(SCENE START)
INT. UWM FILM DEPARTMENT CLASSROOM – NIGHT
Three weeks later. The same seminar table, but the mood is distinctly less hopeful. A half-eaten bag of stale chips sits beside a whiteboard covered in cryptic notes about “Externalizing Internal Conflict.”
The group is engaged in peer review. Each student has received copies of the first ten pages of everyone else’s screenplay. DR. SHARP is absent tonight, leaving them to the tender mercies of their classmates. STANLEY looks deflated. LEONARD is twitching nervously. MARVIN and DEBORAH sit side-by-side, their knees occasionally bumping – a small, grounding reassurance. CYNTHIA silently glares at Leonard’s script, marking the margins with a vicious, determined hand.
JEFF (O.S.) Peer review is where filmmaking dreams go to die. Or, at least, get a severe reality check. We were learning the cruel truth of screenwriting: A good story requires conflict, and more often than not, conflict involves making your characters, the ones you love, miserable. For Marvin and Deborah, the lesson was doubly painful. They were being told their real-life romance, the one they’d been building since the hardware store, wasn’t dramatic enough for the page.
LEONARD (Critiquing ‘Fast Track to Fame!’) (Carefully pushing Stanley’s script back across the table) Stanley, while your dialogue is… energetic, I must point out a fundamental flaw in your protagonist’s desire. You claim he wants fame, but his actions are all geared toward avoiding work. This undermines the authenticity of his struggle. He is not a flawed hero. He is merely lazy.
STANLEY (His voice tight) Leonard, he is resourceful! He is operating on pure cinematic chutzpah!
CYNTHIA (Without looking up) Stanley, your protagonist’s main conflict in the first ten pages is deciding which brand of organic coffee to buy for his boss’s assistant. This is not dramatic irony. It is the narrative equivalent of white noise. Where is the existential terror? Where is the social commentary?
STANLEY The terror is realizing you’ve spent thirty dollars on a single cup of artisanal coffee!
DEBORAH (Trying to be helpful) Stanley, I agree with Leonard that the goal needs to feel higher stakes immediately. But I love the way you described the agency lobby. That detail is very visual. Maybe the inciting incident needs to happen faster. Like… he gets fired on page two.
MARVIN (Holding up Stanley’s script) You spent two full pages describing his shoes. Unless the shoes are important to the plot. Like they contain a hidden rare washer…it’s just padding. Kill the shoes.
STANLEY (Clutching his chest) They were Italian leather! They were his symbol of aspiration!
STANLEY (Critiquing ‘The Ovoid Obsession’) Leonard, I read your first ten pages of your script. Nothing happens. Absolutely nothing. Your main character sits on a stool, staring at a potato for seven pages. That is not a film. That is a still life.
LEONARD (Defensive) It is an exploration of stasis! The tension is unmoving. The internal monologue is rich with philosophical anguish!
CYNTHIA The anguish doesn’t translate to the screen, Leonard. The reader needs something to see. Even profound emptiness requires a dramatic backdrop. Try setting his internal conflict against something louder. A children’s birthday party. A monster truck rally. Something that highlights the absurdity of his inferiority.
MARVIN (Reading a line from Leonard’s script) “He considered the potato’s curvature, realizing it was a microcosm of the universe’s inherent imperfection.” That’s why they mash potatoes Leonard! Action is reaction. Give the main character something to react to besides his own brain.
DEBORAH What if the potato is owned by someone? And he has to steal it, or convince them to let him study it? That would immediately create external conflict and raise the stakes.
LEONARD (Eyes widening behind his glasses) Steal it? That’s… terribly unethical. But it does create a plot point.
The group exchanges Marvin and Deborah’s ten pages. A noticeable silence falls over the table.
CYNTHIA Deborah, Marvin. I hate to admit it, but these ten pages are competently written. The dialogue feels real, and I actually care about the characters. It’s sickening. However, the stakes are far too low. Your biggest conflict on page ten is whether to order deep dish or thin crust pizza. This is not cinema. This is a date night.
