There were three people sitting at the table when the lights came on. None of them knew how they had arrived.
The room was white. No windows. One steel door.
In the middle of the table was a large glass bowl filled with jellybeans.
Red. Yellow. Green. Black. Orange.
They looked cheerful.
That was the first unpleasant thing about them.
The second was the man on the television.
He was perhaps sixty. Nicely dressed. Pleasant face. The sort of man who might explain your retirement plan or sell you a Lexus.
“Good evening,” he said.
The three people stared at him.
“My name doesn’t matter. Yours do.”
Their names appeared on the screen.
DAVID COLE. Fifty-three. Accountant.
MARIA SANTOS. Thirty-four. Emergency-room nurse.
EDDIE WATKINS. Twenty-seven. Currently unemployed.
Eddie stood.
“Open the fucking door.”
The man on the television smiled.
“You’ll have an opportunity to leave.”
Eddie picked up his chair and threw it at the door.
The chair bounced back.
“Sit down, Eddie.”
“Fuck you.”
A red dot appeared on Eddie’s chest.
He looked down at it.
Eddie sat.
“Excellent,” said the man.
The red dot disappeared.
“Now we can discuss jellybeans.”
There were one thousand jellybeans in the bowl.
According to the man on the television, 999 were ordinary.
One was not.
“One jellybean contains a substance that will kill you very quickly.”
Maria looked at the bowl.
“How quickly?”
“Quickly enough.”
She looked at the ceiling, searching for cameras.
“You’re insane.”
“Possibly. But that doesn’t alter the mathematics.”
David finally spoke.
“What do you want?”
“A winner.”
The man leaned toward the camera.
“The rules are extraordinarily simple. Each of you will eat one jellybean. If all three of you survive, we’ll do it again.”
Nobody moved.
“And again.”
David stared at him.
“Until what?”
“Until one of you dies.”
Silence.
“Then the other two go home.”
Eddie laughed.
It wasn’t because anything was funny.
“No.”
“That’s entirely your decision.”
The man glanced at his watch.
“If nobody eats a jellybean within sixty seconds, all three of you die.”
A clock appeared on the television.
00:60
Then:
00:59
Maria picked up a yellow jellybean.
“Wait,” David said.
00:54
“We should think.”
“What is there to think about?”
“The odds.”
Eddie stared at him.
“We’ve been kidnapped by a psychopath and you’re doing math?”
“Yes.”
David looked at the bowl.
“And I strongly recommend you let me.”
00:45
Maria held the jellybean between her fingers.
She had spent twelve years in emergency rooms.
She had watched people die from bullets, blood clots, peanuts, ladders, bathtubs and, once, a chicken bone.
She knew something about risk.
She put the jellybean into her mouth.
David shouted, “Don’t!”
She swallowed.
The clock stopped.
Everyone watched Maria.
Five seconds.
Ten.
Twenty.
Maria smiled.
“Cherry.”
David went next.
Green.
He survived.
Eddie selected black.
“Licorice,” he said. “If this doesn’t kill me, the taste will.”
He swallowed.
Nothing happened.
The television man applauded.
“Congratulations. Round one.”
Three jellybeans disappeared from the counter on the screen.
997 REMAIN.
Maria stared at the bowl.
“So our odds get worse every time.”
“Correct.”
David shook his head.
“Not necessarily.”
The man smiled.
“Ah. Our accountant has noticed something.”
David looked directly into the camera.
“We don’t know that the fatal jellybean is still in the bowl.”
Maria understood.
“If one of us already ate it and you’re lying about how fast it works—”
“Or,” David said, “there may never have been one.”
Eddie looked at the television.
The man smiled.
“Round two.”
By round twelve, they knew one another.
Not well.
But there are things people tell strangers when death is sitting in a candy bowl.
Maria had a six-year-old daughter.
David had a wife who believed he was at a conference in Denver.
Eddie had nobody waiting for him.
“That makes me the lucky one,” Eddie said.
Maria looked at him.
“No. It doesn’t.”
By round twenty-three, Eddie was making jokes.
By round thirty-one, David had stopped calculating aloud.
By round forty-four, Maria was praying before every jellybean.
And somewhere around round fifty, something changed.
They stopped fearing the man on the television.
They began fearing the bowl.
Then the man changed the rules.
“I’m afraid this is taking longer than anticipated.”
A panel opened in the wall.
Inside were three smaller bowls.
“Each of you may now choose the size of the game.”
Numbers appeared on the screen.
100
50
10
David went pale.
The man continued.
“One fatal jellybean. You choose the number of harmless ones surrounding it.”
Maria whispered, “No.”
“The person willing to accept the smallest bowl goes first.”
Eddie looked at the ten.
David looked at Eddie.
“Don’t.”
The television man smiled.
“And I neglected to mention the prize.”
Another number appeared.
$1,000,000,000
Nobody spoke.
“One billion dollars,” the man said, “to the survivor who eats from the smallest bowl.”
Maria laughed.
This time something actually was funny.
“You think money matters now?”
“No,” said the man.
“I wonder if it will matter in five minutes.”
David chose one hundred.
Maria chose fifty.
Eddie chose ten.
“Eddie,” Maria said.
He shrugged.
