Badlands Page #8

TIGHT ON HOLLY'S EYES

Holly has made her eyes up with mascara.

EXT. FRONT OF TREEHOUSE

Kit and Holly dance the stroll to the sound of Mickey and

Sylvia on their Zenith portable. Holly shows a better sense

of rhythm than Kit.

EXT. MUD FLAT BESIDE RIVER – DUSK

Kit lifts a fish out of the river with a crude device like a

lacrosse net. Holly sits on the bank in the background. The

fish wriggles out of the net and falls back in the water.

Kit struggles in vain to retrieve it.

HOLLY (V.O.)

We had our bad moments, like any

couple. Kit accused me of only being

along for the ride, while at times I

wished he'd fall in the river and

drown, so I could watch.

Kit throws his net down in disgust, partly at Holly.

KIT:

Take a break, Red... Life of Riley,

huh?

Holly ignores him as he walks off down the flat.

HOLLY (V.O.)

Mostly, though, we got along fine

and stayed in love.

EXT. FRONT OF TREEHOUSE

Holly, in curlers, walks over to where Kit is shaving.

HOLLY:

One of the chickens died last night.

She pats a little water on her face, dries it with a burlap

towel, picks up a hatchet and walks off into the forest to

cut the morning's firewood.

HOLLY:

I almost stepped on him.

EXT. UPPER DECK

Holly sits on the upper deck of the treehouse, reading Kon-

Tiki aloud to Kit.

HOLLY:

"The Kon-Tiki in motion was a little

different from what it usually was

in such conditions. We had become

sensitive to changes in the rhythm

of the logs. I thought at once of

suction from the coast, which was

drawing near, and was continually

out on the deck and up the mast..."

KIT:

He was nervous.

Holly looks at him for a moment, trying to understand the

meaning of this interruption, then resumes:

HOLLY:

"Time passed. At dawn, just before

six, Torstein came hurrying down

from the masthead. He could see a

whole line of small palm-clad islands

far ahead..."

EXT. RIVER

Holly walks down the edge of the river, fresh from her bath,

wrapped in a white sheet. The river is raging, with white

caps visible in places.

EXT. FOREST

A strange animal, not a deer or a horse, but like them, moves

languidly through the thick of the forest. Holly puts down

her binoculars, amazed.

HOLLY (V.O.)

I grew to love the forest. The cooing

of the doves and the hum of

dragonflies in the air made it always

seem lonesome and like everybody's

dead and gone...

EXT. CROW'S NEST

Kit sits in the crow's nest at the top of the treehouse,

browsing through a copy of National Geographic, amused by

what he sees, looking around to find somebody he can share

it with.

HOLLY (V.O.)

When the leaves rustled overhead, it

was like the spirits were whispering

about all the little things that

bothered 'em.

TIGHT ON SLIDES:

An array of stereo slides is spread out on the leaves of the

forest floor. Holly puts one in her stereopticon and studies

it. Kit greets her as he walks by with a log over his

shoulder.

HOLLY (V.O.)

One day, while taking a look at some

vistas in Dad's stereopticon, it hit

me that I was just this little girl,

born in Texas, whose father was a

sign painter and who had only just

so many years to live...

TIGHT ON SLIDES:

With each of her thoughts a slide appears: a canal in Brazil,

a camel boy in front of the Great Pyramid, some cows standing

in a fjord with a steamship in the distance, a mother with

her child, a woman playing the piano as another woman looks

on, a family on a lawn, a soldier in a wheatfield whispering

something into his girlfriend's ear.

HOLLY (V.O.)

...It sent a chill down my spine,

and I thought:
Where would I be this

very moment if Kit had never met

me?... Or killed anybody? This very

moment... If my Mom had never met my

Dad? If she'd of never died?... And

what's the man I'll marry going to

look like? What's he doing right

this minute?... Is he thinking about

me now, by some coincidence, even

though he doesn't know me? Does it

show on his face?

EXT. RIVER

Kit is fishing with his crude net. He stops briefly to watch

a truck passing down the highway In the distance, then goes

back to work.

This stretch of river seems dangerously close to civilization.

HOLLY (V.O.)

For days afterward I lived in dread.

At times I wished I could fall asleep

and be taken off to some magical

land, but this never happened.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes