Fiction

Sneak Preview: Merchant-Ivory's Hostel

FADE IN:

INT. A GRUESOME TORTURE CHAMBER IN BRATISLAVA

CLOSE-UP: PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

He’s strapped naked to a decaying dentist’s chair. As sweat oozes from his pores and tears fill his eyes, he screams incessantly, in the grips of extreme agony.

        SHELLEY
Stop! Stop! Oh God make it stop!
Pleeeeeeeeeaaaaaaasssse!

His thrashes violently and whips his head from side to side, restrained by a crude leather harness.

PULL BACK …

to reveal his tormenter … OSCAR WILDE, holding a leather-bound volume of his own complete works and slowly circling his helpless victim.

        WILDE
    (Reads)
Genius is born—not paid.

        SHELLEY
Stop!

        WILDE
Morality, like art, means drawing a line
someplace.

        SHELLEY
Enough! Enough!

        WILDE
    (Reads)
The only thing to do with good advice is
pass it on. It is never any use to
oneself.

        SHELLEY
Stop already! You’re not that clever.
Most of these don’t even make
sense. And why are you reading from
your own book? Don’t you know your own
quotations?
    (Beat.
    A hoarse whisper:)
Were we even alive at the same time?

WILDE shrugs.

        WILDE
    (Reads)
The true mystery of the world is the visible,
not the invisible.

        SHELLEY
    (Shuts eyes, grinds teeth)
Augggggh! Auuuuuuuuughhhhhh! Just kill me!
Kill me! Auuuuuuuugggghhh!

CLOSE ON WILDE

        WILDE
    (Glances off-camera)
It’s been twelve hours. Think he’s had enough?

SHOCK CUT TO REVEAL:

MARY SHELLEY, in fishnets and leather bustier, leaning in the doorway.

        MARY SHELLEY
Forget it! I paid you for sixteen.
    (Beat—She licks
     her lips, smiles wickedly)
Byron’s up next, then I bring in Keats.

WIDE ANGLE ON ALL THREE

        SHELLEY
Good GOD!—No! No! No!—
    (Pukes all over himself,
    like Linda Blair in The Exorcist)
Auuuuuuughhhhhhh!

        WILDE

    (Reads)
The true mystery of the world …

        MARY SHELLEY
You did that one already.

        WILDE
Sorry, sorry …
    (Thumbs pages)
…
    (Reads)
Anyone who lives within their means …

PERCY SHELLEY’S screams continue as the camera slowly pulls back and we …

FADE OUT.