[First person view of the inside of a cup of tea, the tea slowly changes into ice then returns to tea. The view pans upward revealing Sara, as it does so we see the tea return to a frosty state.]
Anton [Narrating]: I was nervous around her, I didn’t know why. There was just…something about her…some kind of…aura.
[Camera shifts back to position one as Anton sits next to Sara looking vaguely uncomfortable and awkward.]
Sara: What are you thinking?
Anton (taking a sip of his tea, obviously in a non-frozen state): Hmm?
Sara: You were just standing there, staring.
[Anton is silent for a moment, just thinking. Sara looks at the snow, feeling as though she has asked the wrong question though perhaps at the right moment.]
Anton: It’s just been a while since…since I’ve been with someone this long.
[He is silent for a moment, trying to decide whether he wants to ask his next question, mulling on it as a cow does with cud.]
Sara: Is that bad?
Anton: You being here, not moving on? No, not entirely. It’s not like I have some kind of schedule to keep. Just different.
Sara: But…I’ve only been here…maybe three days?
Anton: Weeks.
Sara: Three weeks!
Anton (he sits down next to her, the cup of tea is gone): Time doesn’t really…well, it doesn’t exist here. But there, in the world, it still slips on by…
[Anton drifts into silence, thinking about his past about his life before this moment (both on Earth and in this place.]
Anton: Do you remember all of it?
Sara: I remember some things clearer than before. Like a trip to Disney Land with my parents when I was 5, horseback riding through my youth…every ride…It’s like…like I can see, sometimes almost live, my life but…but I can’t touch it. I try to reach out to someone or something as I have this vivid dream and it just ends. Is it the same way for you?
Anton (stands up and walks a few paces away from Sara, a grimace on his face): That’s good, it’s good you remember the good times. It wasn’t always that way for me…Do you remember how it ended?
Sara: I always just, I guess wake up, here.
Anton (he turns back to face her, knowing that asking while looking away would just be somehow wrong): No, I mean your life. How you died.
Sara: I…uh…
[Anton rises from the log a pained look on his face; he knows what is to come. He’s seen it too many times to count and just this once he doesn’t want her to leave.]
Anton: Come.
[Fade to black.]
[We reopen on a cherry blossom in the sun, and slowly zoom out allowing the entire scene to come into focus. We are in a garden, water features abound yet the area remains still and silent, quiet and reserved, like it is waiting for something important to happen.]
Anton (Narrating): This is where I lived and died. I played there, by the pond, with my brother and every evening under the cherry tree Father would have me practice verse. He saw my talent, maybe too well.
Child Anton (Narrating): May you live forever! / Cherish your life, / Only poets in bone / Are as in a lie.
Anton’s Father: Good, good. Again, this time with more emotion. I want to feel your words!
[Slowly fade to black with “this time….”]
[We see an apartment, everything in pristine order. The walls have photos of Sara and her friends: in Paris, Rome, London, Chicago, a beach somewhere. Each tells us a bit more about her, yet we only see them for an instant. The camera pans to the door opening]
Anton: Your apartment madam. [He makes a bit of a flourish with his hands and allows Sara to enter before him.]
Sara (looking around): Is this…real?
Anton: In a way. [Anton steps inside as Sara walks toward the kitchen and its large windows]
Anton: It’s like the field but created from your memories. I wouldn’t suggest touching anything, it might break down the…I guess illusion.
Sara [reaching out a hand to touch a slightly wilted flower stops]: Oh.
Anton: What can you member of your last day?
[A time-lapse of the events Sara describe takes place around the two individuals]
Sara: I woke up and turned on the TV, there was some story about a bank robbery or something…then I changed to go work out. I was back maybe…an hour later? I ate breakfast, showered, and got ready for work…I remember I had to change my blouse after I spilt some coffee on it. Then I left.
[Fade to a teenage Anton in a hospital room, other than the beep of a heart monitor there is little to no sound. Behind Anton is an x-ray showing lungs with significant damage from at least three gunshot wounds.]
Teen Anton (the camera shows Anton simply squeezing an old hand): Since then 'tis centuries, / and yet each / Feels shorter than the day / I first surmised the horses' heads / Were toward eternity.
[A tear falls slowly down Anton’s cheek, he wipes it away with a hand and rises towards the door.]
Teen Anton: [In Russian] I am sorry father, it is not your time. I am sorry.
[Fade to black.]
[We reopen with Sara and Anton standing in the corner of an office, a cube land, the office runs time-lapsed around them as they walk through it.]
Anton: Not quite what I pictured for you.
Sara: What did you expect?
Anton (he looks, a grimace on his face, at an orange haired troll on one worker’s desk): Something a little less corporate drone. I don’t know, maybe a painter or at the worst an architect.
Sara: At worst?
Anton: You don’t exactly ooze the vibe of a zombie.
Sara (they reach her desk and she smiles at the notebooks with half completed drawings littering the desk): Graphic design.
Anton: I stand corrected. You Ms. Lawson are full of surprises.
Sara (looking up at him slightly seductively): You have absolutely no idea.
[Fade to a shot of a bathroom mirror and the sound of a man vomiting. Anton appears in the mirror looking pale, he speaks entirely in Russian (subtitled)]
Anton: You can do this! It is only five minutes and you are done, you are out. [Anton looks down and the sound of the pistol’s slide can be heard putting a round in the chamber] For Father, you can do this.
[He walks out of the bathroom, the camera remains on the mirror. Muffled speaking can be heard followed by three gunshots. Anton re-enters the bathroom, his face and chest are spackled with blood that is not his own. Leans against the far wall of the bathroom then slides down, crying.]
[Fade to black.]
snow white/white snow by William Sowards is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
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