Mortin
FADE IN
1
EXT. REDWOOD GROVE – MIDDAY
ERIKA (17, F), in an old-fashioned BLACK MOURNING DRESS, pushes through branches and arrives at a clearing in an old grove of sequoia trees. The trees seem to form a perfect circle around her, the noon-day sun creates a TWO METER DISK OF LIGHT on the ground through a miraculous circular gap in the branches overhead.
Erika walks into it and looks up, staring DIRECTLY INTO THE SUN, unblinking. Tears well up in her eyes, until, finally, she looks away.
She traces the outside of the disk of light in the dirt with her shoes.
Once done, she walks over to a TREE with particularly LOW- HANGING BRANCHES. The pine needles have been sheared off these branches, making them climbable.
She hoists herself up onto the first branch, rotating her wrist to get better leverage but chafing her hands in doing so. She climbs methodically.
2
EXT. IN THE TREE – DAY
Erika sits on an unnervingly THIN BRANCH, hanging over the center of the grove. Her hands are covered in splinters and small, red cuts. Her dress resembles rags from being shredded while climbing.
She squats and crawls as far out as her branch would take her; it starts to BEND DANGEROUSLY.
She stops and looks down. Seeing only a glimpse of the disk of light through lower branches of the tree, she climbs out farther, hoping to see the full thing. However, just as her eyes find a line of sight between the branches to the disk below…
CRACK!
Behind her, the branch begins to split. Without thinking, she leaps up to a branch above just as…
SNAP!
The branch she was just on breaks off and falls down, coming to a rest atop a bed of branches a dozen meters below it.
Deep breaths, in then out, calming her fear as she realizes just how close she was to death. She thinks, blinking, for a second. Looks up for a beat, then starts to climb down.
3
EXT. REDWOOD GROVE – LATER – DAY
Erika hops to the ground from a low branch. The sun’s moved; the disk of light has disappeared from the dirt circle she drew.
She kicks dirt over the circle, erasing it, then leaves the same way she entered.
4
EXT. REDWOOD GROVE – MIDDAY
ERIKA (24), in casual, 70’s style BLACK GAUCHOS, enters the grove through a well-worn gap in the bushes. She’s carrying a BROWN PAPER BAG and wearing gloves. The disk of light is there, but noticeably smaller, roughly a meter in diameter.
She sits down in the middle of it and opens her bag, withdrawing a sandwich and a bag of sunflower seeds. She traces the outline of the disk with her pinky finger and bites into her sandwich, enjoying her lunch in the sunlight.
5
EXT. REDWOOD GROVE – SEVERAL MINUTES LATER – DAY
Erika, finished with her sandwich, glances at the sun, but looks away quickly from the HARSH LIGHT.
Eventually, she blinks, looks down, lays an extra SUNFLOWER SEED from her bag on the ground next to her, on top of a PILE OF SEEDS already there. She smiles softly, hoping someday something will grow in that spot.
She walks over to the same tree she climbed before, but now there is a wooden ladder nailed into the trunk. She climbs it.
6
EXT. IN THE TREE – DAY
She ends up on a small, wobbly PLATFORM attached precariously between two branches. On it is a TATTERED NOTEBOOK with a pencil hooked into its spiral binding. She picks up the pencil and begins to write.
7
EXT. REDWOOD GROVE – LATER – DAY
Erika drops from the tree, carrying her notebook with her.
She walks over to her pinky-circle, the light now gone, and kicks dirt over it.
She then leaves through the gap in the woods through which she entered.
8
EXT. REDWOOD GROVE – MIDDAY
ERIKA (30), in a modern long black suit, holding a small, hardcover novel, ducks through the same gap in the bushes, which at this point is overgrown.
She walks over and sees a rotted PIECE OF WOOD on the ground; the writing platform has fallen out of the tree. Grimacing, she scans the ground for any sign of the disk of light, but doesn’t see it.
She walks to the middle of the clearing, where the light used to be, and looks up. She can just barely make out the sun through the web of branches that’s grown over the clearing.
The circle is gone forever, blocked out by trees.
She stares up at the sun, fixating on small glimpses of light through the leaves, squinting through the trees until she has to blink, causing a tear to roll down her face as she looks down.
She bends over and brushes aside some dried pine needles and dirt, finding ONE LAST SEED: old, grey, and rotting. She picks it up and throws it away.
She kicks the dirt disappointedly and sighs.
She turns and leaves, head down long before she has to duck through the gap in the forest.
9
EXT. CEMETERY OUTSIDE THE FOREST – LATER – DAY
Erika emerges from a wall of woods and pushes onto a grassy plain.
She looks over the backs of TOMBSTONES filling out the field before her, and walks over to a small grave.
GRAVESTONE: “ERIKA MORTIN, LOVING MOTHER AND GRANDMOTHER.”
Erika leaves her novel, MEMOIRS OF OTHER PEOPLE, written by ERIKA MORTIN III, in front of the headstone.
Brow furrowed, she looks up from the headstone towards the forest behind it, then up at the harsh sun, using her arm to block the direct sunlight from her eyes.
FADE OUT
Keenan McCarty is an obsessive learner, never settling for knowing or doing anything, jumping from subject to subject, topic to topic. A lover of all things creative, he’s pushed himself to constantly write in new mediums and to challenge himself creatively. As a creative, he never stands still: he’s written novels, poetry, plays, online video, video games, or a silent film, like he did here.