This Movie Life

"What have I become, my sweetest friend? Everyone I know goes away in the end."

This is a slightly bizarre little story. On some levels it works, on others it fails miserably. It's far too short, though. If I re-write it, it'll be a lot longer and I'll change the rather sudden ending. If you've come to this after reading the other one, the parallels I've drawn between the two should be obvious. In that sense, they belong together.

Fast-forward through the morning. Make a montage of it at the very least. The people don’t want to see the little details. Give them a trendy soundtrack and a rough idea of what I do before work. Yeah. Give them Nine Inch Nails. Head Like A Hole. There’s a good, up-tempo rock song with lyrics that reflect the mood of yours truly as I prepare for the day ahead.

So it goes like this: Fade into me waking up. A room bathed in dawn’s half-light. An alarm going off. Head Like A Hole going through its opening sequences in the background. Just as the song hits the first of those staccato kick-drum impacts, I roll over and punch the clock. Kill the alarm, bring the song to the fore. Cut to…

I stare at myself in the mirror, my tired face bathed in harsh fluorescent light. I look pained. Cut to me splashing my face, brushing my teeth, getting dressed. Hurry this sequence, but don’t rush it. We’re introducing a main character here. Let it build with the music, maybe accelerating the speed of the cuts as Trent tiptoes up to the chorus.

No you can’t take it, no you can’t take it, no you can’t take that away from me…

Cut to…

A well-dressed young man striding purposefully down the high street, moving more quickly than those around him.

Head like a hole.

The camera moves like a stalker, ducking behind cars and weaving around the zombies as they stumble to work.

Black as your soul.

The young man crosses the road, unmindful of the traffic. Beneath the soundtrack, we hear the sound of horns, a screech of rubber on tarmac.

I’d rather die.

Now the camera actively follows the young man, like the opposite of that video The Verve did where Richard Ashcroft walked towards the screen. We can see his destination just ahead of us. It would be silhouetted if you could superimpose grey on grey. Instead it’s a monument to the ever-repeating monotony of suburban nowhere.

Than give you control.

The train station. The music fades out as we cut first to the young man standing at the ticket window, then to the platform, where he joins the massed ranks of commuters. All are in smart suits. All are carrying briefcases. All are looking to their right, where the camera picks out the train as perspective makes it swell until it almost fills the screen.

I’m a veteran of public transport. I’ve been riding this train for three years now. Twice a day, five days a week. I know most of the commuters, most of the tricks. When the train draws to a halt, I’m standing just to the left of the doors closest to the driver’s cabin. Two reasons for this. One, the front carriage is always quietest. Two, the station exit is to the right. When other passengers disembark, they invariably get involved in minor scuffles with those waiting on that side of the doors. While this is going on, I hop onto the train and claim the treasure of an aisle seat.

The window seat, traditionally, has greater value. This is a leftover from childhood. For some reason, people will always go for the window seats, even though most of them know this view like they know their own faces. The other pattern is that nobody sits next to anyone else unless they really have to. Some people would actually rather stand than sit next to another person. I think that’s really sad.

But I digress. The reason I like the aisle seat is because I’m tall. Once everybody’s on and we’re moving, I can put my long legs out into the aisle and not have to worry about sitting with my knees against my chest. I get cramp. Also, Scarlet always stands, and I might miss her if I sat in a window seat.

I slip my headphones over my ears and listen to the song I always listen to when I’m on the train. It’s called Furryvision and it’s by a Welsh band called the Super Furry Animals. It’s a funny little song, and I think it fits the scene perfectly. In the film of my life, I would make it the soundtrack to this scene, and I’d make the train completely silent. All you’d see would be what I see; people swaying back and forth, reading their papers or books, drinking their coffee. Hardly anybody talks, so it’s not like we’d be losing anything worth having.

I don’t know where Scarlet works, but I wouldn’t mind finding out. She always gets on my carriage. She’s beautiful in that older woman/secretary kind of way. In the film, there would have to be a tongue-in-cheek scene where she takes off her glasses and lets down her hair. Of course, if I wrote it, there would also have to be a scene where she takes off her clothes. Scarlet looks a bit like Angelina Jolie, I think. Only smaller. I’m not sure if she has any tattoos. I would ask, but I’m shy. In the film, she would be the one to approach me. I’d be really surprised and embarrassed and she would think I was sweet. Scarlet’s smart little skirts make the train journey bearable.

The reason I call her Scarlet is because she wears really red lipstick. It isn’t scarlet as such, but I thought that was a sexy name for her. Once, when my sister stayed over and rode the train with me, I pointed out Scarlet and said I fancied her. My sister laughed and said that Scarlet’s lipstick was the shade you’d expect to see smeared around the base of a cock. I spat my coffee out in my lap and everyone laughed. Scarlet looked at me and smiled. She didn’t hear what my sister said, but I blushed anyway.

