FADE IN:

INT. SEAN'S TINY CRAMPED APARANOIDTMENT

SEAN GULLETTE (V/O)

Personal Note. When I was a kid I stared at an eclipse for just over three seconds, despite that being a super idiotic thing to do. Somehow this gave me super math powers, a psychic connection to the mysteries of the universe, oh and searing headaches that will someday drive me mad and kill me. So don't forget to buy those eclipse glasses, I guess.

A KID from his building stops by with her calculator so SEAN can do math tricks.

SEAN GULLETTE

Can't disappoint my fans! Look, we didn't have social media yet okay? Making strangers do complex mental calculations was hugely popular, ask your parents!

SEAN amuses the kid with MATH and then gets back to the serious business of being a crazed obsessive mathematician to the hypnotic sounds of CLINT MANSELL'S wicked funky beats.

SEAN GULLETTE (V/O)

1:41 - Restate Assumptions. Black and white indie movies are edgy and cool. Higher mathematics are freaky shit. Therefore combining these elements will make a edgy cool freaky hit. My logic is infallible.

The PHONE rings.

PAMELA HART

(on phone)

Hi Sean it's Pamela! Don't hang up, I've tried calling five times already. Just want to be sure you're aware that my firm has an opening in our Paranoid Whackjob Math Freak division and we'd LOVE to consider you for-

SEAN GULLETTE

(hanging up)

Fuck that. Time to unlock the 92 separate locks on my door and begin my day!

In the hallway SEAN runs into the CUTE GIRL NEXT DOOR.

CUTE GIRL NEXT DOOR

Ha ha, hello Sean! Can I perhaps smile at you and tousle your hair? It's not every girl lucky enough to live next to a six-foot-tall delusional recluse! Tee hee!

SEAN GULLETTE

(fleeing)

AIEEEE NOOOOOOO53589OOOOO

INT. A DELI

SEAN orders himself some PECAN PI and is joined by BEN SHENKMAN.

BEN SHENKMAN

Hello! You look like a guy willing to discuss number theory and crazy conspiracies. Did you know about Gematria that assigns numerical values to the Hebrew language? Like "zayin" is 7 and "tet" is 9? This lets you do math with words, for instance kugel plus shaksuka times hamantaschen to the power of gravlax, then divided by sufganiyot and expressed as a latke sequence in a challah-dimensional space gives you-

WAITRESS

(delivers giant incomprehensible mound of food)

That'll be $323.84.

BEN SHENKMAN

Erm, my best friend of almost six minutes will get that...

(dashes out)

SEAN GULLETTE

You bastard! This makes me shake with rage... oh shit no it's my tremors! Fuck, I've got two go get my meds before ARRRGHHH HEEEADACCHHHEEE

SEAN races home to pop his MEDS but his HEAD is POUNDING SO MUCH! His DOOR also POUNDS AND POUNDS and finally FLIES OPEN to reveal--A TOTALLY WHITE SCREEN WHAAAAAT

DARREN ARONOFSKY

Ooh that was cool. I should do that trick again, let's say, six movies from now.

INT. MARK MARGOLIS'S APARTMENT

SEAN decides to unwind by having a spirited game of GO with neighbour MARK MARGOLIS who seems UNBROKEN and GOOD.

SEAN GULLETTE

Are you ever gonna buy any new games? We've played Go the last 43 times I've been here...

MARK MARGOLIS

For the last time, A: you need at least three players for Catan. B: that was only published a few years ago, it hasn't penetrated the North American market yet. C: place a fucking stone before I ring your bell.

INT. SUBWAY

SEAN rides the SUBWAY and further proves his mathematical genius by writing down HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL MATH EQUATIONS like Area equals pi times R-squared, YOIPS BE CAREFUL THERE SEAN THERE ARE SOME THINGS MAN WAS NOT MEANT TO TAMPER WITH. A random GUY talks to him but then VANISHES COMPLETELY!!

SEAN GULLETTE

Man, I eight when that happens.

INT. SEAN'S APARANOIDTMENT

SEAN prepares to activate his huge sprawling network of computers and motherboards that takes up the entire room and probably has half the processing power of a SAMSUNG GALAXY.

SEAN GULLETTE (V/O)

3:27: Restate assumptions. The stock market is expressed using numbers. Therefore, even though those numbers are the by-product of a separate process, I can find patterns in those numbers as if they were a self-contained mathematical function. Okay, everything's ready. Press return.

SEAN presses RETURN and the computers begin computing! But a FUSE blows just as the computer starts printing out LARGE GIBBERISH NUMBERS, OH NOOOO!

SEAN GULLETTE

Shit, like 95% of the computer is fragged! Let's have a look... damn, some fucking ants got into the works somehow and left goop on the circuits. Guess we have some BUGS IN THE SYSTEM HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR

(deep breath)

Ahhh, that's the stuff. I'll just toss this stupid printout with a big stupid number on it that is clearly just stupid nonsense. Along with these obviously wrong stock market predictions, I mean, "Buy Google"? What the fuck is that shit? I'll stick to investing in scrunchies futures, thank you VERY much.

INT. MARK MARGOLIS'S PLACE

Meanwhile MARK has steadfastly REFUSED to visit his local brick-and-mortar game shop and has set up GO yet again.

MARK MARGOLIS

I thought between moves today I'd tell you the story of Archimedes. 0h, and also how I once found a big stupid number inside pi that might explain the meaning of the universe. But it was so big and stupid I had a stroke and had to give up math.

