“To be in awe of nature and to let go of all other thought is to be connected to God. And no one is more connected to God than the dead.”
A trip into the darkest corners of the human mind, Submission is a portrait of the horrific things that make and drive killers, as it follows the acts of an unbalanced serial murderer, and a potential victim who turns out to be even more deadly.
Emma Choi, a fiercely intelligent young woman making her living as a fetish model, is hired for a day by Jack, an artist who specializes in paintings that brilliantly and poignantly depict death. Over the course of a day together, Emma discovers evidence that Jack is not only an artist of death but an outright serial killer.
Faced with becoming another of his victims, Emma reveals a bloodthirsty nature of her own. She talks her way out of danger from Jack and promptly befriends him. Her own life has been a nightmarish sequence of subjection to mental and physical abuse, and she sees in Jack the potential for an ally to get revenge on her abusers.
Emma Choi, a fiercely intelligent young woman making her living as a fetish model, is hired for a day by Jack, an artist who specializes in paintings that brilliantly and poignantly depict death. Over the course of a day together, Emma discovers evidence that Jack is not only an artist of death but an outright serial killer.
Faced with becoming another of his victims, Emma reveals a bloodthirsty nature of her own. She talks her way out of danger from Jack and promptly befriends him. Her own life has been a nightmarish sequence of subjection to mental and physical abuse, and she sees in Jack the potential for an ally to get revenge on her abusers.
Submission - PROLOGUE
IN THE WANING HOURS of the morning a warped record played the orchestral version of I’m In The Mood For Love. A beautiful, endearing melody, a haunting melody that pierced the darkness.
Occasional soft breaths of morning air from an open window washed over a plastic human skeleton that hung limp from a hook, as if defeated. Beyond the skeleton one could see walls covered in dated anatomical drawings, buckling over shelves rife with a sea of chemical-filled jars.
A door opened and the steps of a man in dress shoes shuffled along, then scraped to a halt. He coughed to clear the pocket of phlegm in his throat and seized a dangling chain with such intensity that its attached single bare bulb swung back and forth. It led to a blinding glow, illuminating the setting of a grisly autopsy.
A Raggedy Ann doll sat propped up in a chair in the corner, like a great, prehistoric idol. A child’s white angora sweater, soft and lamb-like, hung over the back.
The man took a pair of medical gloves from a box and snapped them on over his long and dexterous fingers. Somewhere in the distance he heard the sweet sounds of a child playing. He listened and frowned. What they were doing no one could tell, and he could care less. Turning to the record player, he dialed up the volume as high as it would go.
As the music swelled and soared, he hummed his melancholy vocal chords in his usual low, mournful melancholy way. He was chewing Wrigley’s spearmint gum from a crumpled packet on the table and thinking through memories of his past life. It was more than a coincidence how they all were connected to the black zippered body bag that awaited him on the surgical table.
A rusty pipe in the floor drained fluids that ran off into a hole under the table. A long shadow danced across the ceiling as he revealed his prize. His breath became heavy and excited. Beside him, a large tray held immaculate medical instruments - fiendishly sharp - gleaming, almost glowing, under the dim fluorescent lights from above. To be in this moment, to be in full control, had been his one true ambition, even as a child.
He struggled to work the body from its safe cocoon. His forehead broke out into a sheen of sweat. After a few minutes of wrestling, the music filled the room like an opera house, the two actors entwined in some sort of strange dance, a beautiful tango. Or perhaps a battle to the death where one, helpless, unaware, had already relinquished the fight.
Grumbling to himself, he pulled the body into an upright position and coaxed it out. Finally, he won the scuffle, letting the bag fall to the ground.
The trunk lay prone on the table, sandwiched by two rigid alabaster arms. These arms belonged to an equally pale woman, nude and bare as the day she was born.
Now it was a fact that there was nothing at all unique about this cadaver, except that it was covered in jagged, angular letters. He ran his gloved hands over her firm form. He massaged the fleshy pads of her moist fingers, wet with embalming fluids, taking each into his hand, pressing and squeezing them. He worked his way slowly, carefully, up her arms kneading and plying them with the skill of a true professional masseur. If this woman were alive - after tipping him well, she would freely give out recommendations to all her friends.
When he reached her chest, he tweaked her grayish nipples lovingly and stroked her long mousy brown hair. Her face, in peaceful serenity, demonstrated no shock and her cheeks didn’t light up with an awkward blush.
