SYNOPSIS:

CHARLIE ROCKET a handsome man in his early 30’s with the wounded good looks of a Tennessee Williams has been, is coming to in a hospital room. He notices that he is strapped down to his bed. The two nurses in the room see track marks on his arms. He asks for his wife. One nurse says they know nothing about a wife and the other tells him that the next time he wants to kill himself to jump in front of a train. We next see CHARLIE speaking with a doctor a few days later, still unshaven but remarkably improved in appearance. The DOCTOR has spoken with CHARLIE’S wife and is sending him home. Together doctor and patient have uncovered that CHARLIE’S suicide attempt was a side effect of a new medication that CHARLIE is taking for treatment of his HIV. A week after being admitted, CHARLIE is walking to an awaiting car in the hospitals roundabout. His wife EVE is in the drivers seat. EVE is in her early 50’s. She is a confident professor and aging hippie chick, the kind of gal who could snag a man twenty years her junior, though you wouldn’t know it to look at her today. EVE cries as CHARLIE takes his seat. She tells him that this damn well better be the end of his nonsense, that she believes his doctor; but she doesn’t want to hear anymore about his hearing voices or seeing ghosts. CHARLIE promises and husband and wife drive to their secluded New Jersey mountain home. A home where books adorne the walls, and skeletal shadows of trees moondance their way across the lawn at midnight, and where the rushing roar of a stream on their property can always be heard. Continued.... (If interested in reading the complete treatment for VERTICAL AFTERIMAGE, please contact Raoul D. Luna at RDLunaNYC@aol.com.)