The song that soundtracks me stalking Scarlet through King’s Cross would have to be This Love by Maroon 5. It would be sort of funny, because stalking someone is a bit unhealthy and nothing like love at all. Also, having a big hit song on the soundtrack would mean more publicity for the film. They could do a video for it and everything.

I’m not really a stalker. I just like watching her. When she goes left to the Victoria Line, I go right to the Northern Line to catch my next train. I’d leave me following her in the film, though. It makes me look a bit dark. I’m quirky and funny, but I want to be dark as well. Girls like that.

We’ve already done a train sequence, so we’ll just grab a quick shot of me looking bored on the Northern Line. Cut to…

The well-dressed young man breaks away from the West End crowds and turns into a side road. The difference is striking. Compared to the claustrophobic bustle of Oxford Street, this place is defined by an almost reverential silence. There are a lot of places like this in London, but they’re easy to miss. No music here. It would spoil the quiet. All we should hear is the city fading away and the young man’s footsteps echoing up between the buildings.

He approaches a door set back from the pavement. He punches a code into the panel beside it with practiced ease and slips inside. Cut to…

Work. This would probably be another montage, maybe with a pause now and again for some snappy dialogue between me and my boss. He’s got that archetypal boss thing about him; fat and loud and condescending, yet ultimately the mental inferior of the people that work for him.

Marcy Playground’s Ancient Walls Of Flowers plays over a montage of your hero typing away at his keyboard, talking on the phone, exchanging the occasional jibe with his workmates. We could occasionally cut away from this to show the fat, loud, condescending boss sitting in his office doing nothing. Maybe he’s smoking a cigar, drumming his fat fingers on the desk, clearly frustrated. Cut to…

Fat boss exits his office and hears me talking on the phone.

“…okay, mate. I’ll see you then. Yeah, no doubt. I’m looking forward to it. Bye.”

Fat boss frowns. “Was that a personal call?” he asks.

I’m very relaxed and casual. “No. It was a business call. Mark Riley. He’s a friend of mine,” I say.

“Oh, really,” Fat boss says, raising his voice so that the conversation now includes the whole office. Heads turn. “And what’s the rule we have about personal calls?”

“I thought I just explained quite clearly that it was a business call from an acquaintance. Mark’s handling one of our larger accounts, sir. Would you rather I be cold and impersonal with him?”

“No personal calls,” Fat boss says, but his voice is getting quieter now.

“No, sir. Next time I deal with Mark, I’ll let him know that you asked me not to be nice to him on the phone."

A long silence with the camera focussed squarely on Fat boss. In the background, my colleagues can be seen smirking.

“Have you compiled those reports I asked you for this morning?” He finally asks.

I smile and shove a fat sheaf of papers into his chubby, sweating fist. He stares at me a moment, then turns and storms back into his office. I take a moment to grin at my workmates. Cut to…

Early evening and the now-slightly-dishevelled young man leaves the office and heads back out onto Oxford Street. The atmosphere is heavier now. Clearly, this is a Friday night. After work drinking is just getting up to speed, and the younger crowd are just beginning to filter out from the tube stations in a steady stream. The young man smiles as he crosses the road, turning his head to watch a couple of teenaged girls in miniskirts and tight tops.

I love London at night. And this is an important one. I feel nervous but good. I’m going to do it tonight. I’m going to talk to her. I’m going to tell her how…

We hear the sound of rubber on tarmac again, only this time much louder. The car strikes the young man at speed, lifting him off his feet and throwing him up onto the bonnet. The camera follows the still-moving car as he rolls bonelessly up the windshield and across the roof, where he bounces once before being thrown clear to land in an untidy heap in the road. We hear the car finally screech to a halt off-camera. The girls the young man was watching are standing motionless on the pavement, frozen with shock. Already, a crowd of onlookers is beginning to form.

I’m numb all over. I had plans for music and camera shots and characters. I had plans for which actors were going to play which people. I found out where Scarlet goes after work. I wanted to sit and watch her from a darkened corner while Sex And Candy by Marcy Playground made the other customers nod their heads to the beat. Wait. Didn’t I already use Marcy Playground? Isn’t there a rule about that? Why are all these people staring at me? Sirens in the distance. An ambulance weaving through the traffic. Siren-cam, like in Police Squad. My spine’s on fire and my legs are full of lead. Could use that Super Furries song again here. Ridiculous to be lying in the middle of Oxford Street while people oh-my-god and look-at-him. I feel weightless. Can’t keep my eyes open. Can’t think of a new song for Scarlet. Can’t think of a new song. Can’t think of a song. Don’t look at me. Cut to…