SCENES

HOSPITAL: What Humans Do (resisting treatment)

INT. HOSPITAL BEDROOM – DAY

Elizabeth is lying in bed. Dr. Wilson is standing beside her.

DR. WILSON

This could save your life.

ELIZABETH

How many times do you think I've heard that?

DR. WILSON

You're discouraged. I understand.

ELIZABETH

Do you? Do you understand what it's like to be prodded, pricked with needles, cut into, all your life? To be weak and nauseous for days on end? To never go anywhere or do anything because you're sick all the time? And may never get better?

DR. WILSON

It's awful. I can't imagine it's being anything but awful. But you have to have hope.

ELIZABETH

Do I? Why?

DR. WILSON

Because you're human, Elizabeth. And hope is part of what makes us human.

ELIZABETH

Jesus.

DR. WILSON

Hope is what keeps people going. Not just people with chronic diseases. People whose whole families get wiped out in some genocide and yet go on to make lives for themselves. People like the ones I saw in Africa, living in filthy camps. People who get locked up for decades and never stop dreaming not just that they might be free, but that their whole country might be free.

ELIZABETH

Man. You're the first person who's ever made me feel selfish.

DR. WILSON

Those were their battles, Elizabeth. And this is yours. Yes, it's a hard one. But don't you want to fight it?

ELIZABETH

But what if this doesn't work? Like all the other times?

DR. WILSON

Then you'll try again.

ELIZABETH

Why? For what?

DR. WILSON

So you'll know you're alive.

ELIZABETH

For now...

DR. WILSON

For now. But in the end that's all any of us get. Healthy or not.