Blue Rev. (mm/dd/yy)
5.
This door brings despair to Ptolemy. And with that despair he is once again transported to...
EXT. BURDETTE, MISSISSIPPI CIRCA 1925 - NIGHT Burdette is a small town, a village replete with dirt roads that are lined with rows of rude huts and houses. There’s a FIRE RAGING burning hot and high over a tarpaper shack. The fire engines in 2010 slowly morph into clanking fire bells. Black WOMEN and MEN are passing buckets down a long line and tossing the water at the flames. They might as well be trying to douse the inferno with water balloons. A CHILD SCREAMS PITEOUSLY. MRS. IONA GREY (black, mid-20s, zaftig) is holding back 5 year old PTOLEMY who is trying to run into the burning building.
INT. PTOLEMY'S APARTMENT, LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS The elder Ptolemy is bereft. PTOLEMY I should’a done it. I should’a.
EXT. BURDETTE, MISSISSIPPI CIRCA 1925 - CONTINUOUS Volunteer firemen are hacking away at the places where they can maybe get in. This is a heroic and deadly occupation. Their axes make a KNOCKING sound that gets louder and louder. REGGIE (PRELAP) Papa Grey! Papa Grey, you in there! INT. PTOLEMY'S APARTMENT, LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS Ptolemy the Elder hears the call but before he can respond the calls become a WOMAN’S HUMMING. Ptolemy looks toward the HUMAN MUSIC. Then... INT. YOUNG PTOLEMY’S RAMSHACKLE HOME, BURDETTE MISSISSIPPI - DAY IONA GREY (black woman not yet 25), Ptolemy’s mother, is * standing over a cast-iron stove making grits in a battered old pot while humming to herself.
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