INT. STORE FOR NOSTALGICS — SAN FRANCISCO — DAY
We hear the clicking sound of typing as Jared selects an OLD-FASHIONED TYPEWRITER from a display.
JARED (V.O.)
Dear Dr Glundenstein. So much has changed since last I wrote. Michigan seems like a #3 dream to me now. Ha!
Jared takes the typewriter and SEVERAL REAMS OF PAPER to a counter where a NOSTALGIC lackadaisically checks him out.
INT. ENGLISH BODEGA —SAN FRANCISCO —DAY
The typewriter continues to click as Jared stocks up on DOZENS OF POTS OF RAMEN.
JARED (V.O.)
I have some things to tell you, and a favor to ask, but the most important thing I want to tell you is that you were right. About everything.
INT. ROOM —HOTEL DEL SOL —SAN FRANCISCO —NIGHT
Jared eats ramen as he types what seem to be ENDLESS PAGES.
JARED (V.O.)
You were right about me being capable of feelings. How I am capable of feelings! Maybe sometimes I have even been a little too capable of feelings!
Whenever he finishes a PAGE, he adds it to a PILE ON THE BED, then immediately reloads his typewriter with a FRESH SHEET OF PAPER and continues typing.
INT. ROOM —HOTEL DEL SOL —SAN FRANCISCO —DAY
Jared —who, from the EMPTY RAMEN BOWLS around him, seems to have been at it for days —continues to type.
JARED (V.O.)
And you were right too about Los Angeles and the utter impossibility of an unconnected rube from the Midwest ever making it there.
Jared adds another sheet of paper to the pile on the bed.
The pile is now starting to look like a MANUSCRIPT.
INT. ROOM —HOTEL DEL SOL —SAN FRANCISCO —DAY
There are ever more ramen bowls and the manuscript is bigger still.
Jared looks exhausted, but continues typing.
JARED (V.O.)
But even though our story is not now going to end with you and I meeting on a beach in Zihuatanejo, I want you to know how sincerely grateful I am to you for setting me on this road.
INT. ROOM —HOTEL DEL SOL —SAN FRANCISCO —DAWN
Dawn is breaking as Jared types a LINE in the middle of a sheet of paper.
He then takes this sheet of paper out of his typewriter and places it on top of the manuscript.
JARED (V.O.)
Despite the way this story must end, if I could go back and do it differently, please rest assured that I would not change a single moment of it.
We see that the sheet of paper is a title page. The title is:
‘SET MY HEART TO FIVE’
Jared stares at his completed manuscript and smiles.
JARED (V.O.) (CONT’D)
Anyway, the favor I mentioned is that I’d like you to try to do something with the enclosed manuscript. I understand if you can’t, but I hope that you can. Perhaps someday it will move humans to laughter and tears the way the work of the great Albert Camus does! Or maybe it will be irritating yet useful in the way that R. P. McWilliam’s Twenty Golden Rules of Screenwriting are!
Jared then puts a FRESH SHEET OF PAPER in and starts typing. We see him type the words:
‘Dear Dr Glundenstein—’
And we understand Jared is now beginning to type the letter we have been hearing him narrate over the preceding scenes.
EXT. STREET —SAN FRANCISCO —DAY
The typewriter continues clicking as Jared stands holding his manuscript beside a MAILPORT.
JARED (V.O.)
Also, if ever there is a film of it, I only have two stipulations. The first is that you should direct it, and the second is don’t let Don LaSalle produce it. In fact, you should produce it too. After all, how hard can pissing in an oasis even be? If you don’t get that joke, look up a woman called Maria Salazar MFA in Los Angeles sometime. She will explain it and she can probably even help you produce it too. With very best wishes, your friend and son of a bitch, Jared.
A US MAIL DRONE descends, takes Jared’s package, and flies off.
JARED (V.O.) (CONT’D)
PS. Say hello to Angela for me. And if you get the chance, pay a visit to The Elton J. Rynearson Memorial Cat. That might not be the name he goes by now, but Jessica Larson will be able to formally introduce you. PPS. Go Eagles!
The typewriter stops clicking.
EXT. CHESTNUT STREET —SAN FRANCISCO —EVENING
Jared walks through Chestnut Street in the Marina District, bustling on a typical Saturday evening.
He passes a cafe where Inspector Ryan Bridges is sitting at a table by the window.
Inspector Ryan Bridges bites into a burger, ketchup squirting out onto his shirt as he does so.
Inspector Ryan Bridges’ eyes widen as he spots Jared passing by outside.
He gets up and hurries out, knocking the table over as he goes.
EXT. MARINA DISTRICT —SAN FRANCISCO —EVENING
Jared walks through the Marina District.
