Ending of "The Machine Stops" Screenplay




               INT. INSIDE TRANSPORT TUNNEL, DEAD BODIES LINING THE FLOOR.
               DARK, RED LIGHT - CONTINUOUS 

               Vashti is crawling through tunnel looking for Kuno, her son.

                                   VASHTI
                              (sobbing)
                         Where are you?

                                   KUNO(O.S)
                              (weakly)
                         Here.

                                   VASHTI
                         Is there any hope, Kuno?

                                   KUNO(O.S)
                         None for us.

                                   VASHTI
                         Where are you?

               Vashti crawls over the bodies to Kuno, Kuno's blood spurts
               onto her.

               ANGLE: SIDE VIEW, CAN SEE BOTH KUNO AND VASHTI'S FACES

                                   KUNO
                              (gasping)
                         Quicker,I am dying — but we touch,
                         we talk, not through the Machine.

               Kuno kisses Vashti on the cheek.

                                   KUNO
                         We have come back to our own. We
                         die, but we have recaptured life,
                         as it was in Wessex, when Ælfrid
                         overthrew the Danes. We know what
                         they know outside, they who dwelt
                         in the cloud that is the colour of
                         a pearl.

                                   VASHTI
                         (unsure)

                         But Kuno, is it true? Are there
                         still men on the surface of the
                         earth? Is this — this tunnel, this
                         poisoned darkness — really not the
                         end?

                                   KUNO
                              (passionately)
                         I have seen them, spoken to them,
                         loved them. They are hiding in the
                         mist and the ferns until our
                         civilization stops. To-day they
                         are the Homeless — to-morrow—

                                   VASHTI
                              (worried,saddened)
                         Oh, to-morrow — some fool will
                         start the Machine again,
                         to-morrow.

                                   KUNO
                         Never,never. Humanity has learnt
                         its lesson.

               Slow, sad music plays as the camera zooms out to a view of
               the "honeycomb" city.

                                                                    THE END.

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