The Race
“The Race” is a screenplay by Beth Eisen.
View the Screenplay (PDF)
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Excerpt:
FADE IN:
EXT. LABRADOR, CANADA, WINTER 1903 DAY
The edge of the world. Bitter cold. Snow. Dark, grey day.
LEONIDAS “LADDIE” HUBBARD, the leader of the expedition, late 20’s, slumps against DILLON WALLACE, late 30’s, former lawyer, surrounded by the haze from the pitiful little fire.
Their ragged clothes hang off their gaunt bodies in shreds. Every movement is slow, painful, haunted. This what the final stages of starvation look like.
GEORGE ELSON, late 20’s, their guide, Scotch-Cree Indian, weakly stumbles into view clutching a small, weathered box, the word “Mustard” still faintly visible. He gestures toward the bush he’d found it under.
They pass the box from hand to hand as if it is made of gold.
George, with great difficulty, pries the top off with his knife. He scrapes out the last shards of mustard from the walls of the box onto a flat rock.
They dumbly stare at the three tiny piles of brownish yellow.
With dirty, bony fingers George and Wallace each carefully scoops up his portion. Hubbard is too weak to reach for his dinner.
Like a mother bird, Wallace places the mustard from his own hand into Hubbard’s mouth. Then he feeds himself.
The mustard is savored as if it’s the finest delicacy in the world.
