Image Description: A stock photo of white, blue, and yellow star trails winding in a night sky above the horizon.
Directory of Script Terminology
INT. = Interior (outside)
EXT. = Exterior (outside)
V.O. = Voiceover
MOS = Without sound
CONT'D = Continued (same scene)
INT. HOSPITAL DELIVERY ROOM
The world is a bokeh haze of color and soft lights as a BABY cries.
The TITLE CARD fades in and out in white calligraphy.
The newborn baby comes into focus, crying tears of fire. They burn his flesh, down his cheeks, the sides of his head, and the tops of his ears, leaving fleshy scars.
His MOTHER’s smile disappears, turning to a sad knowing. She brings the baby to her chest and tries to comfort him.
The baby’s flaming tears burn her chest – making her blister, but she grits her teeth and holds him closer, whispering.
MOTHER
Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.
EXT. SCHOOL PLAYGROUND – DAY
The BOY with crimson eyes, now 7-11, falls back onto concrete as three bullies close in and corner him. They mock him by running their fingers down and across their faces.
BULLY #1
You wanna cry?!
BULLY #2
C’mon, cry for us!
BULLY #3
Ya freak!
The Boy’s eyes burn with orange, glowing tears. He springs up and sprints away from them.
EXT. URBAN NEIGHBORHOOD – DOOR STOOP – DAY
It is golden hour.
His FATHER, who has crimson eyes and just a few facial scars, dabs the boy’s scrapes with disinfectant. The boy wails and fires burn down his cheeks.
FATHER
[with a sad knowing]
Hold it in. Don’t cry.
Their eyes meet.
The boy squeezes his hands into fists, clenches his jaw, breathes deeply, and looks skyward.
MONTAGE – THE BOY GROWS & LEARNS IT’S BETTER TO AVOID FEELING.
-
He dons a dark hoodie.
FATHER (V.O.)
Don’t cry.
-
He dabs makeup over his scars in the bathroom mirror.
Don’t cry.
-
He runs across the street when other children approach.
Don’t cry.
INT. URBAN TOWNHOUSE – LIVING ROOM – NIGHT
The boy, now 16-18, plays a videogame intently on the TV – the only light in the room – as his father opens the front door, fishing rod in hand. The screen bathes the boy in turquoise, but his father is still in the dark.
His father speaks something too soft to be intelligible to the boy.
The boy glances from his game and slips down one side of his headphones.
BOY
Okay, have fun.
He returns his attention to the TV.
His father glances at his son and EXITS, flaming tears burning down his own face.
INT. CHURCH – FRONT PEW
The boy and his mother are dressed in black. A priest speaks onstage in front of them, MOS.
The boy squeezes his hands into fists, clenches his jaw, breathes deeply, and looks skyward. Fires well in his eyes anyway.
He hastily rubs them away and yelps at the burns on his hands. He bolts away, his mother reaching for him.
INT. RESTROOM – CONT’D
The boy runs to a sink and runs water over his hands. He gasps, trying to control his breathing. He stares at his reflection as fiery tears burn halfway down his cheeks. He clenches his fists again and steels himself, a numbness glazing over his eyes.
BOY
[whispering]
Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
INT. COLLEGE HALLWAY – DAY
The boy, now 19-22, sulks in a black hoodie that shields his face from the window’s light.
As he walks, he sees a young WOMAN with a teardrop tattoo under her eye catch her jacket sleeve in her locker and rip it.
The boy stops and watches her. The young woman sighs and takes off her jacket, revealing two sleeve tattoos and scars on her wrists. Her eyes are radiant, however.
The young woman sees the boy, and he hastily removes his hoodie and offers it to her.
She smiles at him and takes it. He smiles back, letting her look into his face.
INT. CHURCH – DAY
The MUSIC is calm and joyful.
The boy, now a MAN of around 25, gazes down the red aisle in a black suit with a warm Lewisia boutonniere.
The world is a haze of soft colors and blurry faces as the woman walks the aisle alone in a white dress, holding a bouquet of Lewisia flowers framed by her many black tattoos.
The man’s eyes burn, and his smile is replaced with a grimace.
The MUSIC turns downward into sad dissonance.
He looks away from the woman, squeezing his hands into fists, clenching his jaw, breathing deeply, and looking to the ceiling.
The woman goes to take his hand, but he recoils. Her smile is replaced with sad eyes.
