CLOUD ATLAS A Film By A. Wachowski L. Wachowski T. Tykwer Based on the Novel By David MitchellFADE IN: On motes like meteors; dancing, streaking particles of light that rise up against the endless night as we tilt down revealing-- The flickering flame of a campfire, wavering in the wind. EXT, VILLAGE - NIGHT - YEAR 2346 Broken-knuckled, scab covered hands reach for the warmth of the fire. ZACHRY Lornsome night. Babbits bawlin’, wind bitin’ t’bone. Zachry (50's) looks old, more weathered than aged, wearing a mix of furs and strange futuristic armor. ZACHRY (CONT'D) Wind like this carries voices, ancestry howlin’ at‘cha, screaming their stories, all their voices tied up in’t’one. on his face is a terrible scar, a brand burned into his cheek. ZACHRY (CONT’D) And out there’s you know who, spyin from the dark... Old Georgie and me crossed paths more times‘n I'm comfy mem’ryn. After I'm died no tellin’ what that fangy devil won't try to do to me... The fire glints in his eye. ZACHRY (CONT’D) Listen close and lemme yarn you ‘pout the first time we met eye to eye... EXT. CHATHAM ISLANDS BEACH - DAY - YEAR 1846 MOVING POV ON a trail of footsteps in the sand... being followed by ADAM EWING (35), a lawyer from the city of San Francisco who appears out of place on the shore of this Pacific island.EWING (V.0.) Thus it was that I made the acquaintance of Doctor Henry Goose, surgeon of London nobility. The path leads to DR. HENRY GOOSE (mid-40's), his trousers rolled up, sporting an unkempt beard as he shovels and sifts through the sand. EWING (CONT’D) Doctor Goose? Goose looks at Ewing, eye to eye. Goose And who might you be? EWING Ewing, Adam Ewing, Sir. Traveling with the “Prophetess”. They told me I could find you out here. Have you lost something? Goose (a beat, then smiles) Teeth, sir are the enameled grails of the quest at hand. This beach was once a cannibal’s banqueting hall, where the strong gorged on the weak, but the teeth, the teeth sir, they spat out as you or I would expel a cherry stone. An artisan of Piccadilly who fashions denture sets for the nobility pays handsomely for human gnashers. Do you know the price a quarter pound will earn, sir? EWING I confess, I do not. GoosE Nor shall I enlighten you, sir for ‘tis a professional secret. Ahhhhahahaha! The doctor has dentures himself; the teeth, overly large for his mouth, give him a comedic and paradoxically carnivorous appearance.