SEAN GULLETTE

Well I'm sure the fact that the two of us found a big stupid number with the same number of digits is just coincidence. Ha ha ha.

(checks newspaper)

OH SHIT TODAY'S STOCK MARKET MATCHES THE BULLSHIT MY COMPUTER SPEWED OUT! THE BIG STUPID NUMBER IS THE KEY TO THE UNIVERSE! I MUST LOOK FOR IT EVERYWHERE

MARK MARGOLIS

(angrily)

You can't become some bullshit number chaser! You could take any number, let's say 8, and find it everywhere. It's Super, it's Hateful, it's Crazy, it's Enough. If you go down this path you won't be a mathematician... you'll be a NUMEROLOGIST.

(spits)

(throws wine in Sean's face)

(snaps fingers)

SEAN GULLETTE

(flips table)

OH NO YOU DIDN'T YOU BEEPING SKANK I'LL PUT EIGHT BEEPING BOOTS UP YOUR BEEP ASS

EXT. STREET

Outside SEAN is approached by PAMELA.

PAMELA HART

Hi again Sean. Please listen, we have cutting-edge tech that we'd really love to give to some rambling nutcase like yourself. We have a special secret mega-chip that is so top secret that it's kept in this ludicrously oversized metal briefcase, and if you want it... it's all four you.

SEAN GULLETTE

I accept, and to celebrate it's time to have one of my mind-wrenching headaches!! ARRRGHHH OH MAN it feels like my brain's being ripped out and left on a dirty subway platform. Like that brain, over there! Waaait a sec is this a hallucination?

(screen goes pure white)

Figures.

SEAN wakes up on CONEY ISLAND and finds a SHELL which has a SPIRAL PATTERN!

SEAN GULLETTE

Woah, spirals! Fibonnacci has spirals! The number 9 looks like a spiral! New theory: EVERYTHING IS SPIRAAAALS

(corners rotini market)

(but wait spirals don't have corners)

(ERR-OR)

(ERR-OR)

(rotini market explodes)

INT. SEAN'S APARANOIDMENT

SEAN prepares to run his experiment again after LICKING the ANT GOOP off of his mother!boards. He adds the MEGA-CHIP, some TORAH NUMBER DATA provided by BEN SHENKMAN on some bizarre oversized floppy magnetized disc-shaped item, and a SPIROGRAPH SET.

SEAN GULLETTE

Okay here we go. 7:16: press Return... or SHOULD I?

SEAN decides to PACE IN A CIRCLE for a few hours to make sure he wants to proceed, and to make sure the audience is DIZZY AS FUCK.

SEAN GULLETTE

I've decided! 9:39: Press Return!!

The PROGRAM begins and EVERYTHING GOES FRITZY AND WEEEIRRD!! SEAN'S HEAD!! THE BIG STUPID NUMBER!!! A FEW DIGITS OF PI!!! THE GOLDEN RATIO!! WHITE SCREEEN!! When SEAN wakes up he has a SCAR on his head that might be a Hebrew letter. To get a better look at this isolated spot he SHAVES his entire head.

EXT. THE CITY

SEAN is wandering around trying to clear his thoughts when he spots composer CLINT MANSELL attempting to do a CAMEO as a PAPARAZZI!

SEAN GULLETTE

OH IT'S NOT ENOUGH I GOTTA HEAR THAT SAME TRACK NINE THOUSAND TIMES YOU GOTTA GET PICS NOW HUH?!?

He chases CLINT across town and through the subway but does NOT catch him, instead bumping into PAMELA and her GOONS!

PAMELA HART

I'm done playing nice with you. I represent Wall Street and you're gonna give us the big stupid number so that we can make ALL the money. And I'll take that $3.75 in your pocket as a down payment.

However SEAN flees into the BLURRED GRAININESS at the edge of the frame!

GOON THE FIRST

(running and flailing wildly)

DAMM1T WHERE THE FUCK DID HE GO

GOON THE SECOND

I DUNN0 THE FILM QUALITY HAS GONE TOTALLY TO SHIT, I CAN'T SEE A FUCKING THING

Despite this SEAN is almost caught but BEN SHENKMAN shows up with a getaway car! They drive away as SEAN relaxes with a vision of his BRAIN in a SINK.

INT. SECRET LOCATION

SEAN awakens from his vision to find MANY MANY RABBIS staring at him.

HEAD RABBI

(speaking a millionth of a decibel louder than your own breathing)

Greetings Sean. Me and these 58 other rabbis also seek the big stupid number because we believe it is the true name of God. Or it might be how to pronounce that symbol Prince changed his name into, we're not sure. Perhaps you could share?

SEAN GULLETTE

Well it's in my head now, and you can't have it! Fuck the big stupid number and FUCK YOU TWOOOOOO

SEAN fucks off and says some digits in the WHITE ROOM from ANGEL for a while before going home.

INT. SEAN'S APARANOIDTMENT

SEAN GULLETTE

The big stupid number is driving me mad. Guess there's nothing left to do but POWER DRILL INTO MY 0WN HEEEEAAAAAAAD

(does so)

Ah, much better. Now where's my jackhammer, I'm fed up with this hangnail.

EXT. THE PARK

SEAN sits happily on a park bench, released from the horrible clutches of math.

CALCULATOR KID

Hey Sean! What's 9749 times 4459?

SEAN GULLETTE

(grinning widely)

230? Seven? FUCKED IF I KNOW

(mugs to camera)

Remember, knowledge is evil!

(thumbs up)

END