STANLEY I agree with Cynthia. Where is the grand gesture? Where is the sweeping climax? Marvin, in your script, why don’t the bad guys chasing the washer try to bomb the hardware store?
MARVIN Because it’s a local crime. They want the washer, not the insurance money.
LEONARD Deborah, your script is charming, but the character representing Marvin is already too well-adjusted by page ten. Where is the neurotic pain? The fear of genuine connection should be a gaping chasm, not a small puddle they step over.
DEBORAH (Frowning slightly) We wanted it to feel realistic. Real romance often happens in small moments.
CYNTHIA Realism is the enemy of drama, Deborah. Take a cue from your script. The antique washer is a great McGuffin. It gives the relationship a tangible external reason to interact. You need your love story to feel like it could fail at any minute due to outside pressure.
MARVIN (Looks at Deborah, a flicker of concern in his eyes) Maybe Cynthia is correct. The tension has to come from somewhere else, not just the pizza toppings. The antique washer gives my character a desperate need. Deborah’s character needs a desperate need, too.
JEFF (O.S.) The class was doing its job. They were tearing down the abstract and revealing the weak scaffolding of our first attempts at structure. Stanley learned his shoes weren’t a plot. Leonard learned that a potato is not an antagonist. And Marvin and Deborah learned that even the most solid real-life relationship needed manufactured drama or a fabricated crisis to work on the screen. The biggest challenge wasn’t writing about conflict. It was finding the courage to inject real pain into their own safe little story.
(SFX: The sound of a heavy textbook closing with a THUD.)
(SCENE END)
The Wit And Wisdom Of Horace B Miesner
If ignorance is bliss, there are a lot of happy people out there.
WRYL – The Voice of the Great Up North
The final notes of “The Shadow of Yesterday” drifted into the rafters of the VFW, leaving a silence so profound it felt heavy. The rehearsal was over. The Melk Duds began the ritual of sorting through sheet music and snapping shut music case latches.
Grace stood by the microphone, her hands clasped tightly in front of her. She looked smaller now that the music had stopped. Her angelic radiance was replaced by flickering apprehension. She kept glancing at Ethan. Not with the mystery of the bus stop, but with a look of profound, vulnerable recognition. Paul noticed. He stepped beside her, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder and whispering something that made her tension soften, though she didn’t look away from Ethan.
Ethan packed away his violin with trembling fingers. His world felt like it was made of glass. He zipped the case and turned to leave, his mind spinning with the impossibility of his grandfather standing just ten feet away.
“Ethan! Don’t run off just yet,” Paul called out. His voice was rich, lacking the gravel of old age that Ethan remembered. “You played beautifully. Tommy is a hard man to please, but he told me your phrasing reminded him of other great musicians he performed with. You’ve got the gift, son.”
Grace stepped forward then, her eyes searching Ethan’s face. She offered a small, tentative smile that felt like a bridge being built across a canyon.
“Thank you,” Ethan managed, his voice sounding thin to his own ears.
A brief, awkward silence fell over the trio. The kind of silence that happens when the most important things in the room are the ones that cannot be said. Paul cleared his throat, breaking the spell. “I don’t know about you two, but that rehearsal worked up an appetite. How about some pie and coffee at the Lunch Box Cafe?”
The walk from the VFW to the Lunch Box Cafe felt like a dream sequence. The neon sign of the Lunch Box Cafe hummed, casting a warm, cherry-red glow onto the sidewalk. Inside, the air smelled of cinnamon and coffee. Paul led them to a vinyl booth, sliding in next to Grace. Ethan sat across from them, his back to the door.
Pastor Dzef appeared almost instantly, three plates of steaming apple pie in hand. He set them down with a flourish, followed by three heavy ceramic mugs of coffee. As he straightened up, he looked at Ethan, then at Grace, and finally settled his gaze on Paul. He gave Paul a slow, deliberate wink and an agreeable nod, as if they were co-conspirators in a grand, benevolent plot.
“How about some music to go with the pie and coffee?” Paul suggested.
“Music is on me,” Ethan said, grateful for a reason to move. He fished a dime from his pocket and walked to the jukebox. The chrome reflected his own confused expression.