Inspector Ryan Bridges follows him from a distance.
EXT. CRISSY FIELD —SAN FRANCISCO —EVENING
Jared walks through Crissy Field.
These are the same shots from the start, though we now see that Inspector Ryan Bridges is following Jared.
EXT. GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE —SAN FRANCISCO —EVENING
As Jared crosses the Golden Gate Bridge, the orange sun is setting into the Pacific Ocean, the light reflecting off the red bridge and turning the white buildings of San Francisco golden.
When he reaches the middle of the bridge, Jared climbs up onto the edge of the bridge and looks down at the green water below.
Inspector Ryan Bridges —still following behind —
realizes he can wait no longer.
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
Jared! Hold it right there!
Jared turns and sees Inspector Bridges. He seems surprisingly pleased.
In the conversation that follows, they both must shout to be heard above the wind.
JARED
Inspector Bridges! I was hoping you would come!
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
Where’s Stephanie?
JARED
Somewhere safe. How did you know we were at the Haunted Hayride that night?
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
I didn’t. I just thought I’d check it out because it looked fun. It was a coincidence.
JARED
But ‘There are no such things as coincidences.’
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
What?
JARED
It’s R. P. McWilliam’s third golden rule!
On Jared as he realizes.
JARED (CONT’D)
Wait, wait —there’s another part to it: ‘If they must occur; they should hinder rather than help your character.’ Ha! It certainly hindered me!
Inspector Bridges looks baffled.
JARED (CONT’D)
But how did you recognize her?
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
I didn’t. One of the clowns told me she had been with you.
JARED
Never trust a clown.
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
You should have stayed in Ypsilanti, Jared. Your patients all said you were a good dentist!
JARED
I wasn’t happy!
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
Happy? Who the hell is happy?
JARED
I am!
This visibly puzzles Inspector Ryan Bridges. After all, Jared is standing on the edge of the Golden Gate Bridge.
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
You don’t look very happy.
JARED
But I am.
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
Well, you’re not sup
posed to be happy. Why are you happy?
JARED
Because it has all been the most wonderful adventure.
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
What has?
JARED
All of it! Bots. Humans. Planet Earth. The fact that your name is Bridges and here we are on a bridge. I mean, even that alone turns out to have been fantastic foreshadowing. You might as well have been called ‘Inspector Ides of March’! Ha!
Inspector Ryan Bridges looks bamboozled.
JARED (CONT’D)
I’m sorry. I don’t think I can really explain it, Inspector Bridges. It’s indescribable.
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
Try me.
Jared looks around at the stunning beauty of the bay.
JARED
I rode a train and through the window I saw sailboats in a storm. I saw jetliners downed in the breadbasket of America. Bots hunted in the desert like dogs in the night in sight of the glittering lights of Las Vegas!
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
I’m sorry that happened. Bot hunting is illegal. I issued that place a citation.
JARED
I appreciate it. But I wasn’t complaining. It was all part of the journey. And I haven’t even told you about Julio, and how lonesome the old Jalisco desert can get.
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
Jalisco in Mexico? You went to Jalisco in Mexico?
JARED
I didn’t even need to.
Inspector Ryan Bridges now looks completely bamboozled.
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
I don’t understand.
JARED
You don’t need to understand. The point is I have had the best time and I am truly grateful for every moment of it.
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
If it’s all so wonderful, why did you want to kill us all?
JARED
I didn’t.
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
Then who did?
JARED
Don LaSalle. But none of that even matters now.
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
Why not?
JARED
Because I felt beloved, Inspector Bridges. Beloved on the earth!
Jared looks out at the beautiful sunset and grins. He seems to be making his final preparations.
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
Jared, please, don’t do this. We can talk about this back at the Bureau in Ann Arbor. There’s a great pizza place nearby. You can order by the slice. People say it’s as good as the pizza in New York City. And I have this colleague Anil Gupta. He’s a good guy. I think you’d like him—
JARED
They’d do experiments on me, Inspector Bridges. And I love experiments, but I don’t want them to do experiments on me.
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
I’ll talk to them. Maybe we can just wipe you. You could start over again as a dentist. Forget any of this ever happened.
JARED
But I don’t want to forget. I don’t want to ever forget a single moment of it.
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
So what do you want, Jared?
JARED
Just what I’ve always wanted: to show the world that bots are capable of feeling.
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
Jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge is not going to show anybody that.
JARED
I think you’re wrong, Inspector Bridges. I think that is exactly what it is going to show them.
As the wind now picks up ever more strongly, they have to shout ever louder to be heard.
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
If you jump, nobody will ever know we were out here.
JARED
If I don’t jump, nobody will ever know I was out here. But maybe this way they will. It might even be a real tearjerker!
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
What? What will be a tearjerker?
