The Memory

nobody@vox.com(Jaleesa) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 08:00:37 -0700

I originally wrote this as a 15 year old in 2003. We had to do this huge literature project where we researched a celebrity and, using different literary styles [haiku, prose, etc, etc], write about their lives or moments in their lives. I picked Kurt Cobain because I was courting a love affair with Nirvana in 2003, and this is the prose piece I wrote. It was based off of a paragraph or two I read in a biography I bought on him, and I used my imagination to put this together. I still consider it one of my best, even though it was one of my first. I remember this was also the piece I chose to read aloud to my class, and I remember when I finished everyone just sat in stunned silence and some guy broke it with, "Wow."

I wasn't very communicative through most of high school, and especially that year since it was at a new school. So this made me feel special. :)

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Frances Bean took the urn in her arms and walked slowly across the grass to the creek. Her mother, Courtney Love, sat watching her as she walked, brooding in misery like the other mourners. Frances heard the Buddhist monk chanting a prayer, but she couldn't hear what he was saying because she was heavily concentrating on her feet as they padded softly across the grass.

When she reached the creek she squatted down and thought for a moment about what she was about to do. She felt tears come to her eyes and began to blink furiously. The monk was still softly reciting his prayer. Frances looked back at him for a second and then turned around and unscrewed the urn.

Courtney watched her daughter unscrew the urn. She looked at the girl, not really seeing Frances in that moment, but Kurt Cobain, the man she had lost so long ago. Frances, with her blue eyes and blonde hair was almost the spitting image of Kurt. Tears escaped her eyes as the beginning tune of "Heart-Shaped Box", the song Kurt had written just for her, came into her head. She silently mouth a lyric to no one but herself, her mouth forming the words, "Forever in debt to your priceless advice."

Frances looked inside of the urn. Her father's ashes met her sight. She sighed and stuck her hand inside, grabbing a handful of the ashes inside. Then standing up to her full height she held her arm out over the creek and opened her hand. The wind picked the ashes up out of her hand and they floated out over the creek, looking like dust in the afternoon light. The ashes settled into the creek, and there, part of her father rested.

Frances repeated this action until the urn was empty. To the last handful of ashes she looked down and whispered, "Goodbye daddy." The Frances let the handful go, the tears that had formed in her eyes earlier flowing out of them like a waterfall flows over a cliff. Kurt's ashes flew for a moment and then fell, dissolving in the creek's water.

*******

Frances was lying in her bed later that night, thinking about the day's ceremonies and about her father. She had been a baby when he had died, so she remembered nothing about him. She always wondered if he had ever sang to her, or held her in his arms. She knew that he must have, but she wished that she could remember.
Courtney had told her all about him of course. She always showed her loads of pictures of him and played the songs he had made with Nirvana to her. All of this made Frances happy, but she still wished she could remember all of these things instead. She felt that if she could remember, then he wouldn't seem so distant from her. She closed her eyes and soon fell asleep, her thoughts still on her father.
Her unconscious mind went to a time when Frances was not yet a year old. In her dream, she was being bathed by a blond, blue-eyed man who could be none other than her father. He lifted her up over the bathtub and made noises as if she was a plane. Frances giggled and looked at him, and saw that he was smiling back at her.
Then Frances heard a voice in her dream, a voice that sounded like Donald Duck. The voice said to her, "Daddy loves Frances." She giggled at how funny it sounded. The voice laughed back, and then said in the same Donald Duck voice, "Daddy loves Frances very much and Daddy always will."

Frances awoke, looking out sleepily over her room. It was early morning, so there was no light. She was about to close her eyes again when she saw something out of the corner of her eye. It looked human and was looking at her, smiling the same smile she had just seen in her dream. She knew what it was. She contently closed her eyes and sleepily muttered, "Hi Daddy." It didn't respond, but did continue to look at her until she had drifted back off to sleep. Then, without a sound, the thing disappeared from the room.

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WG Foundation Screenwriting Craft Day

nobody@vox.com(Susan Ee) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 06:48:31 -0700

The Writers Guild Foundation is having their annual Screenwriting Craft Seminar in LA. I went to one a couple of years ago and it was pretty good as far as panels go since they were crammed full of working and accomplished screenwriters. It's not nearly as advertised nor attended as those "commercial" seminars and there are way more panelists from recognizable movies/shows. It's pretty easy to talk one-on-one with the screenwriters, especially since about half of the attendees were also WGA members, meaning they've done at least some pro work. It's $150 for the general public. If you're itching to hear directly from people in-the-know, it's probably worth checking out:

Saturday, July 19. Tickets & Info: www.wgfoundation.org

Susan Ee
http://feraldream.com/

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Vox Literature Liberation Front

The Memory

WG Foundation Screenwriting Craft Day