Fries and Whispers

Fries And Whispers: An Experiment In Existential Marketing

[Open with a series of single shots.  The first is of an austere but stately home from afar.  Cut to the interior of the house.  It is a large sitting room.  Victorian style furniture crowds the room.  The feeling of the room is extravagant but cold.  Cut again to the inside of a bedroom.  A woman lies in the bed on her side.  Now cut to a close up of the woman.  Her skin is pale and her eyes are sunken. She moves, but barely.  It is clear that the slightest bit of movement requires an almost superhuman amount of effort.  From off frame, a towel is placed on her forehead.  We zoom out and see a plump, kindly woman leaning over her.  She places the towel in a washbasin and wets it again, placing it back on the sickly woman’s forehead.  Her devotion is unmistakable.]

Nurse [she speaks in Swedish, as do all the other characters.  The dialogue is subtitled along the bottom of the screen]:  How are you feeling today, madame?

Sick Woman [feebly]: It hurts, Anna, it hurts.

Nurse (hereafter referred to as Anna):  I know…[she pauses and looks down sadly]  Can I get you anything?

Sick Woman:  I would like to try to eat.  Could you possibly send the master of the house to McBergman’s?

Anna [nodding]:  Of course, madame.  Right away.

[The camera zooms out as Anna rises from the bed.  She turns towards us and walks straight towards the camera.  As she walks, the camera backs up, mimicking her approach.  The camera withdraws all the way through an open door frame and peers into the bedroom from outside.  Anna reaches the threshold and walks through it.  She turns and closes the door behind her.  The door shuts and the frame cuts to black.

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[A man dressed as a medieval knight stares straight ahead into the camera.  His shirt is chain mail, and he has a large cross hung around his neck.  His face is gaunt and unshaven.  Anna walks into the frame from the left.  She faces directly to the right.  Her face is at a 90 degree angle to the knight.  They address each other without truly acknowledging the other’s presence]

Anna:  The missus is not feeling well, today, sir, but she is going to try to eat.  Could you possibly go to McBergman’s and pick her up some food?

The Knight:  What can any of us do, aside from that to which we are fated?

[Anna reacts as if she is going to respond, but instead pauses, the words escape her…]

Anna [falteringly]:  Is that a yes or a no?

[The knight nods silently in assent. Cut to black]

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[We now cut to an outdoor shot.  The sun is shining brightly.  The camera is positioned low on the ground and looks up at an angle.  It is the exterior of a McBergman’s fast food restaurant.  A large sign towers in the sky above the building:  The famous golden arches of McBergman’s dominate the scene.  Below the arches a sign reads:  “100 billion deceased. “   The camera lingers for a while, and then we cut to a shot of the drive-through.  The camera looks straight down the drive-through lane.  The side of the drive-through menu is to the right of the frame.  We see a car pull around from behind the building.  It drives straight towards the camera and then stops next to the menu.  The camera zooms in and, through the windshield of the car, we see the knight.  An unseen voice crackles from the drive through menu.]

Drive Thru Window:  May I take your order?

[The knight rolls his window down, leans forward to speak, hesitates, and then responds]

Knight:  We make an idol out of our fear, and call it God.

[Cut to the interior of the McBergman’s.  From behind we see an employee, he is wearing a standard McBergman’s uniform, with a visor and a radio headset on top of that.  Behind the employee we see the drive-through window.  He slowly turns to face us, and we recognize the employee: it is Death, himself.  His ashen white face contorts into an evil grin.  He speaks into the headset.]

Death [coldly]:  Would you like fries with that?

[Cut to black]

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[We are now back inside the sitting room.  Anna is sitting in one of the chairs, she is bent over, holding her face in her hands, convulsing with sobs.  The Knight walks into the frame from the left, holding a bag of McBergman’s; he towers over Anna, almost menacingly, but not intentionally so.  Slowly, Anna becomes aware of the knight’s presence, and she looks up at him in despair.  As she stares up at the knight, helplessly, she begins to assume the posture of a supplicant.]

Anna [desperately]:  She’s gone!  She screamed out in agony and then vanished from this world!  There is nothing for her now but the void.

[The Knight nods and sets the bag of food down on a small nightstand]

Knight:  So, it came swiftly.  We had no time to send for a priest to administer the last rites.  She was denied absolution at the end, as well as this filet ‘o’ fish sandwich.

[Anna looks up at the knight in tears, and nods.  She hands him a leather bound volume.]

Anna:  This was by her nightstand.  It is a diary of her final days.

[The knight accepts the diary and opens it.  He looks down and begins to read out loud.]

Knight:  Wednesday, September 3…

[The frame cuts to black but the knight’s voice continues]

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[Now we are outside.  The dying woman from before is walking with Anna and two other women.  They are all in white dresses and carry parasols.  The knight, reading from the woman’s diary, narrates the scene.]

Knight:  My sisters have come to see me.  It’s wonderful again to be together as in the old days.  We were even able to take a stroll together, which was wonderful, since I haven’t been outdoors for so long.  We suddenly began to laugh and run toward the old swing…

[We see the women run as described.  The sit down together in a large U-shaped swing.  One of them holds up a bag of McBergman’s and begins taking sandwiches out of it and distributing them.]

Knight:  …all my aches and pains were gone.  We had McBergman’s.  My sister Karin had a double cheeseburger from the value menu, which contains eight different items for only 15 krona each.  Maria was thrilled, because she had the McRibmaster, which was back for a limited time only.  As usual, I had the filet ‘o’ fish.  Anna simply had fries and a coke…

[The women all smile as they bite into their food and share a laugh together.]

Knight:  …I wanted to cling to that moment.  I thought, “Come what may, this is happiness.  I cannot wish for anything better.  Now, for a few minutes, I can experience perfection, and I feel profoundly grateful to McBergman’s, which has given me so much food at such reasonable prices.  

[As the knight reads the final words, the scene abruptly ends.  Everything cuts to black and the film stops.]