Movie Writing

Happy New Year all

Yep, I've made the resolution you've all been dreading - WRITE MORE.

So with this in mind here is my sell-out to Hollywood, the movie adaptation of Liquid Girl of Berlin. Have a look. Its something of a homage to this dynamic and exciting city which I think anyone alive in the 20th Century needs to go to at some point.
Viel Spaß beim Lesen!

Liquid Girl of Berlin - The Movie

THE LIQUID GIRL OF BERLIN

Cast:

Raymond Phelps – A famous American model

Liquid Girl – A Berlin research doctor

Sophia Monfis – A beautiful news presenter

Old Man working on a barge

Woman in TV Tower

Crowd outside awards ceremony

Paparazzi

INT. TOP OF BERLIN TV TOWER.

We look at the city through the lens of a tourist telescope. It is early evening and it is getting dark. The sight focuses on the old East - apartment blocks, factories - then looks around and zooms back on the modernised West - the Potsdamer Platz, the Hauptbahnhof, the Reichstag. It continues to move slowly around and then focuses in again, this time on the old scar of the wall, working its way along until it reaches the River Spree where it flows through the divide.

There is tiny dot moving down the side of the river.

The telescope goes black.

EXT. BANK OF THE SPREE. TWILIGHT.

An OLD MAN is untying the rope of his rusted barge. He is a traditional, unfashionable, East Berlin type, grumbling to himself as he alights onto the river.

His barge engine fires loudly casts off and floats through a group of swans.

Over the other side of the bank a figure is running - a silhouetted female holding books. The camera follows until she turns off into the woods.

The barge continues down the river before the trees dwindle and glittering display of lights and flashes appears.

It putters and then stops.

FADE TO

EXT. CINEMA. AWARDS CEREMONY.

Through a crowd around the red carpet presenter SOPHIA MONFIS finds Hollywood model RAYMOND PHELPS. There are flashbulbs going off and microphones being thrust in his face.

SOPHIA

Raymond, Raymond! Hey Raymond, come on. Thirty seconds for fashion news?

Raymond nods to her and smiles

SOPHIA

Raymond, tell us. You are the most famous model in the world. You appear in adverts, TV series, movies and even your own reality show. What does it feel like to be you?

RAYMOND

It feels, great yeah.

SOPHIA

And now you are to be presented with the award for Most Eligible Bachelor on the Planet.

RAYMOND

Yeah, yeah I guess I am.

He nods and gives a forced toothy grin

SOPHIA

You look fantastic tonight. Are you trying to catch anyone’s eye?

RAYMOND

No. No. I dont think so. We’ll...’

He looks away at something in the distance, to a figure walking briskly over the other side of the road.

RAYMOND

...It depends. What are you up to later Sophia?’

EXT/INT. LIQUID GIRL’S APARTMENT.

LIQUID GIRL rushes down an empty pavement and turns to enter her apartment. Its dark and we still don’t really see her features.

Inside she places the books on a cluttered pile and sits down at her desk. The computer screen lights up. We view her from behind the screen as if she is a computerised image. Words flow in front of her face. She types furiously.

An email flashes up on screen. We read it in the reflection of her glasses, her eyes still visible behind.

EMAIL

Thank you for your research paper but we are no longer interested in the particle reformation project.

US Central Intelligence.

The screen flickers and so does our view of Liquid Girl. Her fuzzy form stands up and walks out of the door.

INT. SOPHIA MONFIS’ APARTMENT

Sophia leads Raymond up the stairs to the bedroom of her apartment. She kisses him and rips off his suit and shirt. They pass a huge poster of Raymond as she pushes him towards the bedroom.

She opens the door and throws him on the bed, removing her shirt and leaping on top. The light is left on.

SOPHIA

I want to see you. I want to see your face.

She takes off his trousers and places his hands onto her legs. Raymond lies silent and expressionless.

SOPHIA

Oh God Raymond.

She removes her underwear.

SOPHIA

Raymond. Raymond.

Then begins to gyrate slowly on top of him

SOPHIA

Raymond Raymond, Raymond I just...have...to look at you

Your mouth.

Your chest.

Your hands.

Your eyes.

With eyes like that you can have anything.

Raymond lies lifeless beneath. After a few moments Sophia stops.

SOPHIA

I want you Raymond. I want to make you happy.

CU on Raymond’s face. He looks the other way, out of the window.

SOPHIA

Don’t you want me to make you happy?

EXT. BERLIN FREIDERICHSTRASSE.

Raymond is walking down an upper class shopping street. We view him from the side passing shop after shop - Gap, Burberry, Calvin Klein.

Mannequins turn and look at him, signs flash at him, pictures of his face stare from all around.

