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SamplesOn the Road to Santiago and Other Journeys
...continued The RAGGED MAN stomps off. The three stare at him with their mouths hanging open. GEOFFREY : I suppose he's walking only on the highway because he's living in the twentieth century. Walking on the path would be too medieval. WOLFRAM : His brains are fried from too much sun! GEOFFREY : Guess we'll have to live in the twentieth century for a while. Come on, let's hit the road again. I don't think I want to swim. They adjust their packs and begin walking along the highway. The man with the fried brains is already far ahead of them. 9. Cut to shot of RAGGED MAN walking through road tunnel with heavy truck and car traffic. GEOFFREY and the two brothers are visible on the path below, which goes through a village. 10 Dissolve to: GEOFFREY and interviewer, LILIAN FALANDINI, sitting on steps of the cathedral in Santiago at the end of the road. A parade of tourists and pilgrims climb up the stairs and enter the church. An equal number exit and descend. SUBTITLE appears for a few seconds : LILIAN FALANDINI LILIAN : Why would someone choose to undergo the hardship of walking hundreds of miles to go to church? Why did you walk? GEOFFREY : Going to church isn't quite the point, I think. By the way, this particular church is supposed to contain the bones of St. James the Greater, one of the disciples of Jesus. LILIAN : How did he get to Spain? That's a long way from the Holy Land. Is that what brought you here? Some ancient relics? GEOFFREY : Only in a manner of speaking. I was drawn to the pilgrimage because it contains so much history, because it was a chance to see an unfamiliar land up close, because it was a challenge, because I felt a spiritual need, a need to test myself, because I wanted to meet interesting people, because I wanted to write...I think I could keep going. LILIAN : Did you find those things? It seems like you could have come here by train or by bus the way most of these people around us came. I'm not sure what the spiritual challenge was. GEOFFREY : You mean coming to Santiago? LILIAN : Sure. Couldn't you have just come to Santiago directly, prayed to St. James or whatever it is you wanted to do, then hopped on the train to see the rest of the country? After all, you didn't see Madrid, Barcelona or anything more exciting than dusty provincial villages. You could have seen all of Europe in the amount of time you've wasted on foot. GEOFFREY : I don't think that was really the point for
me. Santiago is nothing. Sure, the cathedral is here and
the relics are here. All the tourists come and attend Mass,
kiss the statue of St. James, wander around the city, buy
trinkets. How can I convey what a sense of joy and awe I
felt when I climbed to the top of Monte de Guzo, Mount Joy,
on the path into the city and caught sight of the spires of
the cathedral for the first time? My companions and I began
singing in celebration and when we were joined by a father
and son who had ridden their horses a thousand miles from
Brittany, we all sang "The Impossible Dream"--in French!
How can I convey the sense of fulfillment that I've
felt? Copyright © Geoffrey Skinner. All rights reserved. Please contact me for corrections or comments.
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