As he scanned the titles, Pastor Dzef appeared beside him. “Try B-14 or C-6,” the Pastor whispered. “They suit the mood of a homecoming.”
Ethan looked at Pastor Dzef. “People keep saying things like that. About me being here. About Royal.”
“Because it’s true, Ethan,” Pastor Dzef said, his eyes kind but piercing. “This community… it has its rhythms. It has its seasons. But since you arrived, the town feels whole. Royal feels complete. You’ve brought a spirit back to WRYL that we haven’t seen or heard in a long time. And now, playing with Paul and Tommy? It’s like the last piece of a puzzle clicking into place.”
He leaned in closer. “Life is a story, Ethan. There’s a beginning, a middle, and an end. The question is, where do you think you are right now? Is your story just beginning, or are you returning to a chapter you forgot you wrote?”
Before Ethan could answer, the Pastor patted his shoulder and walked away, leaving the question hanging in the air like woodsmoke. Ethan pressed the buttons, and a soft, melodic melody began to play.
When Ethan returned to the table, the conversation was light and happy, but his eyes caught a movement. Paul and Grace were huddled over a stack of old, sepia-toned photographs. They were laughing softly, their heads close together. As soon as they realized Ethan was watching, Grace’s expression shifted back to that maternal warmth, and she quickly tucked the photos into her purse.
“It’s closing time,” Pastor Dzef announced, as he started turning off the cafe lights.
Ethan reached for his wallet, but Paul’s hand was already on his arm. “Not a chance, Ethan. This one is on me.”
“Thank you,” Ethan said. He looked at Grace. She was staring at him with an intensity that made his heart ache. It was a look of pure, unconditional love. The way a mother looks at a child she thought she’d lost. Ethan felt a flush of embarrassment creep up his neck, but he smiled back, unable to look away.
They stepped out into the cool night air. The street was silent.
“Good night, Ethan,” Paul said. He reached out and took Grace’s hand.
“Good night,” Ethan replied. He turned and began the walk up the street toward his house, the sound of his own footsteps echoing off the brick buildings.
A loud banging noise suddenly cracked through the air like a gunshot or a car backfiring. Ethan spun around, his heart leaping into his throat.
“Paul? Grace?”
The street was empty. The sidewalk where they had stood a second ago was vacant. The Lunch Box Cafe was pitch black. The “Open” sign was dark. There was no sign of Pastor Dzef. No sign of his grandfather. No sign of Grace. The vibrant life of Royal had been sucked out of the world, leaving only the cold, yellow glare of the streetlights.
Another sharp bang echoed from the far end of Main Street. Ethan turned quickly, catching only the red glow of taillights as a car disappeared into the darkness of the night.
He stood alone on the sidewalk. The silence of Royal pressing in on him. The town felt like a stage after all the actors had left. In the quiet of his mind, he could still hear his grandfather’s voice, steady and encouraging.
“Looking forward…”
Ethan tightened his grip on his violin case and began the long, lonely walk home through the ghost town that didn’t want to let him go.
“Don’t be anxious from morning to evening and from evening to morning, about what you will wear.” – The Gospel of Thomas
My Friends and Neighbors,
If you open the pages of the magazines of today, you’ll see page after page of “New Looks” and “Spring Fashions.” We are told that to be a person of substance, we must have the crispest collar, the finest suit, and the most fashionable hat. We’ve become a community of workers and homemakers who spend an awful lot of time standing in front of the mirror, adjusting our ties and smoothing our skirts.
But I want to share a piece of timeless wisdom that is far more durable than any fabric found at Anderson’s General Store. The word tells us: “Don’t be anxious from morning to evening and from evening to morning, about what you will wear.”
Now, isn’t that a striking thought? To be “anxious from morning to evening.” That is a heavy burden to carry. It’s like carrying a sack filled with lead pipes. We wake up wondering if we look the part for the office, and we go to bed fretting over whether we’ll have the means to keep up with our neighbors tomorrow.
When we fret over our garments, we are essentially saying that our worth is something we put on in the morning and take off at night. But the Divine does not look at the label on the inside of your coat. The Divine is interested in the quality of the soul that inhabits the suit.
