Traveling Time, bragging to Ben Franklin

FADE IN.

EXT. PHILADELPHIA TAVERN -- CIRCA 1776. WARM, SUNNY FALL AFTERNOON:

SCOTT, THE TIME TRAVELER:

Ben, come here a sec. Lemme show you something: This is a ‘smart phone.’ In the future, we have these devices that...

     YOUNG BAR WENCH:

Benjamin! Where's your wife?

   BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (To wench): 

 No idea.

BAR WENCH: 

 Meet me upstairs later? 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: 

My pleasure.

TIME TRAVELER (To Benjamin Franklin): 

So, Ben -- this smart phone... 

Crap. You’re already lost. You don’t even know what a phone is.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (To Scott):

I don’t

TIME TRAVELER:

OK. So, a ‘phone’ is an apparatus that enables people to speak to each other across very far distances

BEN FRANKLIN:

So you’re saying that if I were in my home, I could employ this apparatus to speak to my Madam Brillon de Jouy in the 16th arrondissement as if she were kneeling before me in mine own bed chamber?

TRAVELER:

Yes, I think you’ve got the idea.

BEN FRANKLIN:

You can summon your mistress right now?

TIME TRAVELER:

I don’t have a mistress. But, if I did, I could.

BEN FRANKLIN:

You should use that apparatus to find yourself a mistress.

TIME TRAVELER:

Listen, it gets better. We don’t really talk on phones anymore, anyway. We do much more. Let me show you...

BEN FRANKLIN:

This future of yours, it seems dull. Once, while I lived in France, I played at Madam Brillon so vigorously that she never fully recovered.

TIME TRAVELER:

Sure. So, if I touch the smart phone here...

and here...

and here, I can make words happen.

In your time, you might think of these words as ‘wishes’

 

BEN FRANKLIN:

This is a wish machine?

TIME TRAVELER:

Yep. So.. for example, I ‘wish’ for one red-head with two Sumo wrestlers at once, and... bingo. There you go!

 

BEN FRANKLIN:

Madam Brillon did that quite often.

TIME TRAVELER:

You see what I’m pointing at?

BEN FRANKLIN:

Yes. Madam Brillon did that with a greater quantity of suitors of greater quality.

TIME TRAVELER:

Okay, fine. But we can ask for whatever we want, right? I can ‘wish’ for ANYTHING. Like, say, a boy and and a man.

BEN FRANKLIN:

Yes, that happened, too.

SCOTT:

With Madam Brillon?

BEN FRANKLIN:

No, with Monsieur d'Houdetot and myself and a stable boy.

SCOTT:

Christ.

BEN FRANKLIN:

And the steed, too

SCOTT:

Stop it.

BEN FRANKLIN:

I was quite fond of France.

SCOTT:

Yes, I see that.

BEN:

Can I use your wish machine?

SCOTT:

No.

 

DISSOLVE TO B-ROLL FOOTAGE OF OLDE TOWNE PHILADELPHIA