Monty Python Presents: On the Matter of John Lowe, Who Sought Rest and Was Assigned a Number
A Sort-of Screenplay based on American Horror Story: Hotel
(You want to know what the character projection is like? Here it is. My sleep has had its ups and downs for years, and the worst thing I can do to myself is take melatonin. Even a small dose makes me feel hallucinatory for days on end. I’m very sympathetic to the detective in Insomnia (1998). That light seeping through the paper curtains feels like the end of the world.)
TITLE CARD (over ominous AHS strings):
AMERICAN HORROR STORY: HOTEL
(the letters wobble slightly, then flicker, as if embarrassed by themselves)
INT. HOTEL CORTEZ – ROOM 64 – NIGHT
Detective JOHN LOWE enters the room with the confidence of a man who has some experience inhabiting a residential space the way it was designed to be inhabited, but hasn’t really dealt with the grandeur of a five-star hotel before, especially one that was last renovated in the late sixties, when Jim Morrison was out there, alive, incandescent, and which no one has really paid attention to since. Proudly clean carpet, with bleach stains where the dirt (some kind of red dirt, probably just saturated with iron) was. He could still see the faint rings of Saturn on a synthetic surface.
He was used to motels: troubled youth on the stairs, clutching six-packs of Bud Light like their love life depended on it, hardened patrons at the ketchup distribution centre, tissue on the floor, thank God, not the human kind. There was music and a bit of talk, too; things that you shut down with a knock on the door, a stern face, and a police badge. Works until the morning.
JOHN LOWE (V.O., serious, noir):
I just need sleep. Eight hours. Or six. Or four. Or some symbolic approximation thereof.
A LOUD DING.
A small HOTEL CLERK (inexplicably cheerful) pops up from behind the dresser.
CLERK:
Good evening, sir! Complimentary insomnia?
JOHN:
What?
CLERK:
Very popular this season. Includes minor hallucinations, residual guilt, and a small but persistent sense of being… cosmically frowned upon.
The clerk hands him a laminated card.
INSERT: CARD
ROOM 64 – “YOU WON’T.”
JOHN:
I just want to sleep.
CLERK:
Ah. Unfortunately, we don’t do that here.
The clerk vanishes with a poof and a faint kazoo noise.
John closes his eyes.
Immediately:
– A CLOCK begins ticking backward.
– The CEILING FAN starts rotating like a hypnotist’s pocket watch.
– The bed subtly lengthens, then shortens, then becomes too judgmental.
John opens his eyes again.
At the foot of the bed stands THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, but they’re arguing among themselves. Nobody knows what they look like, so ask your crew to build it up, and if anyone asks for references, hand them a laminated card that says: DO YOUR BEST. GOD WILL GRADE IT.
COMMANDMENT #4:
Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
COMMANDMENT #11 (new, clipboard):
Remember to lie awake replaying every mistake you’ve ever made, especially that one from 1998.
John sits up, rubbing his eyes, and reaches for his phone, which is somehow made nonexistent, or at least officially unavailable, in Room 64.
COMMANDMENT #9 (polishing its tablet):
Thou shalt not bear false witness.
JOHN:
My phone... This is a dream.
COMMANDMENT #9:
No, it isn’t.
JOHN:
Yes, it is.
COMMANDMENT #9 (checking clipboard):
If it were a dream, sir, it would have metaphor. This has administrative spite.
John looks around the room and falls back onto the pillow, deciding it must be the melatonin pills his wife gave him. He had hoped it would be something else. Anything else, for that matter.
JOHN:
I am being gaslit by furniture.
COMMANDMENT #11 (making a note):
Noted.
A small BELL rings somewhere inside the walls.
A NUMBER appears on John’s wrist. Not burned. Not glowing. Just… applied, like an exercise in calligraphy. It feels soothing, like rain on dry earth, like a problem being downgraded, like a witness’s complaint turning into background noise. John feels himself drifting, but he needs to ask the question.
JOHN:
What is that?
COMMANDMENT #4:
That is your position in the queue.
JOHN:
Queue for what?
COMMANDMENT #4:
Rest.
JOHN:
I don’t need a queue. I need a bed.
COMMANDMENT #4:
You are currently in a bed.
JOHN:
I need sleep.
COMMANDMENT #4:
That is what the queue is for.
John swings his legs off the mattress. The floor feels faintly upholstered, like the room tolerates his inquiries.
JOHN:
I’m a detective.
The Commandments glance at each other.
COMMANDMENT #11:
We have that on file.
JOHN:
You have a file on me?
COMMANDMENT #9 (flipping pages):
Several.
JOHN:
Why?
COMMANDMENT #9:
Because you insist on causal order.
JOHN:
That’s called being human.
COMMANDMENT #11:
It is also called noncompliance.
A thin slit opens in the wall.
A FORM slides out.
Then another.
Then another.
They pile at John’s feet like shy paper animals.
JOHN:
I’m not filling those out.
COMMANDMENT #4:
You already did.
John realizes he doesn’t remember opening them.
COMMANDMENT #9 (checking clipboard):
That is because you filed the memory under “nonessential.” Outstanding items take precedence.
John looks down at the forms, then at his hands, which feel older than they did a minute ago, like he’s been making this kind of choice for years.
JOHN:
I can still sleep.
COMMANDMENT #11 (making a note):
Attempt recorded.
The NUMBER on his wrist updates.
TITLE CARD:
ROOM 64 REMAINS UNOCCUPIED DUE TO “EXCESSIVE AWARENESS.”