By Janiya McCray

Share:

This is an excerpt from a television pilot script. It starts with an odd envelope that randomly appears on the characters’ doorsteps. And now, it will lead them into destruction.

EXT. OUTSIDE BUILDING – NIGHT

VELLY and ZURI hear sirens from a distance. Zuri and Velly walk back outside in the rain to see how far the police are from them. There were about three police cars and 1 ambulance. One parks their car horribly on the road and quickly get out of the car and walk over to Zuri and Velly—

ALISSA
Wagwan!

VELLY
Wagwan, Detective Alissa! So here is the deal. I was upstairs in my apartment when I heard odd noises, I looked out my window and saw this man bleeding out.

Alissa, Zuri, and Velly begin walking over to Mr Parker’s body. The rain begins to slow down.

ZURI
What the fuck is happening? When did she get here?

Mrs Parker is sitting on the wet concrete crying while holding the hand of her husband. Velly runs towards her, grabs her arm, and picks her up from the floor. She seemed as if she had seen the most terrifying thing in the world. It looked as if she had no tears left to cry. Her hair was gray and messy, her eyes were popped open wide, they were red and her hands were shaky.

VELLY
Are you alright, Mrs. Parker?

MRS. PARKER
He’s…He’s dead and we were just fine

ALISSA
Hello Mrs. Parker, my partner over there by the car is going to help you out
so we can get to the bottom of who did this to your husband.
(signaling her partner to come and help)
Oh yeah, I forgot to introduce you to my new partner
since the old one you know… Meet Tyar.

TYAR
Wassup, it’s nice to see you. So are you helping us out with this case or nah?

VELLY
Of course I am

ALISSA
Alright then everyone! Let’s get to work!

VELLY
(to himself) 
I guess I’ll never finish that glass of whiskey after all

ALISSA
Hey! Where were you located when this man dropped on the pavement?

VELLY
Oh she was walking up the stairs whilst this was happeni-

ALISSA
I was talking to the lady, she can tell me that herself. 
(turns back to Zuri) 
So do you have any relations with the victim?

VELLY
What?

ALISSA
Go with the rest of the people and figure out what happened. Why the fuck
are you waving around all in my space while I’m trying to question someone?

Velly walks over to Tyar who is kneeling down observing and taking photographs of the scene

VELLY
What’s the 411?

TYAR
This poor man was stabbed about 4 times before his body hit the floor and he fell from the roof. We have no real evidence as to who did this
so we’d have to ask around to get clues.

VELLY
Did the wife say anything?

TYAR
Follow me.

Tyar stands up and begins walking towards Mrs Parker who is sitting by a police car with an officer who seems to be frustrated.

POLICE OFFICER #4
Do you know what happened to your husband?
What were your whereabouts while this was happening?

TYAR
I’ll take it from here.
(stands next to Mrs. Parker)
I understand, you need some time to heal before you can reveal. This is so fresh and I can understand that so this kind sir over here that you were just talking to isn’t going to ask you any more questions. He’s going to simply drive you to the station and make sure that you’re fine and that your family specifically isn’t being targeted.

Tyar signals the officer to come and whispers something to him and watched as the both him and Mrs Parker walk away.

VELLY
Wow! The new guy has got skills I see.

TYAR
More than you would know.

They both laugh as they start to go back and examine the scene more. Velly then hears clacking noise coming from somewhere above ground. He looks around.

POLICE OFFICER #2
Ouch!

VELLY
Are you alright?

POLICE OFFICER #2
I don’t know, I guess something must’ve fallen on my head from up there.

VELLY
(to EMT)
Hey, take care of her. Alissa!

ALISSA
Yes?

VELLY
(whispers)
Someone’s on the roof.

ALISSA
Alright, let’s go, but don’t make a scene so they won’t see us coming.

Alissa signals two other officers to follow behind while the rest did their regular crime scene duties.

THE END

Process

On a daily basis, no matter where I am or what I’m doing, everything around my life always gives me a story. My imagination is one of the reasons I’m never bored. It’s like free entertainment all in my head. I’m not sure if the workshops taught me tools that I’ve used for my story but they definitely helped me understand different ways to catch an idea for a story or different ways to write. It was very helpful when it came to learning a variety of things when it comes to writing. I will for sure carry everything I learned from this program into my future.