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BODY SNATCHERS OUTLINE A tale of unrelenting horror that unfolds through the eyes of the victim...a victim of a future law that uses prisoners to mine body parts for society. Instead of serving in prison, the incarcerated become human guinea pigs and provide essential organs for the needy. This is the story of one, Prisoner #11719 It is told in a variety of different narrations which intermingle and intersect each other as the story culminates at the end. Prisoner #11719 remembers her past in segments. The doctor reads through her charts and her course into the experimentation is explored. A series of vignettes of the medical establishment, press, and politicians explore the whole question of the ethics as she undergoes her plight. The current day scenario as the doctor struggles with his dilemma
and she strives to make sense of where and who she is. Opening Prologue Internal monologue carries the patient’s current dialogue. The world she sees is one of grayness with only bits of stark white and black. The world is silent save for the internal organ noises she hears...such as the beating of her heart, the dried mucus of her one lung wheezing in and out, the quivering of her intestines as they push liquid food through the process of digestion. Other than that, she hears nothing until they turn on her device, which is very seldom. The shadow approaches her. She can feel the bump of the bed and the darkness drift over the muted vision she peers from her remain and cloudy eye. Dr. Imin Rankin stands over the bed, looking over the chart. It is the complete history of the patient and quite an extensive recording. He begins to flip through the pages. The tale of Body Snatcher Her Story A young girl (her name will never be revealed.... the sense of having no identity will be played up throughout the current story as well as the flashbacks) has just gotten married in present day suburbia. She has the usual friends and the usual fears. She is getting her composure back as the reception dinner at a local VFW is underway. Typical middle class marriage...typical middle class reception. Buffet dinner of chicken, rigatoni, and the dried up roast beef await the guests who are now crowded around the two bars sets up on either end. Switching to the groom, Mark, in his rented tux, standing with the best man. They don’t talk about the marriage but rather are scoping out the women. Yes, Mark is now off limits but that doesn’t mean he has to stop looking. After all, men are supposed to appreciate the good things in life even if they can’t have them. Scenes of a marriage off to a rocky start as yet another couple discover that momentary lust will not carry them through the trials and tribulations of a marriage. She comes home unexpectedly on night, luggage in hand. Announcing her early arrival at the apartment door, she only hears noises from the bedroom. She peers in the door and all she can see is Mark’s back, being grasped by long lavender fingernails...and she notices the toenails, wrapped around his ass are also painted with lavender. She finds it odd, that the lavender captures her attention so much. But it is quickly dissipated as Mark’s scalp bounces against the wall and we see her holding a smoking gun. Quick process through the judicial system. No money, no power, no defense. She is quickly tried and convicted. Murder in the first degree. She finds herself in a special ward with other women prisoners. The events start small enough as each week, the prisoners are used for blood transfusions. Soon, one of the prisoners gets very ill and the rumors start that she was infected with something....on purpose. Prisoner #11719 has a series of flashbacks of her early life. She remembers being with other girls before at a birthday party when she was 7. The burying of her father when she was 11. Basically to give her a past that will soon be taken away from her. The experiments escalate in a variety of scenes and each prisoner soon becomes isolated from the others. In one scene, she wakes up in excruciating pain.... and discovers a scar on her side.... one of her kidneys has been removed. Another time, she is throwing up and not understanding what is going on. She finds herself constantly drugged with only glimpses of what is going on. Her large stomach tells her that she was impregnated. A myriad of other tests including cocaine addiction and some fad diets that she is forced to undergo. A scene where she asks the nurse if she can see "it" this time and we see that she has been impregnated again. When she wakes, she cried....knowing that she will never see her children. The processes continue but become more invasive. Now, the tests begin to remove more vital areas including one of her lungs which she has a hard time adjusting to....gasping for air. But she refuses to let herself be beat. She is a survivor even though she doesn’t know for what. Dr. Imin Rankin’s Story He begins as a young doctor on staff and Prisoner #11719 is already well into the "system". He feels compassion for her but it is mixed with all the benefits that her body can provide. It provides a moral dilemma for him. Through the eyes of Rankin, the system of the "Farm" is unveiled. The innocent use of the prisoners for blood transfusions, the step into the taking of body parts, and the shift in the hospital’s stance. At first, the hospital is part of an exciting venture into medical causes but soon it becomes a matter of economics and power. One woman’s heart is taken for the son of a Senator. She was condemned to die anyway and this would give life to another. Moral justification drives the decision but still, a bad taste lingers. Scenes of Charles M Patterson, a small time lawyer who found about the "Farm" and vowed to put an end to it. Representing one of the prisoners, he worked on contingency. It was his big chance to make a name for himself...the case itself didn’t matter. But as Patterson continued the fight, the prisoners became people to him and in a reversal that surprised even himself, he actually began to care about the case. Patterson and the hospital at odds with Patterson, after 12 long years, finally getting the case ruled at the Supreme Court....and winning. But his consequences were unexpected. The prisoners, suffering under the bizarre experimentation, were all condemned to death for their crimes. So, now, their usefulness over, they would have their original sentences carried out. Patterson could only justify the end result as a sense of humane compassion, but as usual, the prisoners were never considered. Dr. Rankin is the one that has to carry out the sentence. He was chosen to be the custodian of the court’s morality. He would pull the switch that fed Prisoner #11719 her lifeline of oxygen. Present day story Through Prisoner’s #11719 shadowed world, she struggles to understand what is going on. She can sense that something is different this time but unsure what. Rankin deals with his dilemma. Reading her chart and history and from what he knows, she has been through a lot. Was it all just a waste of her life? He stares constantly at the picture of her youth and compares it with the shriveled old woman that lies before him...the one with just one eye, and cloudy at that. Her skin is wrinkled and almost gouged with creases...gray pockets of dead flesh line her face and neck. White brittle hair in patches on her head.... it is hard to believe that they are the same person. Her internal monologue gives us a sense of what she sees. She has a feeling that he is reading her chart and then it dawns on her, she can’t remember her name. The though terrifies her for her name is the last thing she has for an identity. Rankin decides that letting her go will be the best thing for her. He talks himself into the notion that she wants to die even though he really has no idea. But who wouldn’t? She tries to cry. Her name! She wants her name back! She can endure anything but not knowing who she is.... Rankin pulls the switch to end her life. She screams within her mind for her name to come back to her. She needs it. The thought that through all of their tests and experiments, she has managed to hold on made her feel like she won. But without her name, then she has lost. And that loss brings a tear pooling from her cloudy eye. It is the first tear she has shed in years. Rankin watches as the machines that propel her life....stop. A tear rolls down the cheek of Prisoner #11719. She has lost the long battle. She no longer knows who she is....she no longer has a name....she is simply Prisoner #11719. And the tear is the last vestige of who she was before. As Prisoner #11719 takes her last scraping breath, Rankin sees the tear. He smiles. She was thanking him....it was a tear of joy. He feels he did good.
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