LICE

a screenwriting exercise for my screenwriter as a social critic class.

INT. DAY

Girl, OONA, sits at her vanity table in a rolling chair, brushing her long mane of goldenbrown curls. Smiling at herself in the mirror. She holds a handful of curls up to her nose and takes a deep whiff. She looks, to the average observer, like she should be in a hair commercial. In fact, she once was. She is watching it right now.

OONA spins in her chair, swirling around to face the television. We see Oona appear on screen, flipping and twirling her hair sexily. She is holding up a bottle of shampoo and the television screen reads: “GREEN TEA SHAMPOO- guaranteed to make your hair more lustrous, livelier, and sexier in just three shampoos or less!” Ooona beams a dazzling smile to her smiling television counterpart. Cut to . . . 

INT. of a darkened bedroom.

The mild light from a street lamp filters in through the window, the only source of illumination. We hear OONA’S ragged breathing. She tosses and turns in the sheets. We can just make out her silhouette and the streetlamp softly illuminates her long, gorgeous mane of golden-blonde curls. 

OONA is still for a moment- silence- and then there is an abrupt scratching sound. She is scratching her scalp. Pause. She scratches again. Pause. Again. Pause. Scratch. Pause. Vigorous scratch. Scratch, scratch, scratchscratchscratch! Her scratching becomes vicious. Suddenly she hurls herself out of bed, slams on the light switch, and scratches her scalp with furiously, twisting and shaking her head in agony.

CLOSE UP on OONA’s face, her eyes wide, her hair in disarray, her mouth open in a silent scream. 

Montage Sequence: 

CUT TO . . . extreme close up of what appears to be an insect crawling across a tight rope. . . camera pulls back to reveal that the insect is nestled in a nest of damp blonde hair. . . camera pulls back further and more of the bugs can be seen crawling around, weaving in and out of the strands of hair. They are approximately the size of red ants. Camera pulls back further to reveal that the infested scalp belongs to OONA, who is hanging her head upside down over the bathtub, two gigantic bottles of “DE-LICE Shampoo” next to her. She pours a handful of shampoo onto her scalp and begins to wash . . . 

CUT TO . . . Ooona standing in front of the mirror, working a fine-toothed comb intently through her hair.

Close up on the comb: it is covered with crawling louse.

CUT TO. . . Oona scratching in line at the grocery store, in the back of her Comparative Literature 101 class, while driving her car . .. scratching with a spaghetti server. . . rubbing her head against the bark of a juniper tree. . . 

She is in complete agony. She can’t stop itching.

Close up of Oona running her fingers through her hair, a shower of bugs fall out. 

Cut to . . . Oona slathering her hair in vaseline. 

Cut to . . . Oona attempting to get the greasy vaseline residue out of her hair with flour.

Cut to . . . Oona sitting on the sofa, watching television, her hair covered in mayonnaise beneath a clear shower cap.

Cut to . . . Oona with standing over the sink shaking her head. Camera swirls into the sink, which is positively crawling with louse. Oona looks up, sees her own reflection in the mirror. Beings to faint. . . 

Cut to. . . Oona sprawled spread-eagle on the floor surrounded by all her failed remedies. She is unconscious, and begins twitching while she begins to dream. . . 

The camera circles around Oona’s head, and out of her halo of curls lines of louse begin crawling out, arranged in single-file lines like soldiers. Their ranks grow larger and larger. The louse themselves grow larger and larger, until they would be obvious to the naked eye, as large as small scarab beetles, perhaps. The louse began to infest other people.

Shot of the louse crawling into a woman’s hair as she sleeps, infiltrating the scalps of a class of pre-schoolers during nap time, sneaking over the back of a sofa and onto a man’s head as he watches television. 

Cut to . . . eight separate split-screen shots of various people itching, scratching, and trying to rid themselves of the head lice. Sounds of vigorous scratching. A few person’s scalps start to bleed they are scratching so furiously. 

A newspaper spins into view with the headline “LICE EPIDEMIC STRIKES NATION: ‘SUPER LOUSE’ APPEAR UNSTOPPABLE”.

Cut to. . . EXT. suburban neighborhood. Complete chaos. Residents are running wild in the streets, scratching, tearing their hair out, rolling around on the ground. One man tries sticking his head under a lawn mower to rid himself of his agony. The louse (now the size of small rodents) continuing to swell in numbers. The camera spins and spins until . . .  

Oona abruptly sits up, breathing hard. It was just a dream. 

She gets up hurriedly and runs to the kitchen. 

The sound of scissors. 

We see locks of her hair and they fall around her feet. Curl after curl. Bodies of dead louse are visible within the strands.

The camera slowly rises up. Her head is covered only with random clumps of hair. She continues cutting closer and closer to the scalp until finally all that remains is a fine layer of golden stubble. 

She lets the scissors fall to the floor. 

Cut to Oona sitting on the couch, vacantly staring at the television. She is re-watching her shampoo commercial. She holds a lock of severed hair in her hand.

Tears are streaming down her face. 

Somber music plays. 

Fade to black. 

The sound of scratching.