Think for a moment of the natural world that the Divine has created. Consider the wild flowers that bloom in the meadows beyond our town limits. They don’t have sewing machines. They don’t have charge accounts at the local tailor. And yet, the sheer elegance of their petals puts our finest Sunday silk to shame.
If the Divine provides such exquisite care for a flower that is here today and gone tomorrow, how much more care is extended to you? To worry about our “outer shell” is to doubt the very providence that keeps our hearts beating and the planets in their orbits.
Let us consider the “attire” that actually matters:
The Cloak of Kindness: Which never goes out of style.
The Shoes of Peace: Which carry us through the roughest terrain.
The Girdle of Truth: Which holds a life together when the winds of adversity blow.
When we stop pacing the floor at midnight worrying about our social standing or our physical appearance, we finally clear enough space in our minds to hear the quiet voice of the Divine.
As you step out your front door and back into the hustle and bustle of the work week, take a deep breath. Look at the sky. Look at the trees. Remember that you are a child of the Divine. Your value is not woven into your sleeves. It is etched into your eternal spirit.
Go home. Sit out on your front porch, and be at rest. For the Divine who clothed the world in such splendor has certainly not forgotten you.
Amen.
The bus stop had become Ethan’s personal purgatory. Every afternoon, he saw her. The woman with the radiant, angelic glow. Each time, he managed to get one step closer, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
“Miss!” he would call out, but the hiss of the Greyhound’s air brakes always swallowed his voice. She would step onto the bus, the folding doors snapping shut like a definitive period at the end of a sentence. He asked everyone on Main Street if they knew her. He questioned the regulars at the Lunch Box Cafe. No one knew her. Even Pastor Dzef remained cryptic, offering only a vague promise to watch for her at Saint Helga’s.
As the date for his rehearsal with Tommy Melk and the Melk Duds approached, Ethan’s world began to tilt. He practiced until his fingers bled and his shoulder ached. The “rusty” screeching was gone, replaced by a tone that was rich and haunting, drawing neighbors to their porches to listen in hushed awe. But inside, Ethan was a wreck.
The pressure of the upcoming practice triggered a dark, familiar symphony in his head. He could hear his father’s voice, sharp and berating, mocking his musical choices. Calling his passion a waste of time. The overthinking overflowed into his work at WRYL. He missed cues, fumbled his words, and was chewed out by the station manager twice in one week.
Then, the hallucinations started.
As he walked to work, the vibrant, 1950s life of Royal would suddenly flicker. The bright, cheerful storefronts would grey out into a ghost town The people would become translucent. Fading like old photographs left in the sun. He felt himself losing his grip on whatever reality this was.
That afternoon, he stumbled into the studio, his mind a storm of anxiety. But the moment he opened the door, the storm ceased. A hauntingly beautiful melody was playing over the airwaves. It was an accordion, the lead instrument weaving a soul-stirring web of sound. Ethan froze. He knew that touch. He knew that vibrato.
It was his grandfather.
The song was “The Shadow of Yesterday,” the very last piece Ethan had heard his grandfather play. As the notes filled the room, the anxiety evaporated. Ethan’s breathing slowed, his heart rate settled, and a profound peace washed over him. He closed his eyes, letting the music bridge the gap between his two lives.
When the song ended, Ethan opened his eyes. Royal was back, vibrant, alive, and solid. The doubt was gone. He performed his afternoon show with a flawless, effortless grace.
That evening, Ethan walked down Main Street with his violin case in hand. The town felt welcoming. The Lunch Box Cafe glowed with a warm light, and Pastor Dzef tapped on the window, offering a knowing smile as Ethan passed.
The rehearsal was held at the Royal VFW. The hall was mostly empty, save for a few guests Tommy had invited, who sat nursing drinks at the bar. Tommy greeted Ethan with a stack of sheet music and pointed him toward the stage.
Ethan walked to the stage, heart racing, and began to set up.
“Hello, my name is Paul. Nice to meet you.”
