Current Thoughts

This is an excerpt from a finished screenplay of mine…what do you think?

Reynard: Do you remember when I met you? When I first met you?

Elora: We met at a bar, I was there having a drink, drowning my minimum wage sorrows away and you walked through that door and stared at me for a little while, you didn’t move, you were in the corner……

Reynard: That’s when you first saw me?

Elora: Of course, I remember it as clear as day, your eyes, they burned into my mind. They weren’t anything brilliant in color or shape, it was just the way the light seemed to be swallowed up and then radiated directly in beams at me…..you watched me over a drink and then finally approached me and said…..

Reynard: Could I buy you a drink?

Elora: Unoriginal, but your eyes, there was always something about your eyes that made me neither care that the line was so…..so generic…….nor the fact that you just wouldn’t stop looking at me. I would’ve been scared if it wasn’t for your eyes…….I felt I could trust you…..

Reynard: One of life’s little ironies that a criminal has trustworthy eyes…..

Elora: Why did you want to know about the first time we met, the first time I saw you?

Reynard: I never understood why you let me buy you a drink, why you let me talk your ear off about Chaucer and the millions of books that we loved, about the movies we had seen and the places we’d been, the people we knew and wished to know, I never understood why. I wanted to know if I was just dreaming everything that happened then. As if we just happened to find ourselves at the bar and that I didn’t stare like you say I did, that I didn’t follow you……(he looks down) from right here….

Elora: What?

Reynard: You had come out of the alley across the way and I had just been dropped off by a taxi, I was just roaming the streets that night, I couldn’t sleep, I’ve always had trouble sleeping…..

Elora: I didn’t know that…..

Reynard: (Not hearing her, still recalling) I saw you across the alley, you shimmered even though it was pitch black, I thought it was just a trick of the street lights and neon signs and the puddles in the streets, it had rained that afternoon and the water still pooled up on the street. There you were, shimmering in a drab brown trenchcoat with a waitress’ outfit hidden beneath it……I followed you, I couldn’t help but follow you, you had looked at me when I stood across the street, I was partially shadowed, but it was at that point that I had seen your eyes, like emeralds or sapphires or some gem that had been hurled into the sun….they just shined……and then you started walking with a huff of dejection…….

Elora: It had been a long day for me…..I never knew you were there, that you followed me from the bar, that’s kind of scary…

Reynard: (Still recalling but acknowledging her) Don’t I know it. I followed you, watching the way you glided across the street….if there is one thing that people, women especially, have lost, it’s their grace, the way they walked and strided across the land. They used to flow….you flowed….but noone else did….you were like a wave of water floating out from the street puddles and heading straight towards a bar…. a bar four blocks down. I walked the entire way, just staring at you, I heard the cars honking at me as I walked aimlessly….

Elora: I remember hearing a commotion, but I just didn’t care…..

Reynard: And then there was the bar, and you went in, and I stood outside and I dug into my pockets and looked at the money I had. There was a man in old rags, a pauper, he had eyes like yours, in a different way. They shined with darkness and shadow, his were the eyes of loss and yours were the eyes of hope……and I gave him a huge wad of cash, I’ve no idea how much it was, I had just finished a score, so it was a bit….and he just stared at it and I smiled, thinking to myself, “I have paid my charity to this man, Now it is your turn God to repay me with luck.” I paid the man so that God would give me a chance to hit on you……

Elora: Well, he gave it to you….

Reynard: And then we talked, and we shared a cab.

Elora: My place was closest, and as I was getting out, I asked….

Reynard: Would you like to come up for a moment? I was shocked……I knew what was going on, I knew I wanted to kiss those lips, I wanted to kiss those eyes, everything….but I also knew what I was…….

Elora: You said, “No.” Your tone was harsh and I was a bit shocked. I went up, I just wanted to spend more time talking….it wasn’t late….only midnight…..

Reynard: And you left as the taxi pulled away….but I stopped it, and I bolted up the stairs, and I stood in the doorway and told you that I robbed banks, armored cars, and killed people for a living…..I told you that I was a nasty man who didn’t deserve to have the chance of being with you…..

Elora: I thought you were joking…..but those eyes…..

Reynard: And then you kissed me……..it blew me away…..

Elora: Me too….I didn’t know what I was doing except that I knew I wanted to do it.

Reynard: That whole night seems like a dream, like I was never in control….as if Fate made sure that of all the things that happened in my life, that one went down and in the exact way it did……