He ran an index finger across her bottom lip and sighed. Gazing at her full mouth, so shapely and beautiful in its decay, he battled to maintain his composure. He fought back the need to kiss her. The desperate want that he sometimes felt in moments like this. Peeling her springy eyelids back, he placed a plastic cap on each eyeball to keep the lids from closing. His limbs quivered, as this was one of his favorite moments. He peered deep into her blue eyes now, dulled by the thin film of glazed death.
The mortician smiled faintly.
Turning to the tray, he hesitated over several instruments, taking the time to decide. He picked one of his favorite scalpels and began - carving into her chest, working with careful precision. He wrote a single word …
SUBMISSION.
Full screen play to be found on our screen writers web page at
www.triggerstreet.com/gyrobase/BrowseSubmissions?searchPhrase=tishanddavid&upload&pageState=search
Written by Tisha Garcia and David Strickler
All work copyrighted and protected.
Occasional soft breaths of morning air from an open window washed over a plastic human skeleton that hung limp from a hook, as if defeated. Beyond the skeleton one could see walls covered in dated anatomical drawings, buckling over shelves rife with a sea of chemical-filled jars.
A door opened and the steps of a man in dress shoes shuffled along, then scraped to a halt. He coughed to clear the pocket of phlegm in his throat and seized a dangling chain with such intensity that its attached single bare bulb swung back and forth. It led to a blinding glow, illuminating the setting of a grisly autopsy.
A Raggedy Ann doll sat propped up in a chair in the corner, like a great, prehistoric idol. A child’s white angora sweater, soft and lamb-like, hung over the back.
The man took a pair of medical gloves from a box and snapped them on over his long and dexterous fingers. Somewhere in the distance he heard the sweet sounds of a child playing. He listened and frowned. What they were doing no one could tell, and he could care less. Turning to the record player, he dialed up the volume as high as it would go.
As the music swelled and soared, he hummed his melancholy vocal chords in his usual low, mournful melancholy way. He was chewing Wrigley’s spearmint gum from a crumpled packet on the table and thinking through memories of his past life. It was more than a coincidence how they all were connected to the black zippered body bag that awaited him on the surgical table.
A rusty pipe in the floor drained fluids that ran off into a hole under the table. A long shadow danced across the ceiling as he revealed his prize. His breath became heavy and excited. Beside him, a large tray held immaculate medical instruments - fiendishly sharp - gleaming, almost glowing, under the dim fluorescent lights from above. To be in this moment, to be in full control, had been his one true ambition, even as a child.
He struggled to work the body from its safe cocoon. His forehead broke out into a sheen of sweat. After a few minutes of wrestling, the music filled the room like an opera house, the two actors entwined in some sort of strange dance, a beautiful tango. Or perhaps a battle to the death where one, helpless, unaware, had already relinquished the fight.
Grumbling to himself, he pulled the body into an upright position and coaxed it out. Finally, he won the scuffle, letting the bag fall to the ground.
The trunk lay prone on the table, sandwiched by two rigid alabaster arms. These arms belonged to an equally pale woman, nude and bare as the day she was born.
Now it was a fact that there was nothing at all unique about this cadaver, except that it was covered in jagged, angular letters. He ran his gloved hands over her firm form. He massaged the fleshy pads of her moist fingers, wet with embalming fluids, taking each into his hand, pressing and squeezing them. He worked his way slowly, carefully, up her arms kneading and plying them with the skill of a true professional masseur. If this woman were alive - after tipping him well, she would freely give out recommendations to all her friends.
When he reached her chest, he tweaked her grayish nipples lovingly and stroked her long mousy brown hair. Her face, in peaceful serenity, demonstrated no shock and her cheeks didn’t light up with an awkward blush.
He ran an index finger across her bottom lip and sighed. Gazing at her full mouth, so shapely and beautiful in its decay, he battled to maintain his composure. He fought back the need to kiss her. The desperate want that he sometimes felt in moments like this. Peeling her springy eyelids back, he placed a plastic cap on each eyeball to keep the lids from closing. His limbs quivered, as this was one of his favorite moments. He peered deep into her blue eyes now, dulled by the thin film of glazed death.
The mortician smiled faintly.
Turning to the tray, he hesitated over several instruments, taking the time to decide. He picked one of his favorite scalpels and began - carving into her chest, working with careful precision. He wrote a single word …
SUBMISSION.
Full screen play to be found on our screen writers web page at
www.triggerstreet.com/gyrobase/BrowseSubmissions?searchPhrase=tishanddavid&upload&pageState=search
Written by Tisha Garcia and David Strickler
All work copyrighted and protected.