1.) INT. LONDON – BRENDA’S WRITING STUDIO – AFTERNOON
BRENDA, 21, an English literature student, is having discussions over the internet. The atmosphere is electrified. We watch her next to her elaborately decorated pinboards. A few snapshots on her lips casting her first words:
BRENDA
Me, myself and I…
In between her ambiguous look showing humor as well as sarcasm, she finishes publishing several of her stories in her website.
BRENDA
Let’s see now what kind of metal are you made of, kids…
After a few moments, JACK, 20, an actor, Brenda’s boyfriend, messages her on Viber. Brenda, taken away from her laptop for a few moments to have a break, barely manages to see his name on her iPhone.
BRENDA
Here comes trouble…!
Jack, partly jealous as a result of missing the train with their affair, provocatively stupid and pretentiously off topic, trolls her creative writing accomplishments. Meanwhile, he flushes from the other side of the phone. She glimpses his message.
JACK (written word)
Hello dolly! I’ve read several of your publications… How will all these be done?
Looking angry and ready to raise her decibels, she partly manages to show a neutral response over the phone.
BRENDA (typing)
What exactly do you mean, Jackie?
In between snapshots of their faces as well as their touchscreens, she aggressively continues the response.
BRENDA (typing)
Another delirium of yours?
JACK calls her directly over the Viber.
JACK
Who do you think you are?
BRENDA (furious)
You are not a delegate neither of my partners nor of my family.
Brenda angrily locks her iPhone completely and heads back over her laptop. The crazy little feast of the Facebookians has lit up…
Brenda is bombarded from all over the world in her Messenger, with questions about the booming success of her new books and their plots. Messages roll over the screen with speed.
LORNA
You rock girl! Show them your class!
NAUGHTY GIG has typed both sided emoticons together with a YouTube upload, “Frankie Goes to Hollywood”.
MEAN GIRLS
We’ve come to shake your hand!
TOBIAS (story-wise)
Are they dead?
THE INVISIBLE
You’re the chosen one! You’re great!
Brenda, moved and happy now that her work makes perfect sense of her past and future, shuts down her computer and heads over her bed with the iPhone at hand. As she lays over there to get some rest, she closes her eyes and immediately flashes back to her amateur years of being trained as a writer. The vision of one of her first professors appears.
THE VISION
Unless you show some self-reliance, you will be found fighting with many forces doing good but also doing evil…!
A teardrop rolls on her cheek out of exciting memories.
BRENDA
I guess we’ve learned that maneuver really well, professor, right?
2.) EXT. LONDON – HARD ROCK CAFE – DAY
Brenda and Jack are having a breakfast out in the yard of Hard Rock Café in London, being on the verge of breaking up. It’s summer and there’s an otherworldly charm applying a peculiar effect at their talkings. The outside world seems joyfully celebrating.
BRENDA
Where have your acting, or better say pretending abilities led you Jackie, so far?
JACK (almost collapsing)
Definitely not in choosing sides, like you do.
BRENDA
I didn’t choose a side but a sidekick. But you haven’t learned to love yet, right? You only cared about race horses that will continuously run for new accomplishments…
JACK (furious)
Accomplishments? You wanna know about accomplishments?
BRENDA
Jockeying for position…
As the music of Hard Rock Café is getting groovier and people pass by with excitement in the mood of summer festivities, their conversation reaches a climax.
JACK
I care about peace and well-being.
BRENDA (ironic, giggling)
Full of love…
JACK
Yes, love.
BRENDA
Well, let me state the case for you Jack. This is not an emotional issue. You do something right, you have a working plan and that’s great. Anything else is just misery.
JACK (feeling defeated)
So long, Brenda Wells. I could still see you again at some other universe.
3.) INT. LONDON - ENGLISH LITERATURE AMPHITHEATRE – DAY
Being after the end of summer vacations, Brenda is brought back to the everyday excitement of university life. Students’ long memory and deep hard drives are once again into the mood of writing hits. A few snapshots linking their brainstorming and storytelling inspiration, showing the perversion of the most geniuses in other words, with the eschatology of the 21st century. Students are in the midst of writing again.
A little while before the start of their university class, the atmosphere in the amphitheatre is electrified. DR. WHALES would be teaching the Romantics.
STUDENT A
Who is teaching the Romantics?
STUDENT B
His majesty of Dr. Whales!
STUDENT C
It gets me up!
BRENDA (partly confident)
Are you serious?
STUDENT D
Seriousness, accountability, it seems we’ll have to memorize the entire Lord Byron by heart…
The class begins as Dr. Whales enters the amphitheatre. Rumors in the class started naming him The Unorthodox professor.
STUDENT B (partly whispering)
Attack on the Titan!
BRENDA (mystified)
The Titan?
Student C, sitting next to Brenda, silently whispers to her with his hand over his mouth.
STUDENT C
Prometheus!
It was partly known due to his former classes Dr. Whales always used to start his classes with some anecdotes related to Prometheus.
DR. WHALES
Good morning class, we’ll be doing The Romantics this semester and you shall be quested to exceed all expectations. You’ll be doing research, comparative literature, prepare for the exams as well as writing your own pieces.
He stays silent for one moment.
DR. WHALES starts narrating the story of Prometheus, The Titan who is occupied with the Creation of Man by clay. He steals the creative fire from The Gods and attributes it to humans and as a result of that, he is being found onto a rock with eagles eating his livers every now and then…
DR. WHALES
And what is known as the moral lesson of this story, may I know?
BRENDA
Professor?
DR. WHALES
Yes, may I know your name?
BRENDA
I’m Brenda. How can someone from a champion of humanity be led to unpredicted outcomes…
DR. WHALES
Exactly! What dear Brenda here foreshadows is that with me, you will be battling Renaissance! The clash with the past so to surpass classical antiquity belongs to those who have closed the doors with it completely. As long as that’s true, we can’t be doing synthetic work which shall be the quest and the utmost ideal of yours. Am I understood?
Brenda flashes back to her break up at the Hard Rock Café only to bring back to memory a quote she had heard at cinema, somewhere in the internet land by great actors.
The laptop screen is brought onto her mind.
ACTOR
A well examined life is a life worth living…
Photo Credits: Menelaos Gkikas