A crowd forms on the pavement and he has to dodge people as they stop and turn to look. He tries to push through, then stumbles.

A camera flash lights up the screen. Then another. Then another. The film changes to a stop-frame series of pictures of Raymond, with the sound of Paparazzi echoing in the background.

PAPARAZZI

Raymond!

Raymond covers his face

PAPARAZZI

Raymond!

Raymond lights a cigarette

PAPARAZZI

Raymond!

Raymond dives into an alley

CUT TO

EXT. ALLEYWAY.

Raymond is stood against the wall breathing heavily. Smoke rises around him and the sounds of the street begin to subside. His breathing slows and after a few seconds he looks around, one way then the other.

Cautiously he steps out and starts to walk down the alley. All seems okay. Then through the smoke he looks up and sees the TV Tower looking down at him. A camera flashes from it.

He turns the other way, but then sees the high rise buildings of the Potsdamer Platz in the other direction. Another camera flashes.

He turns back to the entrance to the alleyway. In the entrance to the alleyway there is a man with a camera. Another flash.

Raymond turns and runs back down the alley, chased by the flashes. He throws his cigarette aside and almost disappears into the smoke. But then he stops. There is a wall in front of him.

PAPARAZZI

Raymond!

Look at us.

Smile!

Let us see your face.

He looks around and then dives into the darkness.

FADE TO

EXT. A BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER SPREE. NIGHT.

The bridge is empty and silent. A residue of light shines from behind trees on the bank of the river. Only the water moves.

A swan flies down from the sky and lands with a graceful splash. It floats up on the current towards cathedrals and old museums in the distance.

Liquid Girl appears on the side of the bridge like a ghost. She stands and stares out to the river.

On the surface of the water a pale purple light. It shimmers in the light. It is vaguely human, but not at the same time.

Liquid Girl leans down to get a closer look and the camera leans with her as if to dive in the water.

A hiss from the swan interrupts. It flaps its wings violently and flies into the night.

Through Liquid Girl’s hazy form we see a figure running across the bridge. Behind him there is an explosion of light shining upwards.

He reaches the side of the bridge alongside her and stops to catch his breath. He does not seem to see her next to him.

LIQUID GIRL

It’s a nice night to be by the river

RAYMOND (panting)

Yeah. It is. Good and quiet

Raymond stares out, not acknowledging Liquid Girl’s presence.

RAYMOND

Dark an’ all. The darkest damn river that I ever saw.

The rivers ripples in a gust of wind.

LIQUID GIRL

It’s the only place where I feel alive.

It’s the only place where I can feel...real.

Out there in the world all they do is talk:

Blah blah blah

Chatter chatter chatter

Me me me.

This is it. This is the way it is.

Raymond is stood beside, touching his face as he listens to her voice.

LIQUID GIRL

I can’t be like that. I know they are wrong. But when you know this and no-one wants to listen, then what are you but words, being sucked into a deep black void?

There is a sound of the water ebbing against the bridge

LIQUID GIRL

But here, here in Berlin, on the river, there is always something, a place to ripple and flow, and go on to something new.

She takes hold of his hand

LIQUID GIRL

Come on. Come on, look. Let me show you what I mean.

Do you see?

Her reflection is seen as light shimmering on the waves.

LIQUID GIRL

There I am. Me. A million atoms dancing in the river.

The water ripples.

LIQIUD GIRL

And there is go again, into something else. A new form, with a new life and a new place in the world.

She turns to face Raymond.

LIQUID GIRL

It’s fun to be liquid. You never know what form you are going to take.

Here. Why don’t you look?

Raymond looks at the water. His reflection is opaque, with defined, chiselled features. Little pockets of light dance around it and get brighter and more dominant. The background changes into the awards ceremony from the earlier scene.

CROWD

Raymond

Raymond we love you

Come here

Look at us

Smile.

PAPARAZZI

Come on Raymond

Let’s have a smile

Just here Raymond

No here

Here

Look this way

Give us your face

Raymond

Raymond.

Cameras flash all around and then we move to an extreme CU of Raymond’s face. He is smiling in pose, as in the earlier scene and in bed with Sophia Monfis. We then fade back to the river with the reflection rippling in the water.

A swan alongside and lands on the river, washing his reflection into a blur.

Raymond staggers back and immediately convulses onto the pavement.

LIQUID GIRL

What do you see when you look down there?

Raymond looks up in pain.

LIQUID GIRL

What do you see Raymond?

RAYMOND (panicking)

I see me, I see lights, then...and then I see nothing. Nothing at all

LIQUID GIRL

Blackness?

RAYMOND

Yeah, but blackness there – ughh, ugghhh – and blackness here, and there, and inside here.