“I told you. Nobody’s waiting.”
“That doesn’t mean you want to die.”
“No.”
Eddie looked at the ten jellybeans.
“It means I can afford to gamble.”
The man on the television leaned back.
For the first time all evening, he looked genuinely pleased.
“Precisely.”
Eddie reached into the bowl.
Then stopped.
He looked at Maria.
“If I live, I’ll give your kid half.”
“Don’t do this.”
“Five hundred million.”
“She’d rather have you alive.”
Eddie smiled.
“She doesn’t know me.”
He selected a red jellybean.
Held it up.
“Amazing, isn’t it?”
“What?” David asked.
“A minute ago I was a prisoner.”
He looked at the billion dollars on the screen.
“Now I’m an investor.”
He swallowed.
Nothing happened.
Eddie laughed.
Maria began crying.
David collapsed back into his chair.
The steel door clicked.
It opened.
Beyond it was a hallway.
At the end of the hallway sat a black briefcase.
The television went dark.
Eddie stood.
“I won.”
Then David said:
“No.”
Eddie stopped.
David was staring into the bowl.
“What?”
“The rules.”
David’s voice had changed.
“He said the game ends when somebody dies.”
They looked at the television.
Black.
Then it flickered back to life.
The pleasant man returned.
He was smiling.
David whispered:
“Oh, Jesus.”
The man spoke.
“Round two.”
Maria screamed.
Eddie lunged at the door.
It slammed shut.
Three new bowls rose from the table.
50
10
2
Nobody moved.
The billion dollars remained on the screen.
Eddie stared at it.
Maria stared at Eddie.
David stared at the bowl containing two jellybeans.
One harmless.
One fatal.
The man on the television folded his hands.
“Human beings tell me life is priceless.”
He smiled.
“I have always wondered whether that is true.”
David slowly reached toward the bowl.
Maria grabbed his wrist.
“No.”
David looked at her.
Then at the billion dollars.
Then at the two jellybeans.
Outside the room, somewhere behind the walls, machinery hummed.
The man waited.
And for the first time, Maria understood the game.
The jellybeans weren’t the experiment.
They were.
ACT IV — THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS
Three months later.
The Host is asleep in his magnificent bedroom.
A sound wakes him.
He opens his eyes.
Maria is sitting at the foot of his bed.
David stands beside the window.
Eddie is leaning against the door.
On the nightstand is a glass bowl containing one hundred brightly colored jellybeans.
The Host stares at them.
Then at Maria.
“No.”
Eddie smiles.
“Yes.”
David pulls up a chair.
“You taught us something.”
The Host reaches toward the alarm beside his bed.
Maria stops him.
“Don’t.”
He looks at her.
She smiles.
“Now we can discuss jellybeans.”
The Host recognizes his own words.
For the first time, he looks genuinely frightened.
David places the bowl in front of him.
“One hundred jellybeans.”
The Host says nothing.
“One or more will kill you almost instantly.”
“How many?”
David smiles.
“You don’t get to know.”
The Host looks at the three of them.
“You’re murderers.”
Maria almost laughs.
“No. We’re researchers.”
Eddie shakes the bowl vigorously.
“Let’s establish a control group.”
He reaches inside.
Selects a green jellybean.
Shows it to the Host.
Swallows.
Nothing happens.
Maria chooses a red one.
Swallows.
Nothing.
David takes a yellow one.
Swallows.
Nothing.
The Host watches them.
Eddie pushes the bowl toward him.
“Your turn.”
The Host looks at the ninety-seven remaining jellybeans.
His breathing quickens.
“No.”
Maria glances at her watch.
“Sixty seconds.”
The Host looks at her.
She smiles.
“That’s entirely your decision.”
A clock on the nightstand begins counting down.
00:59
00:58
The Host looks desperately from one face to another.
Nobody helps him.
00:31
Finally, he reaches into the bowl.
His hand trembles among the colors.
He selects an orange jellybean.
Eddie grins.
“My favorite.”
The Host puts it into his mouth.
He cannot make himself swallow.
00:08
00:07
Maria watches him.
“Life is priceless.”
00:04
The Host swallows.
For a moment—
Nothing.
Relief floods his face.
He almost laughs.
Then he realizes something is wrong.
He collapses.
Within moments, he is dead.
Silence.
The three stare at him.
Eddie looks at the bowl.
“Ninety-six left.”
Maria picks up one of the jellybeans.
“You want one?”
“Are you insane?”
She smiles.
David reaches into his pocket.
He opens his hand.
Three harmless jellybeans rest in his palm.
The three they had only pretended to swallow.
Eddie looks at the bowl beside the dead Host.
“So which one was poison?”
David looks at him.
“Which one?”
Maria picks up the bowl.
She walks to a wastebasket and pours all ninety-six remaining jellybeans into it.
She looks back at the Host.
“All of them.”
Eddie considers this.
Then:
“That’s cheating.”
Maria heads for the door.
“No.”
She looks back.
“That’s Jellybean Roulette.”
They leave.
On the floor, one jellybean rolls out of the wastebasket.
Across the polished marble.
It stops beneath the Host’s bed.
Bright red.
Perfect.
Innocent-looking.
CUT TO BLACK.
