A Script for Scrap Value

by Jamie F. Bell

INT. GARAGE - DAY

The year is 2025. The air is so cold you can see it.

SOUND of a hissing propane heater, doing nothing.

The space is a mess of rusted metal, half-finished canvases, and old coffee cups. It smells of copper, cold dust, and failure.

In the center of the concrete floor, a SCULPTURE: three-hundred pounds of welded rebar and stolen shopping cart casters. A jagged, rusted monstrosity.

BODE (24), idealism worn thin by poverty, shoves his shoulder against it. His boots slip on a patch of oil-slicked frost. He grunts -- a sound of structural failure.

On the other side, MARNIE (24), sharp-witted and layered in three hoodies, grips the metal with oversized work gloves.

<center>MARNIE</center>

> Pivot it. Don't shove. You have to pivot.

> (Snapping)

> I am pivoting.

He isn't. He's shoving. He heaves again.

> It’s the casters. The grease is frozen. Physics doesn't work at thirty below.

<center>MARNIE</center>

> Physics works fine. You’re just mad because the jury said your artist statement was 'too derivative'.

> Low blow.

He puts his whole body into it.

SOUND of metal screeching, a fork on a chalkboard through a distortion pedal.

The sculpture lurches three inches toward the open bay door.

> And they didn't say derivative. They said 'lacking regional specificity'. Which is rich, considering I made this out of actual trash from the Dryden dump.

They pause. Their breath plumes in the frigid air. Marnie lets go, shaking her hands out. The thick gloves make a dull clapping sound.

<center>MARNIE</center>

> Regional specificity. They want you to weld a moose. Or a pine tree. If you welded a pine tree holding a hockey stick, they’d give you the grant tomorrow.

> I'm not welding a moose, Marnie.

<center>MARNIE</center>

> Then pivot the damn sculpture so we can get it in the truck.

EXT. GARAGE - CONTINUOUS

Ten minutes of grunting and slipping later, they wrestle the beast into the bed of a rusted Ford F-150. The truck's suspension GROANS in protest.

Bode SLAMS the tailgate shut. The sound rings out like a gunshot in the snow-muffled quiet.

He leans against the truck, panting, the air burning his throat. The sky is a flat, impenetrable white.

Marnie sits on the rear bumper, kicking her heels against a tire. She pulls out a vape pen, sees the dead battery light, shoves it back in her pocket with a sigh -- fifty percent exhaustion, fifty percent existential dread.

<center>MARNIE</center>

> So. If we get this to Thunder Bay by six, and if the gallery actually hangs it, and if someone actually buys it... what’s the net?

Bode stares at the grey horizon of pine trees. He's done this math a thousand times at 3:00 AM.

> Materials were mostly free, minus the gas for the torch and the wire. Gas to get there and back is... let's say a hundred bucks, considering the price spike last week. Entry fee was fifty. If it sells for the asking price? I clear maybe four hundred dollars.

<center>MARNIE</center>

> Four hundred.

> (a beat)

> That’s almost rent. For a week.

> It's exposure, Marnie. The currency of the future.

<center>MARNIE</center>

> Exposure is what you die of out here. Come on. I brewed a fresh pot of sludge. Let's warm up before we hit the highway.

She hops off the bumper and heads back inside.

INT. GARAGE - MOMENTS LATER

The air is marginally warmer. They sit on a pair of bucket seats ripped from a dead Cavalier, positioned in front of the hissing propane heater.

Bode pours coffee -- thick and black -- into two mugs stained brown on the inside. He hands one to Marnie.

She wraps both hands around it, closing her eyes, absorbing the minimal warmth.

<center>MARNIE</center>

> I got the rejection email from the Toronto residency this morning.

Bode stops mid-sip. He looks at her over the rim of his mug.

> Standard form letter?

<center>MARNIE</center>

> (opens her eyes)

> Worse. Personalized encouragement. The curator said my prose was 'hauntingly stark' but that they were looking for voices that 'celebrate the vibrancy of urban connectivity'. Urban connectivity, Bode. I live in a town where the internet goes out if a raven lands on the line too hard.

Bode snorts.

> Vibrancy. That means they want happy stories about subways. They don't want stories about how the grocery store ran out of lettuce again because the transport truck jackknifed on Highway 17.

<center>MARNIE</center>

> Exactly. It's...

> (gestures with the mug)

> It feels like we're shouting into a void, but the void isn't even listening. It has noise-canceling headphones on. It’s listening to a podcast about productivity hacks.

Bode takes a long drink. The coffee is bitter, tasting faintly of iron.

> Maybe we're just obsolete. You know? Two analog glitches. I'm welding scrap metal in a world that wants seamless, AI-generated biomorphic furniture. You're writing short stories about isolation in a world that wants fifteen-second dopamine hits.

<center>MARNIE</center>

> Don't start with the doom spiral. I can't handle the doom spiral until I've had at least one cookie. Do we have cookies?

> We have stale soda crackers.

<center>MARNIE</center>

> Pass the crackers.

Bode retrieves a sleeve of crackers from a workbench, brushing off a layer of metal filings before handing it over.

They eat in silence.

SOUND of the heater's rhythmic *thrum-thrum-thrum* and the wind rattling the corrugated metal roof.

> My dad asked me yesterday when I was going to 'pivot' to a trade. He sent me a link to a heavy equipment operator course. Said the lithium mines up north are hiring. Hundred grand a year to start. Camp life. Two weeks on, two weeks off.

