Frederik 🇿🇦

We open on a dark house. Trash everywhere. A 350 pound man wakes up in a start. Torn yellow wallpaper hangs off the wall. The man struggles to his feet and his eyes dart around the room as if he’s never seen it before. He falls to his knees and starts digging through the trash until he finds what he’s looking for. A bottle. There’s just a tablespoon of cheap whiskey in it but he laps it up. He shuffles through the trash and collapses into his chair and puts his hands on his temples. “Sh*t,” he mutters. “Goddammit.” A malnourished cat nudges his leg and he explodes in a violent rage, throwing his now empty bottle against the wall where it shatters. Another torn piece of wallpaper, not that it matters. Not that anything matters. Light from the window hits his face and he curses again, this time without anger. He has lost the will to feel angry. He could simply stand up and close the curtain, but he lacks the will to do that too. The sun will simply shine in his eyes now. That’s the way it is. The sound of children playing outside floats in, but that world is dead to him. It might as well be an alien planet. He will get up and leave at some point today, or maybe tomorrow if he can find another few drops in an empty bottle, but if he does leave the house, he will avert his eyes from the children. Not that he feels shame. More that the children have a light in their eyes that causes him physical pain. Their lives expose the darkness he feels in his heart. Maybe not even darkness. Emptiness. Nothing. VOICEOVER: “Progressive can't save you from becoming your parents. But we can save you money when you bundle home and auto with us!” *end of commercial*