I have something different accompanying this song rather than a review. One of my biggest loves when it comes to creative writing is dialogue. I’ve tinkered muchly in movie-writing as well.
And so, I’m letting scenes come to mind, flash fiction that could be a slice from a movie. I’m getting loosey-goosey and real on this writing journey.
As for having a song included and encoded for a scene, this is my obsession. Music permeates each of my all-but-done movies, including the finished and seeking funding “No Air Gutar Allowed” (co-written with Steve Weinberger and Marc Fusco) and my all-but-done yet malingering drafts “Airstream Nightmare,” “The Noob” and “The Obit.”
If I ever make it, I’d aim for that John Hughes’ sweet spot where the soundtrack is absolutely as important as the story.
“The Psychiatrist and the French Woman”
PSYCHIATRIST
What seems to be the problem?
FRENCH WOMAN
Life is an endless stretch of cycles,
cycles of dissipation and rejuvenation.
The French Woman lights a Gauloises cigarette.
PSYCHIATRIST
Oh, we don’t smoke in here.
FRENCH WOMAN
(lighting a match)
Are you a psychiatrist
or a prison warden?
Something about this new client unnerves the Psychiatrist. The lyrics to the Killers’ “Mr. Brightside” spring, unbidden, to his mind. “Now I’m falling a sleep, and she’s calling a cab. Now he’s having a smoke. And she’s taking a drag.”
The French Woman takes a drag off her cigarette. The psychiatrist recollects himself.
PSYCHIATRIST
So how do these “cycles” make you feel?
FRENCH WOMAN
(snapping)
How do you think?!
The psychiatrist begins hearing the Killers again. “But she’s touching his chest now, she takes off her dress now. Let me go.”
The French woman pulls an green glass ashtray from her purse, sets it on the coffee table and leans forward. She stabs out her barely-smoked cigarette and lights another.
FRENCH WOMAN
I feel a great ennui.
Something in the psychiatrist snaps. He speaks out of the side of his mouth like Sam Spade.
PSYCHIATRIST
Say it in English, Toots.
FRENCH WOMAN
I’m bored. Bored half to death.
I’m done crying and I’m done laughing.
The French Woman stabs out her second cigarette and stands.
PSYCHIATRIST
(collecting himself)
We have 40 more minutes left in our session. Don’t you want to further discuss what I suspect is low-grade depression?
FRENCH WOMAN
To live is to suffer from low-grade depression.
(beat)
I haven’t decided if you’re a genius or a fool.
You have one week to come up with
something meaningful, something that
will help me view life less as a chore
nd more like a party.
The French Woman leaves, slamming the door behind her. Shaken, the psychiatrist lies down on on his own couch.
PSYCHIATRIST
(to himself)
What just happened? The French Woman opens the door.
FRENCH WOMAN
Keep the ashtray. It’s only polite to have it
at the ready for your clients. It’s like they say.
“An office without an ashtray is like a party without cake– like a church service without communion.”
Once she has left, the psychiatrist,prone on the couch, gives a digital command.
PSYCHIATRIST
Alexa, play Mr. Brightside by The Killers.
The song begins.
PSYCHIATRIST (Voice over)
(in manner of Sam Spade)
Sometimes a song just matches your mood.
The psychiatrist looks at the coffee table and notices the French Woman has left her matchbook, inscribed with a picture of a tiki and featuring the name, ‘Waikiki Lounge.’ The psychiatrist flips open the matchbook and sees a note scrawled on the cardboard paper: 2 p.m., December 6, Union station.
PSYCHIATRIST (V.O.)
(To himself)
That’s tomorrow.
The Psychiatrist writes the number down on a physician’s prescription script. He notices one of the barely smoked cigarettes in his new ashtray and retrieves one. He begins smoking.
The music continues: “Comin’ out of my cage and I’ve been doin’ just fine Gotta, gotta be down because I want it all It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this? It was only a kiss, it was only a kiss.”
–Sarah Torribio
Read more flash fiction by Sarah Torribio HERE
Listen to more songs of the day HERE
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