<center>MARNIE</center>

> You'd go crazy. You'd be welding stick figures onto the excavators within a week.

> Would I? Hundred grand, Marn. I could fix the truck. I could buy a house that has insulation. I could buy actual canvas instead of painting on plywood scraps. I could... eat vegetables that aren't frozen.

<center>MARNIE</center>

> But you wouldn't have time to paint. Two weeks on, two weeks off? The two weeks off you're just recovering. Sleeping. Drinking to forget the two weeks on. I’ve seen it. My uncle did it for ten years. He has a boat and a skidoo and a liver the size of a football, and he hasn't read a book since 1995.

> Is that worse than this?

He gestures to the grime, the junk, the cold.

> We're twenty-four, Marnie. We're living like we're in a post-apocalyptic novel, but without the cool outfits. I have forty dollars in my bank account until that sculpture sells. If it sells.

Marnie breaks a cracker in half with precise force.

<center>MARNIE</center>

> It’s not worse. It’s just... different bad. That’s the choice, right? The trap. You can have money and no soul, or soul and no money. It’s a binary system designed to crush you either way.

> Satire isn't helping today.

<center>MARNIE</center>

> It's not satire. It's observation. It’s journalism.

> (leans forward)

> Look, the world in 2025 is a joke. We know this. The climate is broken, the economy is three hedge funds in a trench coat, and culture is just an algorithm chewing on its own tail. But...

She hesitates, looking down at her boots. The toe is held together with duct tape.

> But what?

<center>MARNIE</center>

> (quietly)

> But here, at least, it’s real. The cold is real. That ugly jagged thing in your truck is real. When I write a sentence here, I know it’s true because there’s nothing else to do but tell the truth. There’s no audience to perform for. There’s just... us. And the snow.

Bode looks at her. Her face is pale, framed by her dark hood, her eyes tired but fierce.

> Real doesn't pay the hydro bill, Marnie.

<center>MARNIE</center>

> No. But maybe we don't need to win the game. Maybe we just need to refuse to play by their rules. We stay here. We make our weird, gritty, 'regionally unspecific' art. We become the hermits of the highway. We grow potatoes in the summer and freeze in the winter and we leave something behind that proves we were here, that we didn't just... consume content and die.

A smile cracks Bode's face. It looks rusty.

> Hermits of the Highway. Sounds like a bad folk band.

<center>MARNIE</center>

> I'd listen to them.

Bode sighs, leaning back. The vinyl is cold against his neck.

> I'm just tired, Marn. I feel like I'm waiting for a bus that was cancelled three years ago.

<center>MARNIE</center>

> (softly)

> I know. Me too.

They sit. The light outside fails, the white sky turning a bruised purple.

The propane heater SPUTTERS, COUGHS, and DIES.

SOUND of silence rushing back in, heavy and cold.

> (not moving)

> Out of propane.

<center>MARNIE</center>

> Great. Perfect narrative timing.

They stand up, stiff, groaning like old machinery. Bode grabs his keys from the workbench. He looks around the darkening garage. A dump. A freezer. A trap. But theirs.

At the door, Marnie pulls a scarf over her nose.

<center>MARNIE</center>

> Hey. If it doesn't sell... if nobody buys the sculpture...

> Yeah?

<center>MARNIE</center>

> We drive it to the marina and dump it in the lake. Let the future archaeologists figure it out. They’ll think it was a ritual effigy to the God of Tetris.

Bode laughs. A real, genuine laugh.

> Deal.

EXT. GARAGE - NIGHT

They step out into the biting wind. The snow has started. Huge, fat flakes drift down.

The truck is a dark shape. The sculpture in the back looks like the skeleton of some prehistoric beast unearthed from the ice.

INT. TRUCK - CONTINUOUS

Bode climbs into the driver's seat. He turns the key. The engine TURNS OVER once, twice, sluggishly... then ROARS to life with a RATTLE that shakes the whole dashboard.

He flips on the headlights. Two yellow cones cut into the swirling white.

Marnie hops in the passenger side, SLAMMING the door hard to make it latch. She rubs her hands together over the heating vents, waiting for warmth that won't come for another twenty kilometers.

<center>MARNIE</center>

> Route 102 or the main highway?

> Main highway. I want to see the lights at Kakabeka. Remind myself civilization exists.

<center>MARNIE</center>

> (muttering)

> Civilization is overrated.

She buckles her seatbelt. The truck crunches over the snow and turns onto the road. The tires hum against the ice.

CLOSE ON Bode's hands gripping the wheel. He feels the weight of it all.

> Put on some music. Something loud. Drown out the wind.

Marnie plugs her phone into an aux cord.

SOUND of distorted, fuzzy BASS filling the cab. It's raw, unpolished noise, loud enough to rattle the windows.

ANGLE ON the truck, a single point of light and sound, driving into the dark, into the storm. Two specks of heat in a vast, frozen landscape.

FADE TO BLACK.

About This Script

This script is part of the Unfinished Tales and Random Short Stories project, a creative research initiative by The Arts Incubator Winnipeg and the Art Borups Corners collectives. Each script outlines a potential cinematic or episodic adaptation of its corresponding chapter. The project was made possible with funding and support from the Ontario Arts Council Multi and Inter-Arts Projects program and the Government of Ontario.

These scripts serve as a bridge between the literary fragment and the screen, exploring how the story's core themes, characters, and atmosphere could be translated into a visual medium.