Scene I COMPLETED DELETED
Friday February 17th, 5:00 pm. David had just come home exhausted from the University of Montreal. Lately, his thesis had been taking all of his time and energy. Tonight, he had something else on his mind. As he came into the apartment, he saw that all of his girlfriend`s belongings were gone. She had posted a goodbye note on the computer screen and had vanished. Sitting in the middle of a half-empty living room, he then realised that he was just a temporary band-aid on the girl`s heart. He had been deleted. Just like that. Maybe he was not really surprised, since he`d been spending too much time studying lately, not paying enough attention to her, and things had not been going so well between them. In the end, they were just like roommates. Maybe this was coming anyway.
Scene II NOURA`S SONG
Friday February 17th, 1:30 pm. Noura read the email that her brother had sent her with the latest news from her native country. She was preparing a trip down there in 3 months. It was a long time since she had been back and she was impatient to see her brother and mother again. The young girl had been living in Montreal for some years, and she was now a Canadian citizen. She had obtained her law degree and she was working for an NGO. She was going on this trip to organize humanitarian aid, since her homeland had been involved in a long-term conflict with the much more powerful neighboring country and had been struggling for many years.
Noura then texted her friend Amina. She wanted to get out tonight to take her mind off things. She invited her to go dancing downtown.
Scene III ARE THEY LISTENING?
Friday February 17th, 11:30 pm. In his home studio in the heart of the Mile End, David had just finished working on a new song. Music had been for him a hobby and a passion since he was a teenager, an escape from the constraints of his studies. But tonight he was feeling depressed and uninspired. He had tried to reach his girlfriend – or ex-girlfriend – to try to understand what had happened between them, but there was no answer. Anyway, he knew deep down that this relationship had died a long time ago. In the end, they were just like roommates. He decided that seeing people would do him some good, so he grabbed his coat and was out the door.
`Monster Rave`, the sign read. Outside on the street, David could hear the beat of the music. He went in and made his way through the crowd of clubbers. He could feel the bass pounding in his belly. That night by chance he met Amina, a friend he had not seen for a long time, and she introduced him to Noura. He was immediately attracted to her. Long black hair. Eyes you could get lost in. They danced and had a ball until the wee hours of the morning in a state somewhere between trance and euphoria. Maybe it was the music, maybe it was love at first sight, or maybe it was the love drug called Ecstasy that they had taken, courtesy of Amina.
Scene IV BODIES ENTWINED
Sunday February 19th, 4:30 pm. David reached in his pocket for the cell phone number that Noura had scribbled before she left the rave. After he had managed to get out of bed in the middle of the afternoon on the day before, a little numb from pulling an all-nighter, he kept thinking about her. He invited her out for dinner to his favorite sushi restaurant and she accepted. They had a great evening together and he brought her back to his apartment. They made love, and talked about their lives for a while, bodies entwined. David felt as if he had always known her.
Scene V RUN AWAY
Wednesday May 16th, 2:05 pm. Noura`s humanitarian trip was fast approaching and her preparation was almost done. Rami, her brother, had sent another message. He was impatient to see her again. However their communications were becoming more and more difficult and sporadic. The situation in the city where Rami and his mother lived was getting worse by the day: there were daily power outages due to air raids conducted by the enemy on generating plants out of town. Food and water was frequently in short supply. Rami had been out of work for 3 months, since the border had been closed, and the car repair shop where he was working was located on the other side. He and his mother had been struggling to live. Yesterday, Rami had been caught downtown in a riot that was violently repressed by the occupating army. For Rami and the youth of his country, the hope of a better life was slowly vanishing away.
Scene VI MY BLUE SKY
Sunday May 20th, 7:40 pm. The Montreal Airport was packed with vacationers. But Noura was not going on a vacation. She was just about to get through security before taking her flight. First she had to fly to Europe. From there, she had to get to her final destination by sea in order to bring the humanitarian aid. She knew that this was not going to be a piece of cake, because during the last UN meeting, the oppressors had threatened to block all traffic in nearby waters. David put his hands on her waist and kissed her. Before letting her go he gave her an mp3 player with a song on it that he had just written for her. He told her to be careful, and to play the song so that she would think of him during the long weeks they would be apart. ``What is the name of the song?" she asked. "My Blue Sky.``. At 10:50 pm the plane took off. As the Montreal city lights were fading away through the window, she put on her earphones.
Scene VII ALWAYS
Wednesday May 23rd, 6:20 am. Noura finally met her colleagues from the NGO at the port. As the preparation was complete, the boat weighed anchor. Everyone was feverish and a little anxious at the thought of embarking on this crossing. Noura was eager to see her family again and even though she did not know what to expect, she was certain that all the familiar people and places that she remembered were going to be very different. Her country of origin was locked in the iron grip of its neighbour and had been suffering long enough.
