphy, come on, we’re all waiting for you out here” says the owner of the knuckles. “Just be another minute” he hears himself answer, post-exhalation; in a voice that is so wretchedly puny that it only serves to embarrass them both.
When the coast is clear (slammed door) he stands up, trousers bunched around ankles. The sensation of pins and needles is outrageous and connected to the length of time he has been sitting there. It tingles all the way up to his knees. Blood flowing through the capillaries once more. He tries to take a step and on numbed feet realizes he is stuck fast to the spot where his feet are planted. Instead he clings to the walls of the cubicle, for support. A couple of baby-steps gets him as far as the door. All he can do for the moment is wait; it shouldn’t take much longer. Just a few more moments. He checks his watch. A few minutes still to go before he is scheduled to begin. Needless to say he doesn’t know that his watch is five minutes slow. What he does know, is that he has a wonderful opening, to his presentation. ‘When you think about it, the mind is a kind of warehouse, isn’t it? A warehouse for memories…’ He imagines himself saying this line with a confident air, a faintly ironic smirk. ‘The digitization process we are undertaking is the memory formation in advance of the recall function in this mind…’
Nice opening.
Then let the slides speak for themselves.
It couldn’t be easier.
5.0 DEFINITIONS
Stage Fright = the anxiety, fear, or persistent phobia which may be aroused in an individual by the requirement to perform in front of an audience, whether actually or potentially.
6.0 PROCEDURE
It couldn’t have been easier until he began to imagine the nitty-gritty, so to speak of the impending presentation; the room an enormous amphitheatre; the sound of voices, of chairs scraping across the floor; briefcases slidingacross the table; an odour of sweat from shirt-sleeved armpits; the muttering and sulking and coughing into cupped hands; the audience members scratching themselves around the thighs, adjusting the height of their socks; tapping their pencils on the table; removing eyelashes, sticking pencils in their ears. On the walk from the cubicle to the board-room these images brought with them a trembling nausea that caused him to take a minor detour via the kitchen. He rationalized the detour by a need for water – his throat feeling dryer than a mouthful of dessert sand on a bed of burnt toast. In the empty kitchen he drinks with a shaky hand that spills water on his shirt, necessitating another delay.
Up to then he had felt in control of his nerves; focused on delivering the key messages contained in his slides. But now the imagined audience grows silent, awaits his introduction; his first slide consists merely of random words without any inter-relationship; in the back of his throat a constriction of the air passage stops him from taking anything but hurried breaths. And though he has prepared meticulously over the previous week, practising what he is going to say, over and over again – at this imagined moment his mind is completely blank.
Fantastically blank. And just as his hysteria peaks, a hush, before a sententious voice announces to all present that Dunphy really ought to start over again and stop wasting everyone’s time.
Which he does; in a voice so shaky, so unrecognisable – that he is immediately forced to stop. Pretending to consult his notes he takes a series of shallow breaths. After a long silence he tries to begin again, for a third time, but now has developed the hiccups and cannot discern his own hand-writing. His audience writhes in awful silence as he stumbles and falls from word to word. Not one shred of sympathy on any of those expressionless faces. The-hiccup-project-hiccup-by-least-hiccup-months. This is the last thing he has to say. Then he curls up like a piece of paper caught in the flame. Voices from all over the room heckle and sneer in loud unctuous voices filled with incredulity. They are of course seeking to impress the Senior Vice President who faces Dunphy at the distant end of the boardroom table. They shake their heads and tut-tut. Frankly from here the fantasy becomes much too ridiculous to describe…
***
Dunphy is uncertain that he will be able get up high enough. The fencing behind the warehouse is easily over eight foot high. He stands on the shopping trolley and utilizes the peak of the traffic cone, reaches up, grabs hold, pushes off the summit; with an audible grunt he clings. The fencing rocks with his weight; only thing he can rely on is his sheer determination to get over the top. His arms strain, his body shudders; in a slug-like manner he glides along the top edge; un-hooks the barbed wire from his pants; closes his eyes; swings down over the other side of the fencing – then falls through the air and lands on the other side. Turning around he finds himself with a brand new perspective on the derelict wasteland. He wants to run; but will have to make do with limping. He has damaged ankle ligaments.
