CAST:
SOLOMON - a young man, careful and tired
MOTHER - his mother, old enough to remember a world before scarcity
MRS. TENDO - a fish seller with a hard smile
MR. BAKER - a grocer who speaks as if prices are weather
MAYOR HART - a polished public official who believes markets solve everything
LANDLORD - a man who owns the building and the air above it
CHORUS OF NEIGHBORS - voices of the market, the poor, and the forgotten
INT. SOLOMON'S APARTMENT - NIGHT
A single lamp burns weakly in a room that has forgotten comfort. A pot sits on the stove. A small table. A cracked window. The city hums outside like a machine that never sleeps. SOLOMON stands in worn shoes, holding a folded list. His MOTHER sits by the window, thin and upright, as if dignity itself were keeping her alive.
MOTHER
Did you bring the potatoes?
SOLOMON
I will. The market is crowded.
MOTHER
And the fish?
SOLOMON
I will bring that too.
MOTHER
You say that like the words are enough.
SOLOMON
They are all I have.
A beat.
MOTHER
When I was a girl, we did not need to buy the river.
SOLOMON
The river is gone, Mother.
MOTHER
No. It is only no longer ours.
SOLOMON leaves.
EXT. THE PUBLIC MARKET - NIGHT
The market is bright with cheap bulbs and louder with hunger. Stalls lean into one another like people in a crowd. The air smells of salt, rot, and diesel. Everyone is either bargaining or pretending not to be. A sign hangs above the fish stall: NO CREDIT. A second sign, smaller and cleaner, reads: PRIVATE LOT. The old commons have been fenced off by a company that now calls itself a steward of prosperity. SOLOMON moves through the crowd. He passes vegetables, soap, spices, and a row of empty crates where a once-free public square used to be.
MRS. TENDO
You are late.
SOLOMON
I am here.
MRS. TENDO
That is not the same thing.
She lifts a fish from ice. It gleams like a little insult.
SOLOMON
How much?
MRS. TENDO
Eight dollars.
SOLOMON
Eight? Yesterday it was five.
MRS. TENDO
Yesterday was yesterday. The market moves. You should learn that.
SOLOMON
My mother needs something for supper.
MRS. TENDO
Then pay what it costs.
A WOMAN nearby whispers to another.
WOMAN
They say the river is being drained to improve commerce.
ANOTHER WOMAN
They say the price of bread is rising because the wheat is scarce.
ANOTHER WOMAN
They say everything is scarce because someone wants it to be.
SOLOMON looks at the fish.
SOLOMON
I only have six.
MRS. TENDO
Then you have six dollars of hunger.
The CHORUS OF NEIGHBORS murmurs. They are tired of being made into examples.
CHORUS
The soup used to be free.
The water used to be shared.
The fields used to belong to all of us.
Now the price is written on the wall.
MRS. TENDO
If you want the fish, take it. If you want the price, take that too.
SOLOMON, unable to bear the wrongness of it, takes the fish and leaves.
EXT. THE VEGETABLE STALL - CONTINUOUS
MR. BAKER is weighing potatoes with a mechanical scale. The scale is old, but the price is new.
SOLOMON
How much for potatoes?
MR. BAKER
Three dollars a kilo.
SOLOMON
Three? Last week it was one.
MR. BAKER
Last week was a different economy.
SOLOMON
I have two dollars.
MR. BAKER
Then you have the right to be hungry in a cheaper way.
The crowd laughs, not because it is funny, but because it is helpless.
SOLOMON
What happened to the common garden? The one behind the school?
MR. BAKER
That place is being developed.
SOLOMON
Developed into what?
MR. BAKER
Profit.
A beat.
SOLOMON
And what do we get?
MR. BAKER
A chance to pay for what used to be given.
SOLOMON leaves with a small bag of potatoes and no peace.
INT. SOLOMON'S APARTMENT - LATER
The fish is on the table. The potatoes sit beside it. Mother stirs the pot. The room is colder than before.
MOTHER
You bought it.
SOLOMON
I bought what I could.
MOTHER
And what was left for the rest of the city?
SOLOMON
The rest of the city was left to its own cleverness.
MOTHER
That is a terrible phrase.
SOLOMON
It is a terrible age.
Mother lifts the lid of the pot and sniffs. She closes it again.
MOTHER
It smells like a promise.
SOLOMON
It smells like fish.
A small silence.
MOTHER
There used to be a place where people came with baskets and no money at all. A field behind the church. A row of trees. A spring. We took what we needed and left enough for the next day.
SOLOMON
That place is gone.
MOTHER
No. It was sold.
The sound of distant sirens. A child laughs outside, then stops as if the city has taught it caution.
INT. CITY HALL - DAY
The chamber is full of polished men and women. Curtains. Flags. A wall clock that runs too loudly. MAYOR HART stands at a podium with a smile that belongs to a person who has never had to count pennies for supper.
MAYOR HART
The free market is not a monster. It is a mechanism. When individuals are allowed to buy and sell without interference, prices become efficient. Supply meets demand. The economy flourishes.
A WOMAN from the back stands.
WOMAN
My son has taken to eating boiled leaves because the fish costs more than rent.
MAYOR HART
That is a matter of personal adaptation.
A murmur.
ANOTHER VOICE
The river was once public. Now it is fenced and guarded. We cannot drink. We cannot fish. We cannot even stand near it without paying.
MAYOR HART
Property rights are the foundation of civilization.
CHORUS OF NEIGHBORS
Civilization is a word people use when they are comfortable.
MAYOR HART
If the commons are overused, they fail. If private ownership governs the resource, stewardship follows.
SOLOMON, now in the back, speaks quietly at first.
SOLOMON
And if the poor cannot afford the price of stewardship?
MAYOR HART turns to him, amused.
MAYOR HART
Then the market has simply revealed the truth of your circumstances.
The room goes still.
SOLOMON
No. It has revealed the truth of yours.
The MAYOR smiles, but there is a crack in it.
MAYOR HART
You are very dramatic for a man who needs a meal.
SOLOMON
I am dramatic because I can still feel what is being sold.
The CHORUS steps forward. They are not a chorus now but a crowd.
CHORUS
We used to share the field.
We used to share the water.
We used to share the work.
Now we share the debt.
MAYOR HART leaves the podium. The city hall doors open to a world where the poor wait in line for scraps and the rich dine in private.
EXT. THE RIVERBANK - EVENING
The river is no longer a river. It is a long, narrow wound of brown water behind chain-link and iron gates. A sign reads: NO TRESPASSING. A company truck idles nearby. The water is too shallow to hold fish. The reeds are dead. SOLOMON stands at the fence. Mother is with him, wrapped in a shawl. She leans on her cane.
MOTHER
I remember when this place was full of life.
SOLOMON
It was full of us.
MOTHER
And now?
SOLOMON
Now there is a fee to look at what was once common.
A CHILD on the other side of the fence holds up a bottle of water.
CHILD
It costs five dollars.
MOTHER
Five dollars for water.
SOLOMON
Yes.
MOTHER
And for fish?
SOLOMON
More.
MOTHER looks at the dead water.
MOTHER
The world calls this progress because the numbers are beautiful.
SOLOMON
The numbers are beautiful because they are not hungry.
A beat.
MOTHER
Will you tell me the truth now?
SOLOMON
What truth?
MOTHER
That the market did not simply raise the price of food.
SOLOMON
It raised the price of breath.
He looks at the fence, the water, the empty sky.
INT. SOLOMON'S APARTMENT - NIGHT
The pot is empty. The fish has been eaten. The potatoes are gone. Mother sits at the table, almost too still. Solomon stands by the window, looking at the glow of the city outside.
MOTHER
Did you save any money?
SOLOMON
No.
MOTHER
Did you save any dignity?
SOLOMON
I am still carrying it.
MOTHER
That is not the same.
He puts a small ring on the table.
SOLOMON
I can sell this.
MOTHER
No.
SOLOMON
It will buy a little more fish.
MOTHER
It bought your father a better life than he had. Let it rest.
SOLOMON
You always say the right thing after it is too late.
MOTHER
That is because the right thing is expensive.
He looks at the ring, then at her.
SOLOMON
I will go again.
MOTHER
Don’t.
SOLOMON
I must.
MOTHER
Then go and learn the shape of a world that calls itself free while it charges us for water, bread, and the air that keeps us alive.
SOLOMON leaves.
EXT. THE MARKET - DAWN
The market opens under a grey sky. People arrive early. The poor arrive earlier. The stalls are already full of produce that has become too expensive to eat and too beautiful to ignore. SOLOMON approaches MRS. TENDO. She is wrapping the last fish of the morning in paper.
SOLOMON
How much?
MRS. TENDO
Ten dollars.
SOLOMON
Ten?
MRS. TENDO
The river is low. The boats are late. The traders are waiting. That is the price.
SOLOMON
And if I cannot pay?
MRS. TENDO
Then you will learn the price of being unable to pay.
The CHORUS gathers around. They are tired, but they are still speaking.
CHORUS
We were told the market would feed us.
We were told scarcity was natural.
We were told that if the poor could not afford the food, then the poor had failed to adjust.
SOLOMON stares at the fish. He hears his mother’s voice in the space between one breath and the next.
SOLOMON
My mother said the commons were not a fantasy.
MRS. TENDO
Your mother was sentimental.
SOLOMON
No.
He takes the fish.
SOLOMON
She was right.
He pays.
INT. SOLOMON'S APARTMENT - LATER
The room is dim. The fish is on the table. Mother is lying back in the chair as if she has simply decided to rest before the next task. Her hand is cold. SOLOMON kneels beside her.
SOLOMON
Mother?
No answer. He touches her wrist. He looks at the fish, the empty pot, the small room that has become too small for the life they have been asked to keep.
SOLOMON
I bought you dinner.
He places the fish on the table and stares at it as if it might become something else if he looks long enough. The city hums outside. Somewhere, a sign changes. Somewhere, a price is raised.
SOLOMON
The old world was not perfect. But it was not built on the idea that a person could be priced out of bread.
He looks toward the window, toward the darkened river beyond the houses.
SOLOMON
And if there is no commons left, then what are we saving ourselves for?
Blackout.