MAN
[through his teeth]
Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
INT. HOSPITAL DELIVERY ROOM
The world is a bokeh haze of soft colors and lights as a swaddled, crying BABY GIRL is lifted into view by the man’s hands. The man and woman share teary smiles.
The baby cries tears of fire. They burn down her cheeks, the sides of her head, and the tops of her ears. The parents’ smiles disappear. The man holds the baby girl close, speaking gently and comfortingly. But his own tears burn down his nose and drip onto the baby, making her cry even more, making him cry even more.
The man yells in horror and despair and puts the baby girl into the woman’s arms and runs out of the room into the hallway.
WOMAN
No! Wait! Stay!
MAN
[panting]
Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
EXT. COUNTRY HOUSE – LIVING ROOM – DAY
The man’s panting blends with the pattering of the rain on the house’s roof. Through a window, the man and woman, now early thirties, are seen arguing. Lewisia flowers in the window box wilt under the rain. With every lighting flash, we draw closer to the window. The cannon-fire-like thunder blends with their yelling voices.
INT. COUNTRY HOUSE – DAY – CONT’D
The couple turns away from each other in a moment of frustrated respite.
The room is littered with sewing paraphernalia. A fire blanket package and a pile of cute iron-on patches can be seen. The woman is holding a handkerchief-sized cut-out of the fire blanket, rimmed with rainbow thread.
The man, eyes glowing orange with tears, squeezes his hands into fists, clenches his jaw, breathes deeply, and –
The woman turns and sees his routine.
WOMAN
Stop that! You need to feel! Everyone cries!
[pointing to the window]
Even the heavens cry!
MAN
Not like me! I can’t cry!
WOMAN
I almost wish you would!
The man’s eyes well up more, and he repeats his routine, but he gives up and storms to the door.
MAN
I can’t do this.
He flings open the front door and slams it shut as the woman cries out behind him.
WOMAN
Come back!
EXT. COUNTRY HOUSE – DAY – CONT’D
The man, in a black hoodie, ducks his head under the rain and trudges off the porch with his eyes to the ground.
He almost runs into his red-eyed baby girl, about six, who is covered head to galoshes in blue and yellow rain gear.
A school bus can be seen disappearing through the trees. She is scraped up and her eyes are burning with tears.
She looks up at her father and weeps. He kneels and tries to wipe away her flames with his sleeve and they singe the fabric.
MAN
Don’t … cry …
[Red eyes meet]
Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
GIRL
How?
EXT. CEMETARY OVERLOOKING THE CITY – THE SAME DAY
The rain has diminished to a drizzle.
The man hikes up a hill to a polished tombstone standing near the edge of a cliff. He lays his hoodie on a bench, kneels in the soaked grass, and sees his heavily scarred reflection contrast with the photo of his lightly scarred father on the tombstone.
He looks around at the lush, dripping cemetery around him. It seems that the clouds are crying, the trees crying, the flowerbeds crying, even the grass. He squeezes his hands into fists, clenches his jaw, breathes deeply, and looks to the heavens.
EXT. CEMETARY – NIGHT
The rain has stopped.
The man opens his eyes, curled against the tombstone. His eyes burn with orange, glowing tears, so he squeezes his hands into fists, clenches his jaw, breathes deeply, and looks skyward.
But, when he looks skyward, lines of light reflect in his red eyes. The man scrambles to his knees and looks past the cliff to the gaping horizon.
The MUSIC swells to bursting.
The sky blazes with the lights of trillions upon trillions of falling stars. Flashes, dapples, and streaks blanket the sky in a white rain of fire that makes the man look tiny. The meteor shower of all meteor showers, the moon and city are outshined, and the world is lit up as brightly as a sunset.
The man absorbs the miraculous sight for some time, and then his expression turns introspective. He nods softly, as if agreeing with a friend.
MAN
[Whispering]
Okay.
He slowly forces open his fists. Kneeling before the tombstone, he hangs his head and the flames run down his face. His shoulders bob and he gasps for breath. The pain makes him cry more, and then more, and then more. He wipes the tears away but burns his hands. He looks up at his reflection in the stone and he stops shaking.
A faint sliver of a yellow glow emanates from his cheek. The man looks down to see ash in his hands. Wonderstruck, he scrapes away at his cheeks and streaks of golden light shine from his ashy flesh.
He smiles. And resumes crying.
SHOTS fly by of the man
-
sobbing
-
wailing
-
clawing at his hair
-
punching the ground
-
raking his skin
-
roaring to the heavens
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