Switchers and Watchers - Neill Calabro - neillien@hotmail.com - 404-583-6063
Night - Interior - Macy's, greasy spoon restaurant. Different shots of customers and food and employees. Camera
closes in on Jefferson Kelly, a man about 74, behind a newspaper. As his face is seen, a voice is heard mocking the
intro to the movie Blade Runner. Audience will think it's the man's voice over in his head but it turns out to be
Richard Martin, (77, who is tired of his job) coming in to the restaurant.
Richard Martin
They don't advertise for Watchers in the newspaper.
Jefferson doesn't hear it at first and then looks up to see Richard
Richard Martin
Kelly?
Jefferson Kelly
(knowingly) Mr. Martin
They start speaking to each other in a mix of Hebrew and Greek
Richard Martin
How's the first day?
Jefferson Kelly
See for your self.
Richard Martin turns around to see an old man sitting next to a woman who is paying him a lot of attention.
Richard Martin looks at him for a couple of seconds.
Richard Martin
Wow. Your first day. Figures . . . mine didn't come for half a year.
Macy, 60, the owner, comes to their table
Macy
Was he worth the wait?
Jefferson Kelly
(to Richard Martin in English) I told him [Macy] that I was waiting for someone.
Macy
(looking at watch, slow to figure out)10 hours . . .thats a long wait.
Richard Martin
(to Jefferson Kelly)Did you try the truth?
Jefferson Kelly
(kinda perplexed) Hmm?
Richard Martin
(to Macy) We're Watchers from the year 2019.
Jefferson Kelly
(off guard) Rich-arrrrd!
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Switchers and Watchers - Neill Calabro - neillien@hotmail.com - 404-583-6063
Macy
(pausing with a bored incredulity) I'm listening.
Richard Martin
December 22nd 2012, part of the last future, there was a cleansing of the earth . . .
Jefferson Kelly
(demanding to stop)RICH-ard
Richard Martin
[referring to Jefferson Kelly]He's worried about the Star Trek "prime directive", don't interfere. [ordering] Chicken
sandwich, cheese, nothing gooey on it, tea
Macy writes it on the ticket, hangs it comes back.
Richard Martin
(to Jefferson Kelly)give it time, kid, figure it out. No one believes an old man
Macy
Go ahead. (half caring) I like Sci-fi.
Richard Martin
Good . . . The cleansing of the earth, a black hole where strands of time were linked, was a judgement where the
living planet created a segregation between good and evil, wheat and chaff. That was the reasoning behind the
planet's thinking, but this actually brought more intelligence in a concentrated area. From the cleansing, scientist
used the penetration of electrons, that hung around like radiation from a mushroom cloud, to open the black hole and
create a kind of Internet link to time.
Macy
(scratching his head, not understanding) Oh, that's good. (to Jefferson Kelly) you agree?
Jefferson Kelly's eyes move around in perplexity, folds his arms and shrugs his shoulders.
Macy
(to Jefferson Kelly) You wanna finish this?
Jefferson Kelly
No. It's a breech
Richard Martin
He's green.
Macy
(thinking he's being introduced) Pleasure.
Richard Martin
Not his name. It's his first day
Macy
(sarcastic) And you've got 1 day left to retirement.
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Switchers and Watchers - Neill Calabro - neillien@hotmail.com - 404-583-6063
Richard Martin
(to Jefferson Kelly) See?
Macy
OK . . . you're watchers.
Richard Martin
Help him out, Kelly.
Jefferson Kelly
Why are you doing this?
Richard Martin
(to Macy) the Internet link to time made it available for any person with a PC to time travel. At first, too many
people were scared to try, so it was easy to police the "travel waves" until we locked history.
Macy
. . . locked history.
Richard Martin
yeah. As Switchers became prevalent and started changing history there was no logistic way to say what was
original history and what was tampered history. You read a history book but who's to say it was an original book.
So, before Watchers started patrolling time, the government had to just lay down the law and write the way history
was going to be . . . true or not.
Macy
And you two are Watchers?
Richard Martin
Yeah.
Macy looks at Jefferson Kelly, Jefferson Kelly ponders for a moment and lifts his hands in defeat.
Macy
Is he coming around?
Richard Martin
(patting Jefferson Kelly's face) Nahhhh.
Macy
So you're here to stop . . . switchers . . . from changing some incredible event in "locked" history
Richard Martin and Jefferson Kelly just sit kind of embarrassed
Jefferson Kelly
Nope.
