Following yesterday’s draft for the SWF ’50 Kisses’ competition, I have an Edit By Community win! With thanks to all those who wrote with suggestions, I have a completed 2 page entry – similar but tighter, with not one but THREE kisses AND actually to length. Well. Marginally. Oh, and a happier open ending.
Might have to try this more often. You guys ROCK!
EXT. PARK – DAY
LEATHER JACKET MAN (LJ MAN) – beautiful in his own right, and wearing an exceptionally beautiful leather jacket – proceeds.
DONNA (V.O.)
No. You’ve still lost me. You fell in love with the man – or the jacket?
INT. LOUNGE – NIGHT
MAGS perches on the arm of a couch, absently plucking the petals of a single red rose. DONNA sits more conventionally, wine glass in hand. On the coffee table, a half-eaten pizza and a flyer for Valentine’s Day Specials.
MAGS
Indeed, therein lies the question.
EXT. PARK – DAY
MAGS cycles past LJ MAN, entranced by his jacket. She slows.
MAGS (V.O.)
First: the jacket.
DONNA (V.O.)
You stalked him?
On LJ MAN: MAGS now rides slowly behind, having turned back.
MAGS (V.O.)
I was enamoured. What kind of man could wear such a garment? I decided he must be a heroic figure. Lethally genteel. A spy, perhaps -
INT. BAR – DAY
LJ MAN leans against a bar, suave ala James Bond. Seeing an elegantly dressed MAGS, he pushes aside his martini to take and gently kiss her unresisting hand, his eyes on hers -
INT. FUTURISTIC SETTING
MAGS (V.O.)
- or a steampunk space cowboy. The kind who cleans up six kinds or intergalactic vermin before breakfast.
LJ MAN swaggers in with a stupidly souped up SF gun. Pulls MAGS in by the waist, kisses her extravagantly, while aiming the gun at the camera and FIRING -
EXT. URBAN SETTING
MAGS (V.O.)
Or an urban superhero, fighting for justice and… other stuff on the streets of post-apocalyptic London -
LJ MAN stands back-to-back with a cat-suited MAGS, surrounded by THUGS. They share what might be their last kiss, then draw their respective post-apocalyptic weapons to face their fate -
EXT. PARK – DAY
MAGS slowly rides past LJ MAN, eyes still glued to the jacket.
MAGS (V.O.)
- and then it occurs to me that the jacket might be a maguffin, and I was actually attracted to its wearer.
DONNA (V.O.)
Halleluja!
Completely oblivious to the gate/tree/post/pedestrian she’s about to ride straight into -
INT. LOUNGE – NIGHT
MAGS
Only then I fell off my bike.
DONNA
And did he chivalrously come to your rescue?
MAGS plucks the last petal from the rose.
MAGS
Alas, no. And what if he had? How could he have possibly lived up to the man I had imagined?
DONNA
You realise this says a lot about why you’re still single.
MAGS looks all secret-squirrel.
EXT. PARK – DAY
MAGS hauls her bike back upright, dusting herself off. Ahead, LJ MAN pauses, looking to MAGS as though he might turn back.
She grins. Ready to give this a go anyway.