He points to his chest.

RAYMOND

Deep in here.

LIQUID GIRL

Don’t be afraid Raymond. You need to see the void and feel yourself slowly sinking into it. Then you can understand and you can know what it is to be liquid.

Raymond scowls and turns back to the water.

LIQUID GIRL

Don’t be scared Raymond

Ramyond stares and then staggers back again.

RAYMOND

What the fuck? What is that? What are you trying to do to me?

Liquid Girl sits up on the side on the bridge beside him.

LIQUID GIRL

Join me. Join me in the water. Let yourself fall and we can be free together.

Raymond back away. He is shaking and sweating

RAYMOND

What’s going on? How are you making me feel this way?

LIQUID GIRL

It’s not me Raymond. It’s you. The emptiness is in your soul, not mine.

(Pause)

RAYMOND

I ain’t empty. I’m Raymond Phelps. Look at me. People love this face.

LIQUID GIRL

Do people love YOU Raymond?

RAYMOND

Hell yeah. I’m the best looking guy in the word, ain’t I.

Liquid girl leaps down from the wall and guides Raymond’s shaking body to the edge of the bridge.

LIQUID GIRL

Don’t be scared Raymond. It isn’t so bad in there. You’re scared because you can’t see what’s at the bottom. You don’t know what will happen at the end.

RAYMOND

I do know what will happen. I’ll fall, I’ll sink and I'll drown. That’s what happens to people who leap off’a bridges.

LIQUID GIRL

Be liquid with me Raymond.

RAYMOND

I can’t!

He tries to push her away but his hands fall through a wall of light

CUT TO

INT. BERLIN TV TOWER. NIGHT.

Mirroring their pose on the bridge Liquid Girl and Raymond stare out at the city below. They look to the West where thousands of lights flicker and glow

LIQUID GIRL

What do you see when you look out there Raymond?

RAYMOND

I see lights...and walls. I see my face in the lights and on the walls.

LIQUID GIRL

That’s all a beautiful man sees?

(Pause)

RAYMOND

That’s all I can see.

She puts her arm around him.

LIQUID GIRL

Walls and lights.

The camera looks around the city and then focuses down to the waters of the River Spree.

LIQUID GIRL

There is more than that Raymond

CUT TO

EXT. BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER SPREE.

LIQUID GIRL

I won’t let you be like this Raymond. I won’t let you be trapped by walls or blinded by lights.

RAYMOND

I don’t want to be trapped

LIQUID GIRL

There is more to you that this.

RAYMOND

I want to be someone else.

LIQUID GIRL

You can always change.

RAYMOND

I want to be free.

LIQUID GIRL

You are liquid. You can flow.

She takes his hand and they step to the edge of the bridge. The sound of water rushes under their feet. Two swans fly over them towards the city.

LIQUID GIRL

You can flow anywhere.

They jump together into the water

EXT. BANK OF THE RIVER SPREE. CENTRAL BERLIN. DAWN.

An Old Man is working on his boat. It is the same man from the first scene – traditional East Berliner. He scowls as two swans prance by and he shoos them away into the water.

Behind him a railway rattles with an approaching train.

The swans splash into the water.

The rattle of the railway tracks gets louder.

Old Man continues working but then notices something in the ripples from the swans’ wake. It is the clothes and possibly the body of a woman – possibly Liquid Girl.

CUT TO

EXT. THE OPPOSITE BANK.

Raymond emerges from the water, walking up some steps to the bank. He is calm and moves as if nothing has happened. His eyes look straight ahead. He walks along the bank towards the city.

CUT TO

EXT. WOODS.

A fox runs.

CUT TO

EXT. TREES.

A bird flies to its nest, with a small branch in its beak

CUT TO

EXT. BANK OF RIVER SPREE.

A drunk is slumped against the wall of a disused factory. It is decorated with colourful graffiti.

CUT TO

EXT. OPPOSITE BANK OF RIVER SPREE

Raymond walks along the bank and under a railway bridge

CUT TO

INT. BERLIN HAUPTBAHNHOF.

Raymond walks into the station and checks his watch. The floor is bust with early-morning commuters. They turn and stare as he walks ahead.

The shot changes to the view from a security camera above

The camera looks one way, then the other, then focuses on Raymond. He is walking through the station as if he is meeting someone at a certain time. Around him hundreds of commuters stand frozen, staring. Raymond does not seem to notice.

EXT. BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ.

Raymond walks through the main square of the Alexanderplatz. As before people stand and stare. Couples in coffee houses put down their drinks. He ignores them, passes through, then turns and walks to the entrance of the TV Tower.

INT. TOP OF TV TOWER

Lift doors open and Raymond steps out through a crowd. They whisper behind him. He strides confidently around the viewing area, looking out at each window. He stops at one. We look down at the city and the old Brandenburg Gate where people, cars and trains seems to move in a harmony. There is no focus on any particular landmark – it is a living, organic city.

Raymond continues to walk around and at the last window there is a woman stood staring out. She has same physique and hair as Liquid Girl. He walks up slowly then stops.

(Pause)

He taps her on the back.

RAYMOND

Hey, how you doin...?

She spins around. It is a different woman.

RAYMOND

...Sorry. Sorry, my mistake.

Raymond walks around the viewing area again, ignoring the crowds. Then he stops and looks out of another window. The city is still in motion.

The shot focuses down onto the River Spree where a boat is moored on the bank. It is the boat from the first scene. Old Man is pointing at the water, at a body floating along slowly.

Cut back to Raymond’s POV.

He stares out emotionless.

A WOMAN walks up behind him.

WOMAN

Excuse me...are you Raymond Phelps?

Raymond turns around and thinks.

RAYMOND

Sorry...no. I...I...no. I’m someone else completely.

Woman looks sceptically then walks away.

Raymond stares back out the window, then turns and walks to the lift. He stops for a moment to think, then moves forward inside. The doors start to close.

At the same time Liquid Girl walks out of the adjacent lift. She has different hair, clothes and expression but it is unmistakeably her. She pauses as the other lift closes. Raymond does not see her. She walks to the same window Raymond has left and looks down to the city. The camera stays on her face. She smiles and touches her chin. Then she turns and walks away.

The camera stays looking at the city. Time speeds up – people move around, lights come on, buildings rise and fall. The river flows.

The End

The Reunion - A short story

Hi all. Sorry about the brief interlude. Have been engaged in the all the non-writing business of writing - bothering agents, not winnning competition, sending pieces to magazines that no-one reads - but back now, and hopefully with some new-exciting site additons. However, until then here's another little piece.



The Reunion

Many people have told me that running focuses the mind. It has something to do with the balancing of the brain, where fatigue and effort are countered by a rush of endorphins, and it gives everything a bright, newly painted clarity. You wake in the morning a shivering mess of neurosis and stride-stride-stride your way into a pre-breakfast enlightenment, whole, happy and rounded with the brush of Raphael.
I wonder then, what to make of the events of last Wednesday morning when I went my first run since my girlfriend had died a year before.

It all started in the normal way. I woke up, cleaned my teeth, drank a cup of strong coffee, looked in the mirror, ignored the three faces sobbing and laughing and then ran out of the door.
The rhythm took a long time to build. The pavement sent vibrations through my bones and my insides began to churn and boil like an acid tank. The morning fog froze as I inhaled, crackling through my lungs before I coughed it out with explosion of pain.
Help me.
Help me.
Help me.
Then, as I turned off the road, passed the field of miniature ponies, and into the nature reserve, I felt my mind start to clear. Here it was. A rush of soothing atoms. Syrup through the arid brain.
Suddenly the grass turned an oily green and the trees and lush leafy auburn. Mud became the pastel of an artist’s easel and the sun expanded into a mirror of heaven.
Light.
Light.
All is light and clear.
A heard of cows formed in a line in front of a trough of apricots and bananas. They lapped at the sugary mush, covering their snouts with ambrosial trifle, and started to talk with colloquial moos.
‘Moo-moo-moo mooooo.
Moo.
Moo moo.
Looks like a nice day.
Any plans for the weekend?’
My legs strode along the footpath, light as the fog as it evaporated in the sunlight, and floated through a gate to the river that flowed to the city.
The water gushed with morning effervescence, steaming with sweat as it dashed towards the finish. I ran with it – gush, gush, gush, ripple-ripple-ripple. Soon we became one person, a moving expression of nature, focused on our goal.
Then, as my legs meandered around a bend, I saw a hundred fish leaping from the water. They had great big eyes, like platters of diamond, and jaws as sharp as the assassin’s dagger.
Snap.
Snap, snap, snap.
Blood and spittle dripped from their tongues and their scales gleamed with silver armour. They had killed.
Snap.
And they could kill me.
Snap.
Running.
Ha!
Running.
Ha!
Snap.
Snap, snap, snap.
Pssshhhh.
One at a time they melted into the air and then disappeared.
Snap-snap.
Snap-snap.
Snap.
Sn.
Sssss.
Sssss.
Sssss…
The fog cleared and I kept on running.
Then something truly unexpected happened. I ran to the end of the river and onto the road and I saw her, stood by the front gate, waiting for me. Her eyes glinted in the light and her teeth curved into a smile, the same smile from years of white sheets and happiness.
‘Hey,’ she said, opening her arms. ‘Where have you been all this time?’
I looked at her eyes, blue and clear as the sky over the ocean.
‘I’ve been out for a run,’ I said.
‘You were gone for a while.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But I’m back now.’
Her arms wrapped around my back, warmed by the blood flowing from my heart.
‘Don’t leave me again.’
Then we turned and went back into the house, arm in arm.

Was this clarity? Had the endorphins balanced my brain? Was this the real world?
I didn’t care.

The Liquid Girl of Berlin

Okay, so here is the final piece after a few weeks of creative writing tutoring. Please see included added 'dramatic tension' and 'contrast.' I ahve also included my commentary on the piece due to popular demand. I'll let you know how it goes.

The Liquid Girl of Berlin


Raymond Phelps could have been God as far as the world was concerned. He was the highest paid model in Hollywood, regularly feted as the world’s most eligible bachelor, and at a ceremony that evening in Berlin had been crowned ‘Man of the 21st Century.’ On the wall of Sonya Monfis, the French actress, there was even an enlarged print of his face.
‘It’s your eyes,’ she said, stroking the paper with her fingernails. ‘With eyes like that you can have anything.’
But Raymond Phelps didn’t want to look at another picture. He didn’t want to look at anything at all.
As the beautiful French actress tore off his clothes he felt his limbs start to grow cold, and as her body curved and squeezed around him his breath begin to choke. He focused on the perfect undulations of her legs and stomach and the measured tip of her nipples as her breasts rubbed gently over his groin, but then he froze completely.
‘Come on Raymond. I want to feel you. I want your body in me.’
With every move Raymond’s body shivered.
‘Your mouth.
‘Your chest.
Shake, cold, ache. More and more.
‘All of you.’
‘Your beautiful face.’
Numb.
He closed his eyes, then kicked the beautiful actress onto the carpet and ran away.

A thousand faces stared as Raymond walked through the city. Couples pointed out of cafe windows, tramps wandered through the Tiergarten, tourists gazed from the TV tower. ‘Look,’ said their pouting lips. ‘The shoulders. The mole on his chin. That beautiful olive skin. It’s him!’
Raymond lit a cigarette, forming a cloud to sting the eyes of the watching audience, and then ducked into an empty square of plush white blocks.
‘All they do is look. All they see is him.’
Above the glass dome of the Reichstag revolved.
‘Look.
‘Look.
‘There he is!’
Tiny heads spun to look.
‘Here! Here!
‘Look here!’
He reached for a cigarette.
‘Look at me Raymond.’
But it was too late.
‘Her.
‘Him.
‘Them.
‘Look.
‘Look at us.’
A million light bulbs flashed.
‘Look here.
‘Here.
‘Here!’
The sky exploded with light. A galaxy of telescopes pointed at him, and the TV Tower, the Reichstag and the Wall gripped onto his neck. Raymond looked one way and then the other and, unable to breathe, dived into the darkness.

The girl leant over a bridge and looked down at the River Spree as it drifted into the east of the city. Her light summer dress rippled in the wind, emitting a purple glow like phosphorus out at sea and her skin hovered over the water like dragonfly wings.
‘Hey,’ she said, without turning around.
Raymond’s legs drew him towards her. ‘Hey, he said
‘It’s a nice evening to be by the river,’ she said, whistling into the breeze
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose it is.’
Below them the water rippled and caressed the bank.
‘Would you like to look?’ she said.
On the river Raymond saw her reflection.There were dashes of flotsam on her face - blue on her eyes, white on her skin - and a steamy halo on her head. It seemed to jump and dance like seagulls over the fisherman’s net. He followed the current, washing and rippling around, dragging his body under.
‘No…no!’ he coughed, losing his balance on the cold stone wall. ‘Ahem, no its okay. I…’
He tried to stand but his legs had frozen in the water.
‘Come,’ she said, stroking her hand up the nape of his back. ‘Come and look. Don’t worry.’
Raymond blinked and peered over the bridge. On the surface of the Spree a new form took shape - dark close hair, light skin glazed in toffee brown, eyes like the sky over the arctic tundra - and around it a hundred lights swirled - cameras, crystal glasses, television screens, diamonds, screaming voices gurgling into the vortex
‘Raymond! We love you.
‘Look at us.
‘Come and to us.
‘Ushhh.
‘Usshhh.
‘Shhhhh.
‘Shhhhh’
The face they so desired floated precariously on the waves, and on the bridge Raymond staggered in the storm.
Plop.
A drop of rain lobotomised his forehead.
Splsshhh.
The wind contorted his sculpted cheeks
Ripple.
He sank under the current of a passing sawn.
‘It’s you,’ the strange girl’s reflection said. ‘And then it’s not you. It’s something else floating in the water.’
The girl’s hand gripped on his shoulder and turned him to her.
‘What are you doing to me?’ Raymond cried.
Her eyes glinted like sun on a cobweb. ‘Here’s you, Raymond Phelps,’ she said. ‘The one they all want. And then in the water there you are as well...until you go, and come back again.’
He tried look away but his neck had become limp.
‘No,’ he said.
‘The one they all want.’
‘Stop it.’
‘The one they all want.’
‘Get off me.’
‘Then nothing at all.’
‘Leave me alone!’
Her liquid glow enveloped Raymond. It was warm and luscious, embracing him into a lightness of being. Her hair waved around like golden reeds and her eyes dipped him into blue pools. Then she whispered, inside his ear:
‘Raymond. My name is Sophie. I am the liquid girl of Berlin. I think I will jump into the river. Would you like to jump with me?’
Reeds rustling around his head.
‘Come on. It will be nice. It’s fun to be liquid in Berlin. You never know what form you’ll take.
I don’t want to drown.
You won’t.
What makes you so sure?
I think you are drowning now, wouldn’t you say?
I’m still breathing. My heart beats.
Is that what it means to be alive?
People still love me.’
She took him to a platform above the bridge and they looked out to the city. Streetlights melted into an ethereal glow, blocks of apartments exploded into expanses of yellow and green, towers shot up like fountain jets and concrete walls flopped around like jelly.
‘What do you see when you look out there Raymond?’
‘Walls.
‘Walls and lights. Flashing lights.’
‘That’s all a beautiful man sees?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is that what love is?’
The platform expanded into a giant golden cloud and in the centre stood Sophie opening her arms.
‘In Berlin we will not let you be like this. We will not be trapped by walls or blinded by lights.’
They walked to the edge, hands held together.
‘We see a future that is free, where can flow into whatever form we choose.’
Then they jumped into the Spree - the liquid girl and the beautiful man.

Raymond looked around, right and left, up and down, but all he could see was a dark mass of water. It grew heavier above him. Slowly he started to sink, deeper and deeper, into indigo, navy and then black. Black void.
‘Where am I?’
His voice was flat, like he was shut in a box.
‘What’s this pla...’
‘Wha...
‘Wh
‘W.’
A solid wall which even words could not breach.
‘Help me...’
‘Sophie...!’
‘Ba-dom. Ba-dom. Ba-dom. Ba-dom. Ba-dom.’
A heart began to beat.
‘Ba-dom. Ba-dom. Ba-dom. Ba-dom. Ba-dom.’
And Raymond saw something through the darkness.
‘Ba-dom. Ba-dom. Ba-dom. Ba-dom.’

On the bank of the Spree a hundred bodies sat slumped on deckchairs. A muscular figure hoisted himself out of the river, wiped the water from his olive skin and walked towards them. Beers dropped to the floor, ice creams melted and sunglasses steamed.
Then he turned towards the city. Cars skidded to a stop and cyclists slammed their feet to the floor. In cafes and bars men and women put down their drinks. Offices turned to morgues and computer screens winked off.
A million eyes stopped and looked.
Raymond Phelps didn’t notice. The beautiful man slipped by without a glance. He didn’t feel their eyes burn into his skull and he didn’t hear their voices scream at his face.
Raymond didn’t notice because he was looking for someone.

‘Hey!’
‘Hey you, over there!’
In a square of perfect green grass sat a girl. She wore a small yellow dress and glinted like the sun on a snowy peak.
‘Hey!’
She put down a book and waved at Raymond, her hands dancing up and down like ballerina. He stopped, looked back at the cars, the offices and the shops, and then he ran over to her.
Ba-dom. Ba-dom. Ba-dom.
‘Hey,’ she said, brushing golden strands of hair from her face.
‘Hey,’ Raymond panted.
‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ she said.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve been distracted.’
‘You know, you should really give up smoking,’ she said, folding her arms like a teacher.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think I have.’
‘It’s very bad for your skin.’
She rubbed her arms up and down her side and laughed, a yellow halo forming around her.
‘Come for a walk through the city.’
He took her hand and clasped it tight into his. It was warm and soft like a child’s.
‘Where shall we go?’ he said.
‘I don’t know,’ she said.

Commentary


The initial idea for my story came from an episode of Horizon on the BBC about parallel universes, and the idea there may be one type of ‘you’ existing in one place, and another different ‘you’ in a completely separate universe. I had written this down in my notebook as an interesting concept for a piece, but it was only on a visit to Berlin that I saw a way I could develop it in a narrative. Here I found an entire city forming a new identity, from division to liberal progress and felt this could be an evocative environment to set a story. I revisited the thoughts I had noted down, researched the quantum theory behind it and then had the idea of representing a particle change, from solid to liquid, in a human tale. To me it seemed to represent of the change in Berlin - from two defined states to a malleable form - and also the journey of my character, from a staid world of appearance to an epiphany of emotion.

I first wrote as two separate narratives colliding at the liminal centre of the river, however, I found that the lack of interaction between the two characters was of detriment to the story’s dramatic focus. I considered the techniques built in Activity 2.6 in the Workbook and rewrote from the perspective of only the male model, building the tension first through his confrontation with the physical world and then from his fear of embracing the ‘liquid’ world of emotions. I wanted to concentrate on the motifs of light and water, taking inspiration from a reading of Iris Murdoch’s The Sea, the Sea, but the story became overly abstract so I rewrote again giving the ‘liquid girl’ a more human role.

It was important to me to try and create and reflect the consciousness of the city, however I didn’t want to convey a mere series of landmarks. I formed a cluster to gather my images of the city and asked some local people I had met to do the same and used these to create an authentic sense of place in the piece – liquid as well as solid.

Solid and Liquid

Solid and Liquid

Raymond Phelps could have been God as far as the world was concerned. He was the highest paid model in Hollywood, regularly voted as the best looking person on the planet and this evening he had been to a ceremony in Berlin crowning him ‘Man of the 21^st Century.’

His advert for Calvin Klein was even on the wall of Sonya Monfis, the French actress, who had seduced him that evening.

‘It’s your eyes,’ she said, stroking the paper with her fingernails. ‘With eyes like that you can have anything you want.’

But Raymond Phelps didn’t feel like being seduced. Ever since he had been in Berlin he’d had something on his mind.

‘Don’t you want me?’ she’d said, leaning over him and letting her breasts rub slowly over his chest. ‘Don’t you want me to make you happy?’

Raymond traced his eyes over her, the perfect undulations of her back and legs, the measured tip of her nipples as they rubbed gently towards his groin.

‘Come on Raymond. Let us be happy together.’

He had wanted her, but now she seemed pathetic like a child crying in the supermarket.

‘Come on Raymond. Let me feel you.’

Under the hotel duvet he sweated and shook, then writhed his legs loose of her body and finally threw the beautiful actress onto the Kashmir carpet. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t. I...this isn’t what I want.’

A thousand eyes stared at Raymond as he walked through the city. Couples in cafes interlocked limbs, politicians stormed through doors, tramps looked up from under bridges. Berlin was a line of dummies in a shop-window

‘Why?’ their faces said. ‘Why don’t you want her? What are you doing?’

Raymond drew out a cigarette. The smoke rose around the cold evening air and formed a cloud over his head. He dragged again and again, letting the cloud build and stinging the dummies’ eyes. Then he ducked down a side street into the political quarter, through lines of plush white blocks and speaking translucent windows, and crept under the spinning dome of the Reichstag.

Above he could feel bodies start to turn and lips utter whispers of recognition, and before he had time to light another cigarette it was too late.

‘Here! Here!’ they said.

Look here!

Here.

Not there.

Here.

Here.

Over here Raymond.

Come this way.

Come here.

Look at him.

Me.

Her.

Them.

Look.

Look.

Look at us.’

The eyes multiplied into a million lightbulbs all illuminated at once.

‘Here.

Look here.

No here.

Here.’

Concrete walls sprouted - left and right, up and down. The dome of the Reichstag circled and started to suck out pieces of his flesh into its glass vacuum.

Raymond lit a cigarette, exhaled with as much force as he could and ran into the darkness.

The girl leant over a bridge and looked down at the River Spree as it slowly meandered into the east of the city. She wore a light dress emitting a purple glow like phosphrous out at sea.

Raymond’s legs drew him to her through the dark streets.

‘Hey,’ she said, without turning around.

‘Hey, said Raymond, now next to her on the bridge.

‘It’s a nice evening to be by the river.’ Her skin was like a strange cream that hovered in the air. Raymond wanted to reach in and touch it.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose it is.’

She opened her mouth and smiled, turning the liquid into a solid mass and kindness. ‘Hey,’ she said again, letting her hand rub and down the nape of his back. ‘I know. It can get pretty horrible out there, don’t worry.’ She continued to stare down at the river. Raymond noticed her reflection rippling on the surface of the water.

‘Come,’ she said. ‘Come and see yourself.’

Raymond blinked and looked down. On the surface of the Spree he saw a form beginning to take shape - closely shaven hair, dark tan skin, light blue eyes like the arctic sky – the construction that received so much attention – women, money, fame, envy, hate – and that he could do nothing to disguise. For a moment it lay there, looking back at him, before being washed over by the current of a passing swan.

‘It’s you,’ the strange girl’s reflection said. ‘And then it’s not you. It’s someone else, floating amongst water and the sky. No-one really at all.’ The girl’s hand gripped on his shoulder and turned him towards him. Her skin had changed again, glinting like sun on a cobweb. ‘Here’s you, Raymond Phelps. The one they all want. And then in the water there you are as well...until you go, and come back again.’ Her eyes looked through him, at the thoughts behind the skin and the bones and the eyes.

Raymond felt the walls melting into milky syrup.

‘The one they all want.

The one they all want.

The one they all want.’

Her liquid glow moved around and Raymond found himself enveloped inside. It was warm, luscious and luminescent, releasing him from prison into a lightness of being. Her blond hair waved around like the wind and her eyes swallowed him into blue pools. Then she whispered, inside his ear. ‘Raymond. My name is Sophie. I am the smartest girl in Berlin.’

Whisper.

Whisper.

‘They used to write about me in the papers. I worked at the University down the road, doing research into Neuroscience - Quantum self-representation, movement between physical realities – and now I don’t know what to do.

Liquid girl, they called me.

I think I will jump into the river. Would you like to jump with me?

I don’t know.

Come on. It will be nice. It’s fun to be liquid for a while.

Will we die?

I don’t think so.

What makes you so sure?

I don’t know. I feel...like we are drowning right now and that there in the water we will be okay.

And float around.

Yes.

And become something else.

I guess. A new solid form.

I don’t want to die, you know Sophie.

You won’t, I promise.’

She took him further inside, to a revolving world of yellows and white.

‘You are the most beautiful man in the world yes Raymond? That is what everyone says. Am I right?

I guess.

You can have anyone you want, do anything you like.

Yes.

But in your mind what do you find? What do you see when you walk down the street?

Walls.

Walls and lights. Blinking lights.

Yes.

That’s all a beautiful man sees?

Yes.’

The yellow and white expanded into a great halo and in the centre of the ova sat and Sophie, a blond solid form, folding her arms around a book.

‘All a clever girl sees is water. She floats and floats and never finds anywhere to land.’

Splash.

They jumped into the Spree together, the clever girl and the beautiful man.

An ovum burst and Raymond was expelled into a giant ocean

‘Why don’t you leave the walls? Why don’t you come and find me?’

Raymond looked around, right and left, up and down, but he could see only blue and feel only water growing heavier and darker around. Slowly he started to sink, deeper and deeper, into indigo, navy, brown then black. Black. Black void.

‘Where am I?’

His voice was flat, like he was shut in a box.

‘What’s this pla...’

‘Wha...

Wh

W.’

A black solid mass where even words could not find a sound.

‘Ba-dom. Ba-dom. Ba-dom. Ba-dom. Ba-dom.’

A heart began to beat.

‘Ba-dom. Ba-dom. Ba-dom. Ba-dom. Ba-dom.’

And Raymond could see something through the darkness.

‘Ba-dom. Ba-dom. Ba-dom. Ba-dom.’

Raymond Phelps sat on the side of the Spree. Over the bank a hundred faces looked back - dumbfounded. He stood up, rubbed the water out of his hair and began to walk.

The faces from the deckchairs didn’t move.

He turned off the path and walked towards the city. Cars stopped in the middle of the road and cyclists slammed their feet to the floor. In cafes and bars men and women put down their drinks and in shops everyone stopped looking at clothes and CDs. Office meetings were put on hold and computer screens turned to black.

A million eyes stopped and stared at the figure walking down the street.

Raymond Phelps didn’t look back. He didn’t feel their eyes burn into his skull, he didn’t hear them crowd around and grab at his face.

No walls or lights. Raymond saw a different world now.

‘Hey!’

‘Hey you, over there! Come and talk to me.’

In the centre of a perfect square of grass sat a girl. She was had been reading a book but had put in down and was now waving at Raymond, her hands dancing up and down like ballerina. She wore a small yellow dress and glinted like the sun on a snowy peak.

Raymond stopped, looked around at the cars and the offices, the shops and the restaurants, at the staring faces, and then ran over to her.

His heart beat over and over.

‘Hey,’ she said, brushing her hair from her face.

‘Hey,’ Raymond panted.

‘You know, you should really give up smoking’ she said, folding her arms like a teacher.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think I have.’

‘Sweating is very bad for your skin,’ she told him.

‘Do you know everything?’

She rubbed her arms up and down her side and jumped up on the spot, a yellow halo forming as she did.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I know anything at all.’

Raymond took her hand and clasped it tight into his. It was warm and soft like a child’s.

‘Where shall we go now?’ he said.