Macy
I don't get it.
Richard Martin
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Switchers and Watchers - Neill Calabro - neillien@hotmail.com - 404-583-6063
We're beat cops.
Jefferson Kelly
Not even that.
Macy
(slightly prying) What?
Richard Martin
We don't actually change time, not like "Time Cops"
Jefferson Kelly
We're volunteers.
Richard Martin
Gah, Kelly, you don't have to un-romanticize it.
A cook yells
Cook
Order, Macy!
Macy, goes to get the food. Richard Martin and Jefferson Kelly go back to Hebrew.
Jefferson Kelly
(sarcastic) Are you decomposing brain first?
Richard Martin
(with frustration)2 years and you go back to your mama's money. I'm stuck here cause there is no "there" for me.
Jefferson Kelly
(sarcastic) Well, that makes sense. Screw up time cause you live outside the kingdom . . .
Richard Martin
I've done this for 6 years and it's futile . . .
Macy interrupts with the food
Macy
Please fight quietly, and preferably in a non space language
Jefferson Kelly and Richard Martin sit silently
Macy
(sarcastically) Watchers. Well, I'm in a Twilight Zone mood. So, you've come back in time to watch history do
nothing new.
Jefferson Kelly
There's nothing shameful about it.
Macy
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Switchers and Watchers - Neill Calabro - neillien@hotmail.com - 404-583-6063
Relax. Can't be that bad. At least you see the sights. (sarcastic)Today, the year 2004, tomorrow 16 hundred and 23.
Jefferson Kelly
Nope . . . we're stationed here.
Macy
What? Macy's?
Jefferson Kelly and Richard Martin
yeah.
Macy
(laughing to self) For two years?
Jefferson Kelly
We report switching activity.
Macy
Oh . . . (patronizing) of course.
Richard Martin
Now that you've relaxed, tell 'em.
Macy
Yes . . . Switchers.
Jefferson Kelly
What Mr. Martin hasn't told you, yet, is that coming into a time period is not physical. The easiest way to explain it
is . . . it's like demon possession.
Macy
So, these Switchers that you watch just hop in and out of bodies.
Jefferson Kelly
No just one body. Once you're in a body you're stuck in it till your energy pushes out of it.
Richard Martin
If you're in a strong body it's calculated that you can be stuck in that time zone for dozen of years, finally going back
to the present, which is the last future.
Macy
OK, I don't understand any of this but, hold the Switcher and give me a side of the "last future"
Richard Martin
That's easy. Kelly, give em the laymans. (to Macy) I'm a bit rusty so I could use a refresher.
Macy
(subtly laughing with disbelief) You guys are killing me.
Jefferson Kelly
First grade time theorem. Time is not West to East, it's North to South. You don't look at time like this (with hands
together he separates them making an imaginary bar west to east) you look at it like this (he makes a circle by
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Switchers and Watchers - Neill Calabro - neillien@hotmail.com - 404-583-6063
putting his fingers together and looks down into it. he brings his hands up like he's holding a bar) At the bottom is
beginning time, it moves circular, going up. It only goes so far until it breaks from it's own weight. The second level
starts while the first level loops . . . starts over and it moves like a hose that has water shooting out of if but no one is
holding it. The time strands that have been built are continuing to loop, time is reincarnated, not people as we
thought. But there is a top to time. That's where we are, 2019, the top which is as far as one can travel forward, the
last future.
A waiter calls to Macy
Waiter
Macy, need you.
Macy
(to waiter, angrily as if bothered) C'mon do something without your pacifier. (to Richard Martin and Jefferson
Kelly, confused about their explanation), I'm sorry I asked. So people are stuck in bodies when they travel.
Richard Martin
Not for too long. Smart Switchers travel in dead bodies of old people.
Macy
Well, good. I was hoping this would be gross. So you're talking Zombies.
Richard Martin
Not death, burial, resurrection. Switchers enter at the moment of death.
Jefferson Kelly
Their energy takes the place of the departing energy. It's what was known as a Near Death Experience.
Macy
Ah, us stupid people of the present will believe anything.
Richard Martin
Well, you used to be just dead, til modern science supposedly resuscitated.
Macy
So, near death is just Switchers (sarcastic). . . or you, the Watchers . . . (confused)who come to the past to stop, or
maybe just watch, this crime.
