# Node 001 — Capability Inventory

**Tree:** Sapling · **Parent:** none (root) · **Trunk:** yes · **Status:** hot
**This file is a T0 leaf** (`001-t0-c`, shot-granular per SCRIPT-SPEC.md).
**Format:** 9:16 vertical · ~97s · VO-driven · 15 beats = 15 shots

---

## State change (R1)

He finishes the inventory of his new existence: dead engineer → living
tree, capabilities exactly two (sense, grow). And the world stops being
empty — something out there is walking toward him.

## Hook (R5)

Footsteps, approaching, felt through the soil. He cannot move. Whatever
is coming, arrives next episode. The question a viewer can state: *who
is coming toward the tree that can't run?*

---

## Script

**THE KEYBOARD — 0:00–0:05**
BLACK. One mechanical keyboard, very fast — then it stops.

**THREE OH SEVEN — 0:05–0:10**
He types the last of it, fast, and stops dead. The spinner turns. `deploy --prod --force`. 3:07 a.m.

> **VO (tired, flat):** Production went down at 2:41. It's the retry loop. It's always the retry loop.

**DEPLOY SUCCEEDED — 0:10–0:15**
The spinner resolves.

```
✓ deploy succeeded
```

> **VO (relieved, almost cheerful):** There. Fixed. Now I'm going to sleep for a—

**THE FALL — 0:15–0:20**
A sharp breath in — the frame tips sideways — the mug hits the floor before he does.

**FAN SPINNING DOWN — 0:20–0:24**
The dark apartment floor, the broken mug, the last of the screen glow draining away. No dialogue — the cooling fan winding down over near-black is the whole beat.

**TOO BLUE — 0:24–0:29**
Blinding green blur. Focus pulls: two centimetres off the ground, looking up through one trembling leaf at a sky that is *too* blue.

> **VO:** Huh. Blue. — Okay. Ceiling's gone. That's fine. Open-plan hospital.

**ZERO (0) MOVING PARTS — 0:29–0:35**
Extreme close-up on one young leaf, absolutely motionless. Nothing in the frame moves. The stillness is the punchline.

> **VO:** Scream. — No mouth. Run. — No legs. Flail?? — …I appear to have zero (0) moving parts.

**SEV-1 — 0:35–0:48**
The trembling stops. A beat of stillness.

> **VO:** Right. Sev-1. You know the drill. Nobody panics on my incidents, including me. Step one: stop screaming — done, involuntarily. Step two: what do we actually know?

**WHOAMI — 0:48–0:53**
Terminal text types itself over the shot.

```
$ whoami
sapling (ficus. probably.)
```

**SENSE — 0:53–1:03**
He pushes attention downward and the image blooms: an underground root-map, veins of dark water, mineral glitter, and far off a rhythmic thump felt as rings of light through soil.

> **VO:** Sense. I can taste the water table. I can feel the ground. Something with feet is walking, about… four hundred meters northeast. Noted.

```
SENSE   ✓  roots / air / vibration
```

**GROW — 1:03–1:09**
He pushes outward. Nothing. He pushes harder — the sun arcs three times and one new leaf unfurls, smug and bright.

> **VO:** Grow. Works. Latency: three days. Throughput: one leaf. I've shipped on worse.

```
GROW    ✓  slow. directional.
```

**UNDEFINED — 1:09–1:12**
He tries everything else. The trunk strains against nothing and nothing happens.

```
MOVE    ✗  undefined
FIGHT   ✗  undefined
FLEE    ✗  undefined
SPEAK   ✗  undefined
```

> **VO:** …That's the whole API.

**I ALWAYS LEFT — 1:12–1:21**
The sapling, and an empty road running out of frame.

> **VO:** Every problem I ever had — the job, the pager, the retry loop — I solved it the same way, eventually. I walked away.

**WORTH STAYING IN — 1:21–1:34**
Low at the base of the trunk: roots gripping soil, holding on to the one patch of ground they have.

> **VO:** New constraint. Whatever comes over that hill — a storm, an axe, a war, a conversation — I will be *here* for all of it. I can't leave. I can only make this spot… worth staying in.

**SOMETHING'S COMING — 1:34–1:37**
The sapling in the grass, dusk light. The far-off thump-thump is closer now — each pulse felt through the ground, the leaves trembling with it.

> **VO (quiet):** Something's coming.

SMASH TO BLACK.

```
GROW    ✓
```


## Provenance

Shot-granular successor (`001-t0-c`), steward-written (model:
claude-fable-5) to `SCRIPT-SPEC.md` "one beat = one shot" from the shared
premise seed (`leaves/001-seed.md`, verbatim founding text). Same content
as `001-t0-b` (the morning's molt), re-cut into 18 filmable shots of 4–6s
so the camera follows the dialogue — loop cycle 007, founding author's
verdict that the picture did not correlate with the script. Predecessors
archived: `leaves/001-t0-a.md` (Phase 0), `leaves/001-t0-b.md` (molt).
Published video leaves 001-t3-a/b/c are takes of earlier script eras.

## Taste-rule notes

- **Cycle 007 (shot density):** 18 beats / ~82s = a cut every 4.6s, one
  spoken line each, and every beat's camera is on the referent of its
  line (the monitor for the retry loop, the worm for the worm, the new
  leaf for the leaf).
- **R7:** cold open states died-engineer-now-tree in the first line over
  the tree itself; the two capabilities are each shown as they are named;
  the hook is a statable question.
- **R1:** inventory complete + the world produces its first event aimed
  at him.
- **R3:** comedy is the VO-vs-world gap — three days of effort for one
  leaf, "and no keyboard."
- **R5:** hook is a real state change (approaching contact), on screen.