7:30 pm. Noura was standing on the deck of the boat. She enjoyed the sunlight on the horizon and the wind from the open sea. She thought of David who had stayed in Montreal. They had been together now for 3 months and she knew that she truly loved this handsome student with a touch of a bohemian soul.
Scene VIII TROUBLE AHEAD
Thursday May 24th, 5:40 am. Early the next day before they dock, the crew are made aware that their port of destination was put under blockade a few hours ago. No one knows what is going to happen next as they are in territorial waters. After an hour, a navy patrol boat waving an enemy flag approaches. Soldiers proceed to board their ship and force them stop the engines. At this point, everything happens very fast. The military inspect the boat and the Captain is put under arrest. A brief scuffle ensues between the military and the crew, a shot is fired and someone falls. Screams. Threats. More shots are fired. There is chaos on the boat. Noura jumps up and tries to help a colleague who is being roughed up. That`s when a soldier hits her violently on the head with the butt of his gun. Everything turns black.
Scene IX THE MISSING HALF
Friday June 1st, 5:10 pm. For the hundredth time, David was going over the news on the internet. Eight casualties and many wounded amongst the passengers. A military blunder condemned by the international community. On the day of the tragedy, the boat was finally escorted to the harbor and the injured were transported to the city`s hospital. David had seen the details on the media and was worried sick about Noura`s fate. Finally he received news through Noura`s friend, Amina, who was keeping in contact with Rami. Noura was alive, but she had been unconscious since the attack. Furthermore, the center where she was being treated was badly in need of medicine and medical supplies because of the embargo. David was devastated. On top of this, for the last week, he had had a strange and splitting headache, as if he had received a blow. Looking out the window of his apartment, he recalled that night at the rave, their first time together and those few months of pure enchantment. That`s when he took his decision.
Scene X SEARCHING FOR NOURA
Wednesday July 4th, 9:35 am. David got out of the Jeep under the blazing sun and set foot on this ancient land. After a month of procedures and with the help of some contacts from the NGO where Noura worked, he obtained a visa and managed to get into the country. Of course, Canada, which was nurturing its relations with the enemy country, had failed to denounce the attack and had turned a deaf ear to the requests to repatriate Noura and the other injured Canadians. David had acted on an impulse and had made the trip all the way up here. He certainly did not think he was made of the stuff of heroes but he knew that he had to do this. The situation here was as bad as ever. It was a war zone. Rami was due to meet him upon his arrival at the checkpoint. He finally arrived and greeted David in tears. During the previous night, there had been another air raid and a lost missile had hit straight into the hospital where Noura was being treated. Almost all of the occupants had died, and Noura was still missing.
Scene XI MY BLUE SKY the finale
Saturday July 14th, 11:10 am. On his way home to Montreal, David thought back on the last few days that he had spent in this foreign land. Was he lost in a waking nightmare? The search in the charred remains of the hospital. The smell. Only a small number of the bodies could be identified. The only item retrieved from the debris that belonged to Noura was her passport. After ten days she was still reported missing. He reluctantly resigned himself to leaving the country, leaving a sad Rami and his mother behind.
Tuesday July 3rd, 23:15 pm. In the hospital, it was pandemonium. The doctors had decided to move the patients that could handle the transfer to a better equipped hospital. They had to travel by night about fifty kilometers and cross the border into a friendly country. The first ambulance stormed off just as the bomb hit the hospital and a fire started raging. In the speeding vehicle, Noura opened her eye as she heard a loud bang. She saw one of the paramedics staring out the back window with a terrified look. She then lost consciousness again.
Saturday July 14th, 11:10 am. In a clean and cool hospital room, a nurse leaned over a young girl with long black hair. She asked her name and where she came from. The girl remembered nothing. It was a total blank. ``You know, you were lucky to come out alive. The center where you were treated was completely destroyed.`` The weakened woman knew she could understand the nurse`s language, and she knew she could speak French as well. But no other memories came to her. She gave the nurse a blank stare. ``I am sure you will get better soon and it will all come back to you,`` said the nurse. On the table she noticed the mp3 player, the only belonging that the amnesic woman had had with her. She turned it on and came close to the girl. She smiled at her and helped with the earphones. Noura smiled back and closed her eyes. The melody in her ears seemed vaguely familiar.
THE END--------------------------WRITTEN BY DREANPITCH (ANDRE PICHETTE)
This short story is part of a multimedia project . Titles for every scene are actually soundtracks that I have written. Please visit https://dreanpitch.bandpage.com OR http://dreanpitch.blogspot.ca/ Peace!