Jefferson Kelly
Switching isn't a crime.
Richard Martin
You're doubly wrong.
Macy
I hope you remember all of this cause I think you're ready to hit the circuit with this show. Why isn't it a crime?
Jefferson Kelly and Richard Martin are silent
Macy
Uh Oh, another time-traveling blue-collar sore spot
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Switchers and Watchers - Neill Calabro - neillien@hotmail.com - 404-583-6063
Still silent
Macy
C'mon . . . you're the experts. I'm (figures in his head)15 years behind you in the fiction department.
Jefferson Kelly
Switching is regulated. It used to be a crime.
Richard Martin
So many people just jumping around time, you couldn't stop it all. So it was legalized in early 2014. And people are
allowed to travel as they wish; do exploring . . . vacations.
Macy
Vacations?
Richard Martin
Yeah.
Macy
So that makes you two tourists guides (big laugh).
Richard Martin and Jefferson Kelly start to rebut at the same time then Richard Martin speaks
Richard Martin
Hey. It's a bit more than that. We watch Switchers and report any possible changes in Locked History . . .
Specially Switchers that are renegades and want to cause time troubles.
Macy
But you two aren't allowed to interfere.
Jefferson Kelly
No. That's the prime directive. Once a switcher starts a bandit thread it's just watched until it hopefully falls back
into locked time. But if it doesn't, Time Technicians are called.
Macy
These are the people that probably make the big bucks.
Jefferson Kelly
I'm happy to volunteer. We're serving.
Richard Martin (off camera)
In case you can't see, I'm rolling my eyes.
Macy
So . . . I see dead people
Richard Martin
Not us.
Macy
Hmm?
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Switchers and Watchers - Neill Calabro - neillien@hotmail.com - 404-583-6063
Richard Martin
We're not dead.
Jefferson Kelly
These bodies we're in are not dead. They've been taken over by the government of the last future during the last 2
years of their life.
Macy
Woh! The future is sick. You just deprive a man of his life.
Richard Martin
Kinda . . . The man continues to live, though, we don't kill him. The funny thing is when a partioned body
actually . . .
Jefferson Kelly
Mr. Martin! Can you not have any restraint.
Macy
Easy, green. I'm not gonna turn you guys in.
Jefferson Kelly
It was not a easy decision to make. But the government didn't want to operate in bodies that are not usable.
Macy
(chuckling to self) usable . . . OK. Watchers, they go into time, unfortunately, you both got a bad shift, here at
Macy's. And you watch Switchers in your soon-to-be dead bodies, just in case they mess time up. These Switchers,
who are in bodies of really dead people are on vacation, or they may be out to screw with time. If they do, you bring
in people to fix time.
Richard Martin
It's easier to watch time, to see if it slowly changes, then to have to go back into time to fix a big snafu. Like the
Kennedy assassination.
Macy
Ah Kennedy, how did I know he was involved. It's weird, sometimes . . .it's like it never happened.
Richard Martin
Right before Switching was regulated and Watchers were implemented into history, someone stopped the Kennedy
shooting. Because there were no watchers to keep tabs on the changed bits of history in each individuals life, by
1982 America was a socialist country. This is what pushed the regulation, because it took almost 12 million Time
technicians who went back to Nov 22 1963 to re-adjust every person's motion that was affected by the Switchers
interference. You don't just stop the bullet.
Jefferson Kelly
Bullets.
Richard Martin
(tired of their Kennedy debate) Shutup!
Macy
And so I'm supposed to believe that 12 million people were trained for one single event.
Jefferson Kelly
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Switchers and Watchers - Neill Calabro - neillien@hotmail.com - 404-583-6063
The cleansing in 2012 changed those inside the kingdom. We're motivated by love.
Macy
(big sarcastic laugh)That's it. I've heard enough. It's time now in our broadcast when we ask the nuts for proof.
Richard Martin
That's easy.
Jefferson Kelly slams his fist on the table
Richard Martin
Turn off all the power here.
Jefferson Kelly
Martin!
Macy
Yeah, right. I'm not going to.
Richard Martin
(to Jefferson Kelly)They never do. You see with no power, our energy shows through.
Macy
Yeah, I don't know, I can't give you that much credence. I don't want to justify my own nuttiness. Do
something else.
Richard Martin looks at the old man at the other table.
Richard Martin
Want to see a Switcher?
