INTRO--RAINY STREET--
First, of course, is a black screen, the theatre in darkness. A moment of anticipation, silence, as the movie is about to begin.
Then the sound of rain falling.
Fade into a camera shot of a rainy street scene: it's nighttime, the focus is soft and blurry, with lights glowing on the pavement and in shop windows, and drops of rain bouncing off the puddles. And then, as the scene comes into clear focus, a single human figure, running straight towards the camera. Then a different angle: a flash of his coat elbow as she streaks past our view, then a shot of his blurry face from underneath--he's breathing heavily, running. A shot of his back as he splashes at full speed down the lonely, rainy, city sidewalk.
So where do you even start a story? Where do you begin? With what detail? And here I am with so much to tell you, so many scattered memories and ideas that need to be given some form. Pick one detail, then, like picking a random photo out of a shoebox full. One detail, and then go from there.
So it’s raining outside. Or maybe it’s not. Doesn’t matter, really, but you’ve got to start a story with something.
It’s raining outside. In a city. Could be any city, really, anywhere at all, because they’re all pretty much the same, even though each one is beautiful and scary and dirty in its own special way. But it’s a city, and it’s raining, so we might as well say that it’s Vancouver, Canada, because if you know anything at all about Vancouver, you know that it always rains there.
And someone runs along the sidewalk, straight towards the camera, holding a briefcase over his head. Young guy, sort of. Early 40's, maybe. Does that matter? Maybe not. But he’s not handsome, really, in case you were wondering. No leading-man movie star in this role. He's kind of short and angular and funny looking—like a pointy bird, maybe, or a cold cat. Like a cold and pointy cat.
The odd vehicle passes by him as he turns corners, as he races up one street and down the next like he was looking for something. Or, more accurately, looking for someone.
And in the canyons between the buildings, the wind howls and shrieks like madness in the brain, like the spirits of the restless dead.
He’s not mad, though, this fellow Adam, for that's his name, racing along the sidewalk half-drowned. He's not mad, and he has no overcoat, and he’s wearing what looks like an expensive suit and holds a briefcase over his head. For now, then, the first tense few moments of this movie, we see him there, running--running fast--through the rainy streets, from various camera angles. Feet splashing in puddles. Rain running down his pointy face. His hand clutching a cell phone to his ear, his mouth yelling something into it.
“Feral’s… alive…”
Feral is alive.
So, this begins our story, and maybe ends it too. And whoever has eyes to see, let them see.
And whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.
Now listen:
Feral's alive. Those few words, for a moment, fill the theatre with sound, before the frame dissolves back into rain, then back in darkness, and then silence. But in that moment before the next scene began, you would probably just shake your head and laugh because, if you knew anything about this story at all, if you had even heard of it, really, you would know that one fact was certain and without dispute.
And that fact, of course, was that Feral Danger MacDuff, legendary legend, heroic tree planter of the Canadian North, was most certainly dead. Very dead, as the saying went. Very, very dead.
Now listen:
