and this was our first view of Jupiter, imagine how haunting it must have been to see this MASSIVE planet come out of the darkness for the first time. Swirling with life:
And with that, here's a re-post of a very old story I wrote about two people contemplating outer space on a walk home from the bar.
EXT. – FRONT OF LOCAL BAR
We
watch as two men leave a bar during the last hours of the night, the
two look slightly worn. The two men are in total contrast; Man #1 seems
wide eyed and awake, Man #2 looks like he is completely ready for bed
and can barley keep his eyes open. As they begin their walk away from
the bar they take a moment, an extended hesitation as this is something
they clearly do not want to do. They begin their walk through the
parking lot.
Man #1
I don’t want to go to work
Man #2
(Slightly more emphatic)
I
don’t want to go to work. If we go home right now we can get about 5
hours sleep before we have to be up. You just crash at my place.
Man#1
(Kicks a can on the ground)
Sarah won’t get mad?
Man #2
(Uncaring)
I don’t know
The two men pass the bar and head toward the park
Scene 2
EXT- LOCAL PARK
The
two men cut the park on the way home, the mood is still gloomy. Its
late they are tired and neither is excited about seeing another work
week begin.
Man #1
Are you glad you moved in with Sarah?
Man #2
Well, it’s not like I had a choice, I couldn’t afford to move out on my own and no one else wanted to move in with me.
Man #1
Who did you ask?
Man #2
No
one. Sarah would have gotten pissed if I moved out with anyone other
than her; she takes that kind of thing to mean that I don’t want to be
with her.
Man #1
So than why would you…
As he begins his sentence the sky lights up a shade of purple and both men are startled.
Man #1
Whoa, what?
Man #2
Holy.
They both freeze there for a moment looking upward
Man #2
That had to have been a comet or something
Man #1
Meteorite
Again
they fall silent while looking toward the sky, after a few moments
they begin to walk again. Neither man can look away from the sky.
Man #1
Jeez
Man #2
That stuffs crazy
Man #1
I
know, when I was I kid I was really into that stuff. Space and stars
and other planets, I used to just stare at the sky at night.
Man #2
Same. I had friends that knew a lot about it, I remember laying on the grass a lot with them looking at outer space.
Man #1
Yeah.
Man #2
Yeah. We should get home.
Man #1
We SHOULD get home.
Scene 3
EXT – A PARK BENCH OUTSIDE A LOCAL SCHOOL
The
two men are sitting on a park bench outside of a school, both men are
now fixated on the sky, both men have the curious smile of two children
lost in imagination. The shot moves from the in-front view to behind
them looking upward and sharing the view of the stars that both men are
enjoying.
Man #1 breaks the silence
Man #1
Y’know how you take the stars for granted?
Man #2
(Enthusiastically)
Totally
Both
men feel like they reached an epiphany and everything that follows is
said with a tremendous sense of both discovery and importance.
Man #1
We
never really look at the stars with everything we know. Its like we
know all about them scientifically but we never think about that
knowledge and look at them at the same time.
Man #2
(Looks at him quizzically)
Man #1
I am going to go into a rant here....just be quiet 'cause it doesn’t work otherwise.
Ok
(Takes a second to compose his thoughts)
I
mean...you remember “Light Brite”, that thing where it was this giant
light; then you got special black paper and put it over the light so
that when you poked the colored pegs through; the light would go into
the pegs and they would light up?
(He doesn’t wait for any answer)
Man #1
No
one ever, ever got more paper when they ran out so they just reused
the old ones. Then when they put the paper with all these little holes
on the “Lite Brite”; you would see all these pin pricks of light poke
through the paper. That’s kind of like how people look at the stars,
like they are just these little pricks of light in the sky. AND
NO (he gets confrontational, as though he is defending himself to no
one) I AM NOT SAYING that people think the sky has holes in it or
anything like that. I am just saying. People don’t really think much about those lights.
Man #1 breaks into a confident smile
Man#1
My point is it’s amazing to think; when you really do think, how impressive that little light is. Just
in terms of distance; that thing is hundreds of billions of miles
away. That is totally inconceivable to people, all we base distance on
is distances we can travel on earth. That’s like walking the whole
earth a million times, it’s like we KNOW that’s a lot but we can’t
really conceive of what that would be like. If you walked as far as you
could toward it…
With
that it appears as if Man #2 begins to walk toward the star, climbing
upward as though there were and invisible staircase. He keeps walking
until he is in space and keeps walking toward his target getting further
and further out of distance.
… then when you died; you had a kid that walked as far as HE could toward it; and so on…
This
time we see Man #2 in outer space he has made some distance between
himself and the earth but is still relatively nowhere, he is an old man
now. When he collapses and dies, a man looking relatively similar to
Man #2 begins his quest; taking up where his father left off. Through a
series of dissolves indicating the passage of time we go through many
generations.
… it would take a million generations of you to even get close…
In
space now we see a man wearing futuristic clothing indicating that
hundreds of years have passed, when the camera pulls out we see that he
is still a long ways off from reaching that star.
Reality snaps back, the focus is back on the bench.
Man #1
IT LOOKS LIKE ITS RIGHT THERE. Even
the moon is so far away; like... (Makes a gesture, a hand wave saying
"forget about it"). Plus since light takes so long to travel to earth;
what we are looking at is all in the past. This is ALL one big rerun
and in reality the sky up there looks nothing like this.
We
step out of reality again as when Man #1 reaches to the sky he grips
stars and moves them all over the sky to make his point, occasionally
tossing a few away.
…some stars
are gone over here some new ones are over there, it’s something else
entirely AND we won’t even know for another hundred years or so…
Back to reality
Man #1
What’s
really crazy is how BIG that little thing is, those stars are way
bigger than the sun. If we were to drift close to one, ignoring the fact
we'd all be fried; as soon as we got within a million miles one star
would fill up out whole sky and then some. It’s like comparing the size of a rock to a lake, it’s so messed.
A black hole floats into view
One
black hole or one star explosion happens a long way ways and we are
toast; there really is NOTHING we could do. There would never be any
record of any human existence ever.
The world is quickly sucked into oblivion; we are left in complete blackness.
Man #2
(Through the blackness)
Do you believe in aliens?
Back to reality
Man#1
Don’t know
Man #2
(Far too serious)
I am just saying that a lot of people think that we are being documented by other creatures.
(Looks hard at Man #1 and nods)
So
at least if they were; than some one would know about us. I was
watching this show the other day where they mentioned that there is a
facility that sends out radio frequency signals throughout space and try
and get one back from some other life form. One day they got one back…
Man #1
(Sits up)
Shit!
Man #2
Yeah.
(Another deep serious stare, head nodding)
It
was a signal for about 3 minutes, after they confirmed it wasn’t their
own bouncing off some asteroid and started trying to find it, the
signal stopped. That was in nineteen-seventy… something. It’s the only
success they ever had but the government STILL has them in business,
that PROVES that the signal was real.
They
both seem shocked, and maybe a little frightened. They look back
toward the sky, this time as though they had suddenly become aware of
some horrible truth.
Man #2
On the show they said that it’s most likely that they aren’t aliens but travelers from the future. But if you think about that, of all times that they could be visiting why now? Nothing has really happened in our time. If you think about it they have to know that something big is going to happen soon.
Hey honestly, if I had to guess I would say that they know that some huge catastrophe is coming that they have to stop.
With
that both men stand up and walk, they head across the street neither
one looking away from the sky. They navigate the lawn avoiding lawn
ornaments, trees and gardens without ever looking down. When they get to
the front porch they open the door, take one last look and head
inside.