Jefferson Kelly
I knew that was coming.
Macy
Do I want you to chase away a customer (sarcastically) Oh, sure . . . yeah. Can't you just tell me what the future,
sorry, locked future is like.
Jefferson Kelly
(thwarting Richard Martin) I'll tell him.
Macy
Won't be as good, I'm guessing.
Jefferson Kelly
Traffic was incredibly bad in 2013
Macy
You mean all those Davinci flying machines were running into each other.
Richard Martin
Still on the ground, my friend.
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Switchers and Watchers - Neill Calabro - neillien@hotmail.com - 404-583-6063
Jefferson Kelly
We developed the XYZ system. No one flunked a drivers test any more. If you were really bad . . .
Richard Martin
If you sucked . . .
Jefferson Kelly
You were labeled an X driver. It was imprinted on your license and when you logged into a car's system, you'd eye
scan and then an X would show on the outside of the auto. Because of this you could only drive in the right lane.
Turning left meant you would turn right, three times.
Richard Martin
The better than sucky drivers . . .
Jefferson Kelly
They were Y drivers. Same system but they had middle lanes and right lanes, but they, too, had to turn rights.
Macy
This leaves . . .
Richard Martin
Good drivers . . .
Jefferson Kelly
Z drivers. They had full access of the road. Their driving skills were at peak performance. This means, their
stopping/starting ability, paying attention to lights, signs, autos in front and behind them, how they get in and out of
traffic, if they don't rubberneck . . .
Macy
Ohmigosh. Finally an end to rubbernecking. I'm convinced.
Richard Martin
No, rubbernecking is worse, but this is why the Z.
Jefferson Kelly
The best for Z drivers is that there is a 2 light system. If you're X or Y you stop at the first red light. The Z drivers
however bypass the first and have better position at the second light.
Macy
(thinking to himself) No. I'm not happy with that. Wouldn't work.
Richard Martin
(pointing like he's tattletelling), That guys a switcher.
Macy
Alright, first off, how do you know?
Richard Martin
It's Barry Michaels. He died yesterday in locked history.
Jefferson Kelly
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Switchers and Watchers - Neill Calabro - neillien@hotmail.com - 404-583-6063
Had an NDE, I bet.
Richard Martin
Ask him.
Macy
Nahh!
Richard Martin
OK.
Richard Martin gets up and goes to Barry. Macy rushes over.
Richard Martin
Hey, Barry. How's switching?
Macy
Sir, please go back to your seat.
Richard Martin
You died yesterday.
Macy takes him by the arm to his seat. Barry's wife speaks up
Barry's Wife
It was miracle.
Macy and Richard Martin turn around.
Macy
Ma'am?
Barry's Wife
Doctor said it was a miracle
Richard Martin
(sarcastically) I bet!
Barry's Wife
My little bear was dead on the table. The Doctor gave up, and even put a sheet over his head.
Richard Martin
Like pulling wool over your eyes.
Macy turns Richard Martin around and pushes him back to his seat. Richard Martin walks while Macy
apologizes and walks back to Richard Martin and Jefferson Kelly.
Richard Martin
(talking to himself, sometimes Macy, sometimes Jefferson Kelly) Same thing every time. No one *really* wants
to know. You could've asked him question after question. I could tell you what he would say. Not exactly,
because he's dead and dead men tell big tales. But it's the same Switcher story . . .'saw a light, it was beautiful, felt
myself going back to my body' And so present history continues. You go back to work, Kelly, here goes back to
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Switchers and Watchers - Neill Calabro - neillien@hotmail.com - 404-583-6063
his family who continually question him about his weird behavior. I'm going to watch your customers for 10 hours
and then it's Ground Hog day. It all starts over again.
Jefferson Kelly
(puts down money starts to leave), Mr. Martin, I just hope you get settled. I'm not going to log this event, but your
just trying to cause cracks.
Richard Martin
Later!
Jefferson Kelly walks out as Macy and Richard Martin continue to gab, as you see in the background, Jefferson
Kelly get into his car the inside lights of his car come on. Jefferson Kelly sits down and shuts the door. As the
door shuts, and the light goes off, a glow comes out of Jefferson Kelly until he realizes it and turns on the manual
inside lights in the car. He drives off as the main focus is still on Macy as he's walking away and Richard Martin
as he picks up Jefferson Kelly's paper.
End
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