Opening credits: Future States (images transition from highway to city streets, with background music)
Opening scene – Begins with plastic bag on the beach. Bag narrates, “They told me it’s out there – the Pacific Vortex…paradise.”
Close up on bag: Bag narrates, “You may be thinking, ‘Hey, shut up and enjoy the sunset, you idiots.” Well, I don’t care what you think. No one needs me anymore, not even my Maker. Do you know her, by chance? Have you seen her?” The bag blows toward the ocean….
Next scene: Plastic bags in a checkout lane in a store. As plastic bag is selected, bag narrates, “My first breath. I met my Maker. I had a purpose.”
Scene of woman (Maker) driving home with bag on floor of passenger side of car. Inside the house, the bag narrates, “She was quick to accept me into her home, and make me a part of her life. But she also gave me my independence.”
Next scenes: Office and outdoors (bag contains a banana, etc. for lunch). Bag narrates, “I met her friends. She trusted me.”
Next scene on tennis court; bag narrates, “She showed me what she knew of the world. I didn’t understand all her running around, but I always cheered her on” (as the woman takes tennis ball out of the plastic bag).
At home, woman puts ice into bag, ties it up, and puts bag on the counter. Bag narrates, “This was shocking.”
Next scene: Woman reading magazine in bed; bag narrates, “This brought me closer to her than ever before. My skin against her skin. My cold, her warmth. It made her happy, and she made me happy.” (As the plastic bag with ice is shown placed on the woman’s ankle.) “I thought we would be together forever….Until I met her own private monster.” (As woman scoops dog food into the plastic bag…) “Look at this point. How could she prefer this one to me? What could this thing do? Nothing but slobber all over me.”
Next scene: Plastic bag hanging over metal rack. Bag narrates, “She spent less and less time with me. But I still did everything for her.” Next scene depicts woman using plastic bag to pick up dog excrement, and then she tosses bag into trash can.
Next scene: Landfill Bag narrates, “I thought it must have been a mistake – that she was worried sick about me. I imagined her crying, “Where is he? Where is he?” Bag is depicted floating away in the breeze at the landfill, and then rolled over / crushed twice by the work truck at the landfill. Bag narrates, “Nothing could destroy me. Flying monsters [a reference to the seagulls] coming to peck at me.”
Black screen: Bag narrates, “And the darkness began.” Scene on beach: “I don’t know for how long, and what did it really matter? The world decomposed; it was eaten by monsters – some too small for me to even see….Not me. I remained. I was strong and smart, and I would find my Maker” (as bag rolls in the breeze at the landfill) “Haaa.” – Bag exhales, as it is picked up in the breeze; background music swells.
Bag blows through a field, a dirt road, railroad tracks, etc. Narrates, “I had holes, but over time, I learned how to use them to navigate the wind, and I could fly. I was free, or so I thought. Sometimes, I had to wait, and wait.” Bag blows threw fields, by abandoned houses, etc. “I searched everywhere for our home, hoping to find her.”
Bag blows into an abandoned mobile home, and observes, “Destruction. Desolation. There was nothing. She never came.”
Bag lands on a female statue. “I thought this was her, but there was nobody left.”
Bag blows through air. “I did not want to think about her anymore. She had forgotten me, and I would forget her, too. I went to worlds I had never seen.
Bag blows through buildings: “What kind of giant monsters had lived here, and where were they now? No matter how far I traveled, there were always new worlds to see.” Bag blows into forest / trees, “I wonder if my Maker knew such places existed.” Bag lands in a field with two horses - “They looked like my Maker’s beastie, only bigger.” Horse neighs. “I serve no purpose to them. Monsters, be gone.”
Bag: “And sometimes the world was even too great for me. And, sometimes the waiting drove me mad.” (As bag lands in a tree.)
Bag flies through air, intertwining with a reddish plastic bag. “Wasn’t she beautiful? She was also searching for her Maker. I didn’t need a Maker any more. I only needed her. The winds drifted us apart, and I was alone again. Where was I going? Who was I? Was that me? I looked just like the earth, and I turned around, and I saw the sun, and I looked like that, too. But I was still lost.” (Bag floats down street in a storm, and gets caught on a storm drain grate.)
Bag: “And that’s when I first learned about the Vortex” (in reference to bags on a barbed wire topped chain link fence). “They had chained themselves here on purpose – in order to preach about the Vortex. It was a world in the Pacific Ocean where 100 million tons of us had gathered. They said there was no Maker. They said we were the Maker. They said in the Vortex we were free. It was paradise. They told me to go there to join the others.” (Shows close up of bag with many holes.)
Bag flies over the ocean, lands on the beach, and gets caught up in the waves. (Black screen with background noises; images of jellyfish prior to the plastic bag.) Bag narrates, “And I was born again. And I reached out my hands to touch. They looked just like me.” (Images of jellyfish and other sea life in the ocean.) “It was time I learned to use the currents of the water as I had used the currents of the wind, and I went searching for the Vortex. Some ate pieces of me until they realized I was useless to them. (Images of fish) “I wonder where those little pieces are now.”
Next scene of many bags and other trash items in the ocean. Bag narrates, “I made it to the Vortex. I was with my own kind, and covered an area the size of a small continent. We were free and happy. I loved going in circles and circles….But no one here thought about anything. I feel restless, and I started to think about her again, so I spun around so fast that I was free. But, I was quickly trapped. I have no idea how long ago that was. Over time, I came to like these monsters. Isn’t that one beautiful?” (Camera shows one fish in particular.)
Bag ponders: “Did my Maker exist, or had I created her in my mind? Why were my moments of joy so brief? And, yet, like a fool, I still have hoped I will meet her again, and if I do, I will tell her just one thing – I wish you had created me so that I could die.” Background music swells as schools of fish swim by.
