The Black Swine

Moby Dick has arrived.  Hollywoodsters who have been churning out financial doom and gloom screenplays have been handed a new sub-plot twist.  Swine Flu.  The plot has been returned to that old favorite, man vs nature.  

Missmarketcrash does not mean to make light of the alarming new news.  And she does not intend to get wrapped up in it.  Back in the 90's a mutual friend who was going through a painful divorce had to watch his ex-wife catapult to Hollywood stardom via the popularity of the movie, Safe.  Forever in my mind, when pandemics, or viral fears or general paranoia about invisible things hit, all I can see is Julianne Moore.  And her ex-husband in the background.  The twisted web of associations have brought her face to the front of my mind this morning.  Broken hearts, success, fear, ambition, viruses.

So, I guess my new screenplay would feature Miss Moore.  Let's twist her into the current economic crisis and have her married to a major bank CEO.  Perhaps she is an ambitious stay-at-home bank wife in charge of a charity.  And she secretly loathes him and hates the second position of importance seat she has in the household.  She goes off to do some pr for said charity and comes home full of new self-worth and enthusiasm. Mr. Bank CEO who is under a huge strain and cannot get out of his own headspace is woefully selfish and neglecting his wife as he combats a world economic crisis.  She ends up seeking solace in the arms of a charity intern, young and handsome and full of save-the-world generosity and attentiveness to the wife. But then...a viral pandemic begins to surface.  For some reason, it is only affecting wives of bankers.  The bankers themselves are spared.  The news breaks, and, eventually the virus origins are traced to the small circle of charity workers.   

The charity was devoted to the protection of an almost extinct variety of black swan.   The intern had caught the disease by trying to resuscitate a dying black swan. The swan had a new mutated viral strain caused by swimming in a pond with run-off from a nearby pig farm owned by some wealthy hog traders.  The intern was a charity party regular and "walker" for many other bankers wives.  The disease rippled through the community of bankers wives and filtered down to the gardeners, interior designers, housekeepers, shopkeepers and everyone the wives had contact with.  And then, onward from that.  Because the busy stressed bankers were not around, or paying attention to their wives, they never became infected.  But everyone else dies.  The only remaining humans are the bankers and some escort girls.  The bankers and a few escort girls (the ones who did mail order shopping rather than go to the shops) live on, oblivious to the destruction around them.  And then, they all die too when a massive meteor falls from the sky.