A Script for The Great White Blank and Frozen Pipes

[SCENE START]

**INT. BOREALIS HUB - MAIN HALL - NIGHT**

SOUND of a VICIOUS, HOWLING WIND

The space is a cavernous, freezing gloom, lit only by a single, sad string of battery-powered emergency lights.

TYLER JESSOP (30s), cynical and exhausted, wrestles with a portable generator, a relic from another century. His knuckles are scraped raw, slick with cold grease.

His breath hangs in the air, a ragged white plume.

The generator COUGHS. A pathetic, asthmatic shudder. And then, with a final, dying WHIMPER... it goes silent.

The emergency lights flicker once, twice, and die.

The hall is plunged into a profound, oppressive darkness. The wind outside seems to ROAR in triumph.

<center>TYLER</center>

> No, no, no...

He fumbles for the pull cord, his threadbare wool gloves doing little against the clawing cold. He gives it a useless tug. The cord slaps back against the metal housing. He lets it drop.

A shadow detaches itself from the deeper darkness near the gallery space. It's DENISE GIRARD (27), earnest and anxious, bundled in a neon green ski jacket zipped to her chin. She clutches a lumpy, abstract sculpture like a life raft.

The sculpture, "Winter's Embrace," looks like a badger losing a snowball fight.

<center>DENISE</center>

> (a reedy whisper)

> Tyler? Is it... is it really out this time?

Her own breath puffs white in the gloom. Her wide eyes dart around the dark, cavernous hall.

<center>TYLER</center>

> Yeah, Denise. Really out.

He drops the pull cord. The THUD echoes. He rubs his hands together, a futile gesture. His teeth begin to chatter.

<center>TYLER</center>

> (CONT'D)

> Looks like "The Great White Blank" exhibit is getting a rather authentic, unheated experience.

Denise takes a hesitant step closer, adjusting her grip on the badger-snowball.

<center>DENISE</center>

> But... the ice. What about Mrs. Davison's ice sculpture? It's supposed to be the centerpiece!

<center>TYLER</center>

> Mrs. Davison's moose will return to its natural state, Denise. Water. It's a comment on the ephemeral nature of... everything, I suppose.

The dry humor is completely lost on her. Her face falls.

<center>DENISE</center>

> But the unveiling is tomorrow night! And Mayor Carleton said she's bringing that critic from Toronto. The one from that big city magazine!

Tyler closes his eyes. The critic. The exquisitely painful detail he'd been trying to forget.

<center>TYLER</center>

> (sighs)

> Well, we've got until tomorrow to find a new generator. Or invent a portable sun.

He gives a loose floorboard a frustrated kick. It GROANS in protest.

Suddenly, the main double doors CREAK open with an ARCTIC BLAST of wind and swirling snow.

A figure, bundled in a coat of formidable proportions, is silhouetted against the white chaos outside. The figure steps in, clapping gloved hands with a loud SMACK.

It's MAYOR BRENDA CARLETON (60s), cheeks rosy, a smile plastered on her face that defies all logic.

<center>BRENDA</center>

> Oh, dear! The power, it seems to have... gone out!

She gestures at the gloom as if scolding a misbehaving child.

<center>TYLER</center>

> (muttering)

> No kidding, Brenda. Thought it was just a particularly aggressive eclipse.

<center>DENISE</center>

> Mayor Carleton! We were just trying to keep everything from... well, freezing.

Denise gestures helplessly at the dark shapes of the exhibit: a sad beaver watercolour, a collage of dryer lint.

<center>BRENDA</center>

> Nonsense, dear! A little chill builds character! It adds to the ambience, doesn't it? The rustic, authentic North! The critic, Mr. Fitzwilliam, he'll adore it. He's all about raw, unfiltered experience.

Tyler's teeth chatter, a frantic, desperate rhythm.

<center>TYLER</center>

> (under his breath)

> He'll adore the dripping condensation on his cashmere scarf, I'm sure.

