Open. Black screen. Piano starts to play high notes, kind of similar to a child playing, key by key, uncertain, though slowly warming up.
Silence.
Off screen narrator (in a documentary style interview); 'So, tell me about her.'
Mid shot of him. Sitting on a dark khaki couch. The wall behind is beige, though at one time it was probably white. A framed illustration of a tall ship sits in the corner of the shot. Shirt off, tattoos on his shoulders and down his arms. He has dark brown, almost black, messy shoulder-length hair. There is pain in his eyes, and he avoids looking directly at the camera.
He lights a ciggarette, showing long, dirty fingers. His hands have writing over them, like he needed to remember too much. Or forget too much. He's on the defence, and he doesn't want to be here. He shifts in his seat.
Fade to black.
Full shot of her. Sitting on a cane chair in a clinically white room. Knees pulled up, one hand holding her ankle, the other playing with a loose strand of straw coloured hair, trousers cuffed at the hems. Cropped shirt, her mess of hair pulled loosely back from her face. To one side a window streams clean, white light in. On the outside of the window, herbs are growing in pot-plants.
'Tell me about him.'
Silence. She opens her mouth hesitantly to say something, but closes it.
Black.
Cut to him. Smoke from his ciggarette forms a hazy veil over his face.
'How did you meet?'
He answers in a thick british accent, like he grew up on the streets in the tougher parts of London.
Oh really? Yer want to know dat? Come on, I tought this was goin' ter be interesting stuff.
'So then tell me about her. What was she like?'
You know, just a regular gerl. Bit too sweet. Bit too soft, really. Kinder felt like if yer did anytheng too, yer know... intense, she'd just snap in two, like?
'What made you fall in love with her?'
Those eyes, man. Yer could fall into dem.
Piano starts to play softly. It sounds as if someone is playing in another room and the noise is just seeping through the walls. It is a melancholy tune, in a minor key. Beautiful, but heartbreaking at the same time.
He takes a drag. You can hear the sizzle of the tobbacco. He exhales to the side, midway through you see a glimpse of pain. By the time he looks back at the direction of the camera, it's hidden. He nods, as if to prompt the next question.
Cut to her. She picks up the mug of tea on the table next to her. It's still steaming.
'What's his character like?'
She looks at the camera, and its almost as if the whole world is contained in those eyes. She takes a shallow breath, and then a deeper one. Slowly she begins to speak. Her voice is frail, almost as if she has just woken up, but there is a strength hidden in those undertones. She's British, but her pronunciation is clear and almost international.
He doesn't seem like much, does he? He's like a rough diamond. But he won't be refined.
There's no bitterness in her voice, just remnants of a pain that has long since been numbed. She addresses behind the camera.
Have you taked to him yet?
Upon getting confirmation that they had indeed talked to him, she nods and begins to speak again.
He's not the.. most.. eloquent sort, is he? But I guess there was something there. When he looked at me, I felt like the most interesting person in the world. Like he saw something in my eyes that no one had ever bothered to look for before.
She scoffs to herself. It doesn't ring bitterness, rather disbelief at herself.
He talks like a sailor, doesn't he? I probably could have done better there, but when the boy sings, oh, how the angels weep.
She looks down at her bare feet. She shifts in her chair, like she may have just said too much.
Cut to black.
The piano slowly gets more intense. He shifts and sinks further into the couch.
'Why did it end?'
I don know. Life? I wish I knew, yer know? But yer jus' don' know those things. It jus' weren't meant to be, I reckon.
Cut to her. She's looking out the window, almost wishing herself to be caught in a daydream and swept away. When the question is asked from off screen, she jumps a little. She asks him to repeat the question, staring intently at what must be his mouth.
'Why did it end?'
Thinking for a while, she bites her lower lip.
It just got too hard, I guess. Too hard to keep up with him. With it all. With the way his mind works. I just... Couldn't do it anymore.
'Would you do anything different if you could do it all again?'
I guess... I'd just want us to be.. friends. It sounds cliche, but, we were always better off as friends. we were way too similar, yet way too different, all at the same time, all in the wrong ways.
She looks down for a second, and back up, with an unexpected courage.
I'd probably tell him that I don't want anything from him now, except to just be a part of his life. How big a part, how small a part, it doesn't really matter anymore. I guess... I want him to know that... I value his existance still. So, if it's not too hard, I'd like to go through life knowing him and whats going on in his life. I just want his friendship. But nothing else. I can't take anything else from him.
She looks away, out the window, at her feet. She's nervous, and you can see she's still hurting. The camera stays on her for slightly longer than what would be comfortable. She doesn't really know what to do.
The piano slowly trickles to silence.
Cut to black.
'Do you regret anything?'
He shifts a little in his seat. Tentatively looks off-screen at whoever is standing behind the camera. His ciggarette is now just a butt. Flicking it away, he looks directly at the camera for the first time.
'Vreyday, mate.
The piano starts again, with a sorrowful intensity.
'Vrey day I wish I done somefin differently. But wot can yer do? She's gone now, and a gerl like dat, dey don't come round twice in yer life. Dat's my tern gon. I messed it up. I let 'er go. And dat's it. I'm done. I wish I told 'er dat I 'preciated her. But I d'int.
'So did you love her?'
Yeh I lov'd 'er. I lov'd 'er since the mom'nt I first saw 'er. She's a bloody angel, how could you not love someun like dat?
Cut to her.
She looks away from the camera, out the window. Her hands pull her limbs closer to her core, trying to gain security from her frail build. A tear slowly creeps down her cheek, and she tries to hide it. She steels herself, willing everything to not cry. Swallows painfully. The lump in her throat is almost unbearable. She bites her bottom lip uncertainly.
Cut to black.
Piano softly fades to nothing.
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