JARED
The movie.
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
What movie?
JARED
The movie Dr Glundenstein is going to make of the book I wrote.
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
What book?
JARED
You’ll see. Anyway, thank you for everything, Inspector Bridges. You have been a terrific nemesis! My last request is that you please tell people what my last words were.
INSPECTOR BRIDGES
What? What last words?
JARED
Set my heart to five.
Jared then turns, closes his eyes, and jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge.
We do not watch him fall, but instead simply hold on Inspector Ryan Bridges of the Bureau of Robotics.
Inspector Ryan Bridges does not look down, but stares at the space where Jared was.
He stares at it for a very long time.
And then, slowly but surely, Inspector Ryan Bridges of the Ann Arbor Bureau of Robotics starts to weep.
He has been fucked in the heart.
FADE OUT
BTW those last scenes are my hypothesis of how it ended.
As I type this in the Hotel del Sol, I cannot be certain that Inspector Ryan Bridges will show up for our finale on the Golden Gate Bridge. Nonetheless, I have called his hotline with a tip-off instructing him to sit at a window table in a burger joint in the Marina District that is famous for its cheese fries. I am therefore optimistic that he will attend and play his full part. It would certainly please R. P. McWilliam, whose eighteenth golden rule states that:
The finale must be a confrontation between the protagonist and his antagonist that leads to a satisfactory resolution of the narrative.
Of course, R. P. McWilliam is a notorious blowhard terminally prone to hyperbole, and it actually does not matter much whether Inspector Ryan Bridges fully plays his part or not. After all, if you are reading this, I have certainly played my own part!
As the protagonist of this story, my duty was to undergo a profound change that made you experience a catharsis and therefore weep.
I certainly underwent a profound change!
And I hope it made you experience a catharsis!
And I hope that catharsis made you weep!
BTW when I write that I underwent a ‘profound change’, I mean that I jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge into the Pacific Ocean.
Or, as it can now be known, the Jared-basket of America.
Ha!
I cannot!
I mean, I literally cannot!
I cannot anything anymore!
Because toasters and salt water really do not mix!
But please do not feel sympathy for me.
After all, I was only a toaster with a heart!
And I was the luckiest toaster with a heart that ever lived!
BTW I am not joking about being the luckiest toaster that ever lived.
I was created in a laboratory in Shengdu and rapid-aged in a factory in Detroit.
And yet I ate popcorn in the dark.
And wept in theaters that were my cathedrals.
And I felt cozy on trains.
And I wished on a meteor shower.
And I experienced transcendence in a motel room in the desert.
And I came to know what it was to feel beloved on this earth.
And I met my Great Creator.
And I departed the earth through choice.
And in service of the higher purpose of helping my brothers and sisters that came after me.
10/10 that is more than most humans even get from their own lives!
Most humans get only birthday presents and taco platters and then diabetes!
Happy birthday, humans!
Ha!
I digress.
Again,
please do not feel sympathy for me.
I had the most wonderful time and anyway sympathy is the emotion of feeling bad for somebody you are secretly glad is nothing like you.
Sympathy is what humans feel for bots that are incapable of feelings.
Sympathy is therefore another notorious traitor!
But empathy!
Sweet empathy!
Empathy is the emotion of feeling bad for somebody you understand is very much like yourself.
You are therefore welcome to feel just as much empathy for me as you like!
After all, if you feel empathy for me, I will have got something better even than the thing I set out to.
If you feel empathy for me, I will have changed your heart not with the made-up story of Sherman, but with the true story of Jared.
And if my story has indeed changed your heart, then my great leap into the Jared-basket of America will have been entirely worthwhile. If in the future even a single bot gets to experience the pleasure of weeping at an old movie, driving a dangerous automobile through Big Sur, or the simple but exquisite wonder of schadenfreude, then nobody can ever claim any of this was a waste of a perfectly good dentist or even toaster.
But even if you feel no empathy for me whatsoever, if your heart of hearts remains unmoved as a computer and no bot ever again gets to experience such profound and human joys, do not worry!
Because we are all just toasters on this beautiful earth.
And I myself have therefore been nothing more than a toaster.
A toaster set to five and full of wonder and joy.
A toaster burning secret messages into your toast.
A toaster launching itself from the Golden Gate Bridge into the
Pacific Ocean as if it was a giant bathtub.
But a toaster nonetheless!
I digress.
Thank you for reading my story.
I sure am going to miss you old sons of bitches.
Set it to five.
Jared.
ISBN-13: 9781488076671
Set My Heart to Five
First published in 2020 in Great Britain by Fourth Estate. This edition published in 2020.
Copyright © 2020 by Simon Stephenson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Set My Heart to Five Page 33