As if summoned, a distant, unsettling GURGLE echoes from the back of the building. It's followed by a faint, high-pitched WHINE.

<center>DENISE</center>

> What was that?

<center>BRENDA</center>

> (unfazed)

> Probably just Beaulieu, trying to fix the boiler again. He's always tinkering.

The GURGLE intensifies. It escalates into a frantic, SPLASHING torrent. It's getting closer.

<center>TYLER</center>

> That's not Beaulieu tinkering. That's a burst pipe.

He takes off, sliding and stumbling through the darkness toward the sound. Denise is right behind him.

**INT. BOREALIS HUB - GALLERY SPACE - CONTINUOUS**

Tyler rounds a corner past a display of "found objects" (old bottle caps). He freezes.

THE SCENE

A thick copper pipe running along the wall has split. A GEYSER of icy water arcs powerfully outwards.

It's aimed directly at Mrs. Davison's ice moose.

What's left of the sculpture is being unceremoniously washed away, its abstract form melting into shapeless lumps. Water pools on the concrete floor, already sheening with new ice.

The dryer lint collage, positioned innocently below, is now a sodden, disintegrating grey pulp.

Brenda catches up, her voice losing a fraction of its cheer.

<center>BRENDA</center>

> Oh, dear. That's... quite a lot of water.

<center>TYLER</center>

> (exploding)

> "Quite a lot of water?" Brenda, we have a flash flood in the art gallery and Mrs. Davison's magnum opus is performing a vanishing act!

A weathered figure shuffles into the scene. BEAULIEU (70s), in a faded Carhartt jacket, eternally unimpressed. He spits a stream of tobacco juice into a nearby bucket.

<center>BEAULIEU</center>

> (a gravelly grunt)

> Thought I heard something.

He pulls a rusty monkey wrench from his pocket.

<center>DENISE</center>

> Can you stop it?

Beaulieu just shrugs.

<center>BEAULIEU</center>

> Valve's seized up in the basement. Gonna need more than a wrench for that. And power. The old pump's frozen solid. Best we can do is divert it.

What follows is a chaotic, freezing ballet of failure. Tyler, Denise, and a surprisingly game Brenda slosh freezing water into buckets, slipping and sliding on the spreading ice. Beaulieu grunts and wrestles with the pipe.

After twenty minutes, the geyser is reduced to a steady, manageable DRIP into a line of overflowing buckets.

The gallery is a disaster. A thin sheet of ice coats the floor. The moose is a memory.

Brenda, wiping a smudge of dirt from her cheek, miraculously restores her smile to full wattage.

<center>BRENDA</center>

> Well! That was quite the... unexpected development! But we've proven our mettle! Resourcefulness! Resilience! Mr. Fitzwilliam will simply adore our spirit!

Tyler just stares at her, too cold and tired to argue. His hip aches from where he slipped. Denise mournfully pokes the remains of the lint collage with her boot.

<center>BRENDA</center>

> (CONT'D)

> Actually...

She suddenly looks a little sheepish, a rare crack in her optimistic armor.

<center>BRENDA</center>

> (CONT'D)

> About Mr. Fitzwilliam. I might have... slightly embellished. He's not just a critic. He's also looking for a location for his next... documentary.

Her eyes gleam with a terrifying light.

<center>BRENDA</center>

> (CONT'D)

> Something about the tenacity of the human spirit in challenging environments. And he's arriving first thing tomorrow morning for a surprise 'walk-through' before the main event.

Tyler's head spins. A documentary. A surprise walk-through. At dawn.

He looks from the dripping, jury-rigged pipe, to the frozen swamp that was once an art gallery, to Brenda's beaming, delusional face.

One night to turn this absolute catastrophe into a testament to the "tenacity of the human spirit."

CLOSE ON TYLER'S FACE

The chilling certainty of utter, spectacular doom washes over him.

[SCENE END]