Samples

On the Road to Santiago and Other Journeys

      ...continued

LILIAN : That's all well and good, but you told me in an earlier conversation that you were in pain much of the way and that your boots fell apart as you walked. Wouldn't a nice train ride have been more fun? Even bicycling would have been more fun.

GEOFFREY : This was not a fun vacation. It was not about fun.

LILIAN : Oh, I see. Nobly suffering, were we?

GEOFFREY : I guess it does sound that way. He looks embarrassed. What I mean is that going to the ocean and playing on the beach might be fun, but I wasn't travelling only to relax. This pilgrimage was about understanding the rewards of the journey. The bicyclists seemed to be on just another long bicycle trip, for the most part. They could always ride on to the next town if the hostel was full. They could wander off on side tours. The walking pilgrims had to depend on the kindness of the people and on each other. We know the journey, the dust, the rocks, the wheat fields so much more intimately. We trod the same dust as ten centuries of pilgrims!

LILIAN : And the rocks made your feet ache and your boots fall apart while you were getting to know the rocks so intimately.

GEOFFREY : I made it, didn't I? Small miracles helped me along the way. The soles of my boots may have been flapping when I walked into the cathedral, but I was still wearing them! I think about the millions that walked without boots at all. He pauses and stares intently at LILIAN. You know, I can't talk to you. I don't think you understand anything I'm telling you. I can see it in your face. I suspect you're still thinking, "What a fool. He could have spent five weeks on the beach." He stands up. I'm going to go into the church to catch the Pilgrim Mass. You can come, too, but I don't want to talk right now. He walks up the stairs to the cathedral and disappears through the large wooden doors without looking back

LILIAN : Well, he certainly seems touchy! He suspected right, though. Not my exact thoughts, but close enough and all those pilgrims don't change my opinion. I would rather be at the beach even if he wouldn't. In fact, I'm going to the coast this afternoon. There are too many dirty, crazy pilgrims in this town. She stands up.

11. Camera follows LILIAN as she walks down the stairs. She disappears into the crowds that swirl around the plaza.

12. Camera turns back to entrance of church and follows tourists inside.

13. Dissolve to high shot revealing a large crowd of people in the pews and to the sides of the nave. A group of priests and canons in green and white robes are performing the Pilgrim Mass for the day.

14. Dissolve to medium shot of alter and the gaudy, jewel encrusted statue of St. James at its center.

15. Cut to medium shot of GEOFFREY, with music over: pipes, drum and castanets. He is walking on sheep trails in the Pyrenees, past a border marker between France and the Autonomy of Navarra in Spain.

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