Meanwhile Spence is being attacked from all sides. No, there is no sign of Dunphy in the toilets. Yes, he did check both cubicles. He doesn’t know. He has no idea where Dunphy might be, or could be, but of course he knows where Dunphy should be. Yes: well that has nothing to do with him! A raised venetian blind reveals Dunphy’s car is still parked outside. Is this some kind of joke, someone asks? The general consensus is that Dunphy has had another one of his ‘episodes’. Not again. A man without a neck of any description (director of R&D) slams down his bottle of water. He has better things to do than…sitting here! A search party is organised. Dunphy has to be in the building somewhere. They split up into groups and go looking for the errant executive, calling his name, peering behind the doors, shelving.
7.0 ATTACHMENTS
As Dunphy limps, into the abyss of abandoned buildings and dried-up dog shit – his future life morphs into a single fast-paced montage; explosions of one realisation after another rock an already damaged internal structure. The explosions are imagined outcomes arising from his decision (taken just now) to permanently escape from the cloying debasement of working in the warehouse. Naturally he could never go back to that place and be jeered at, or even worse, patronised by the same bastards who had taken away all his responsibilities at head office and marooned him in that place. If he would not return to the digitization management role then his position with the well-regarded medical insurance company was untenable. He knew that – they didn’t need to tell him that. Naturally the next step would be to tell his ex-wife and handle her myriad questions aimed at him from every angle. This of course would have ramifications in terms of their maintenance agreement; company car; his life assurance; his pension; their health-insurance; his rental property; the outstanding mortgage payments.
All of these things playing on his mind when he turns a corner, an actual corner, and interrupts a scene that has nothing to do with him and in which he ought never to have stumbled upon. Three of them, scrofulous, head-shaven; all wearing remnants from a discarded wardrobe – a bag of clothes dumped onto the floor of a charity shop: mis-matched outfits that do not fit them and seem a long time past current fashions. They are small men or even boys. The three of them all regard him with the same mixture of surprise and indignation. This is an alleyway between a dis-used sign-factory and a dead garage still oozing oil, grease; the stench of shit is unbearable. Not only are they surprised but they are guilty-faced, for cowering between their knees, he spies an emaciated grey-hound who has been beaten with sticks and yet still whines, pitifully, hopeful that the attack will soon stop.
“What you looking at?” snarls one. They are just boys. Another curls his lip to reveal a top row of distended yellow fangs. He takes a threatening step toward Dunphy; carries a pointy stick, the tip stained in blood. “…looks like he’s going to cry” exclaims another. The trio double-over with laughter and point their sticks at him. Easy now, easy Alan, don’t be a hero, and yet he cannot help but get among them; cannot help swinging fists, slapping ears, pulling hair, gouging eyes; all the while with his own eyes closed, screaming at the top of his lungs.
8.0 VERSION HISTORY
In an enormous warehouse, belonging to a well-known medical insurance company, housing over seven-hundred-and-fifty-thousand separate medical files, a group of middle-aged men are putting back on their suit jackets; grimacing awkwardly at each other – while filling their briefcases with the same useless paraphernalia that they dragged along with them to this god-forsaken shit-hole. A convoy of taxis will whisk away these men of industry; back to head office, back to civilization. It really has been a waste of all their mornings. Nevertheless the fact remains that each file in this warehouse needs to be manually re-organised into three distinct sections, digitally scanned and then put up onto the company’s system. It says so on the very first of Dunphy’s redundant slides. If only the slides really could have spoken for themselves. Instead the overhead projector is powered down and Dunphy is far away, fighting his way through the narrow alleyways – armed with a piece of copper piping, followed by a greyhound who limps, like him, as they try to find a way out of a nightmare of dead-ends, keeping just ahead of the enlarged gang of feral boys who are pursuing them.
Brian Coughlan has a Masters Degree in Screenwriting from NUIG. He has published work with The Bohemyth, The Galway Review, Storgy, Write Out Publishing, Toasted Cheese and LitroNY. In 2014 he was shortlisted for the Industry Insider TV Pilot Contest as a co-creator of the drama series Panacea. He is a member of the Galway Scriptwriters Group since 2013.
