Cheesy Movie | ONC translation

Scene One

Do you know who works at 6:00 a.m. on Sundays? A policeman, a taxi driver, a doctor, and a poor screenwriter who has to write a script for a B-movie by three o'clock in the afternoon so he could buy his car back from the bailiffs and wouldn't have to take the tram to go shopping.

But the poor screenwriter can't think of anything, because there are a couple of drunken teenagers hanging around under his window and the idiot next door is listening to his radio on maximum volume. So the screenwriter throws away his computer, takes a gun out of the drawer and blows the brain out of his head.

Here's your fucking cheesy movie.

THE END

Arnošt Veselý, a desperate forty-three year old scriptwriter/director of B-movies, angrily deleted the last few sentences of his latest blockbuster and with a sigh turned away from the computer towards the window under which the local youths were happily hanging out, letting the piercing white rays of the summer sun blind him for a moment.

But, let's be honest, at that moment he would have liked to be permanently blinded. Blindness was much nicer to him than the sight of a blank computer screen, which should have long ago been the screenplay for a two-hour movie.

But what can you do when the Muses are silent? Then all the reproachful glances from executors and investors are useless. In that case, all you can do is wait...

But of course, if, like Arnošt, you have to present your bosses with a finished, checked and edited (though not necessarily perfect, you are not writing a novel. The actors will read it even with the typos) version of the script that day, on which a low-budget film is to be made the next week, you have no choice but to point a gun at the Muse's forehead and take the inspiration that belongs to you by force.

However, Arnošt was prevented from carrying out this literary massacre firstly by the drunks under his window, secondly by his very self-centred neighbour who thought that playing Metallica at full volume at six in the morning on a Sunday was a good idea, and thirdly by a general lack of life energy.

So Arnošt just combed his greying black hair and looked at the phantom that was staring at him from the silver waves of the mirror behind his desk. The job of a failed filmmaker was a curse. Years ago, he might have been a professional model if it hadn't been for the broad scar on his forehead that would forever remind him of his youth spent in pubs, and now? Now they wouldn't cast him in a horror movie.

Arnošt's tar-yellowed fingernails instinctively reached for the flask that stood open next to the unfortunate computer with the unfinished/unstarted script. That's the only advantage of having your car confiscated by the revenue service-you can drink right away from the morning.

Ding! Dong!

The gong-like bell at Arnošt's door rang.

"Come in! It's open!" Arnošt barked, wiping vodka from his lips.

It seemed he would write nothing more that morning.

But it didn't matter, the semi-autobiographical story about the suicidal screenwriter was all he could think of anyway.

"You shouldn't leave it unlocked." A deep voice with a strong Russian accent came from the hallway, followed by the thump of a door. "You live in a dangerous neighborhood."

"Bullshit! I'll be the only dangerous one in here if the freak next door doesn't turn down that horrible music!" Arnošt sputtered, standing up to greet his guest.

"Hello, I'm Arnošt Veselý, was it you I spoke to on the phone yesterday?" Arnošt said absently, while trying to put his paper-strewn desk in a bit of order.