The woman, centered and alone, sat on the long plush sofa. Her notepad lay in her lap. “It’s called Snooze Button,” she began, twisting her pinky into the spiral binding of her notepad.

On the couch across from her four men in suits shifted and nodded regally. She continued.         

“A moody but likable Hollywood waitress discovers that when she touches or presses a button of any kind—cash register, an elevator, a remote control, it could be anything—she enters a dreamlike nine-minute window of time. In this magical window of time one of two things happens. She either gets away with whatever wish or pleasure she desires, or, conversely, she experiences sinister paranoia and sheer blinding terror. The catch is that she never knows which of the two it will be until the wish or terror has already begun to unfold.”

The men seemed to be staring at the opening in the woman’s shirt. She feigned astonishment at the lovely view out the window from up here and quickly fastened the button on her shirt. When she did, she suddenly turned white as a sheet. The men did not notice this change come over her, but took a collective breath and set between them to counting money mentally and dividing it verbally. They pondered aloud to one another whether the concept of her film pitch was too unrealistic. Was it a comedy? A drama? A comedic drama? A dramatic comedy? They turned back to her.

“So which is it?” they asked. The men in suits melded together and the words they spoke seemed to unfurl from their mouths like tentacles. “So which is it, honey?”

The woman carved her answer into the notepad in front of her: sheer blinding terror.