Ethan’s jaw nearly hit the floorboards. He looked up into a face he had loved his entire life. But it was a much younger face, vibrant and full of strength. It was his grandfather. He was wearing the same accordion he would eventually pass down to Ethan.
“Hi… I’m Ethan,” he managed to stammer, his voice trembling. “Nice to meet you, too.”
Paul smiled warmly. “A word of advice, Tommy is a perfectionist. But if you play the notes with your heart and soul, you’ll do just fine. Here, let me give you an ‘A’ so you can tune up. Looking forward…”
As the violin and accordion found their pitch together, the room seemed to hum with a secret energy. Paul winked at him, a gesture so familiar it brought tears to Ethan’s eyes.
“Let’s start with “The Shadow of Yesterday”,” Tommy announced, holding his clairinet. “Grace, are you ready?”
A young woman rose from a barstool in the shadows and stepped toward the stage lights. As she moved into the glow by the microphone, Ethan stopped breathing.
She was the woman from the bus stop.
She smiled at Paul, then turned her gaze toward Ethan. Her eyes were deep, knowing, and as radiant as they had been under the Greyhound awning.
The town’s long held secret finally began to stir. As the first notes pierced the air, Ethan realized this wasn’t just another rehearsal. It was an invitation to something much larger than he had imagined. Ethan was standing at a threshold he didn’t yet understand, waiting for the next note to show him the way.
“Why do you wash the outside of a cup? Do you not know that he who made the inside is also the one who made the outside?” – The Gospel of Thomas
My Friends.
Take a look around you this fine morning. We see a congregation of pressed suits and Sunday best dresses. We take great pride in our appearances. Do we not? We scrub our doorsteps. We wax our Buicks until they shine like mirrors. We ensure our lawns are trimmed to the very inch. There is a certain comfort in a clean exterior. It tells the neighbors, and it tells ourselves, that we have things under control.
But let us lean in a little closer to the Word this morning. Consider, if you will, the simple coffee cup sitting in your cupboard at home.
Imagine a housewife hosting a bridge club. She brings out her finest china, shimmering under the parlor lights. The outside is pristine, decorated with delicate painted roses. But if that cup is filled with the residue of yesterday’s bitterness, is it fit for a guest? Of course not.
Today’s scripture poses a piercing question to us today: “Why do you wash the outside of a cup? Do you not know that he who made the inside is also the one who made the outside?”
We spend our lives frantically scrubbing the “outside.” We polish our reputations. We curate our smiles. We make sure our public testimonies are beyond reproach. We are terrified that someone might see a smudge on the porcelain of our character.
To honor the Divine only with our outward manners while harboring resentment, greed, or pride within is a hollow gesture. It is a biological and spiritual contradiction. You cannot claim to love the Divine while neglecting the very workshop where the Divine works.
Your heart. Your soul.
My friends, the “outside” is a fleeting thing. The finest house-paint will eventually peel. The brightest silver polish is destined to tarnish with the passing years. But the “inside”, that sacred, internal vessel fashioned by the hands of the Divine is the only thing truly built to endure.
This week, as you go about your business. In the shop. In the office. In the kitchen. Ask yourself this, “Am I merely rinsing the surface to impress my neighbor? Or am I inviting the light of the Divine to scour the hidden corners of my soul?”
Let us stop living as two-dimensional cutouts. Let us be whole. For the Divine not only fashioned the stars. The Divine also fashioned your soul. And the Divine desires to find it clean, sweet, and ready for service.
Amen.
Dear Shirley,
My husband has insisted on purchasing one of those “TV dinners” for our Wednesday evening meal. He says it allows us more time to enjoy our favorite programs, but I feel like a failure as a housewife serving peas from a foil compartment! Am I being a “stuffed shirt,” or is the kitchen table becoming obsolete?
Flustered Franny
Dear Flustered Franny,
Don’t let a little aluminum foil rattle your pearls! While a home-cooked roast is the gold standard, even a general needs a night off from the front lines. Consider the TV dinner a “technological holiday.” If the guilt is too much to swallow, serve the Salisbury steak on your finest china and keep the television off until dessert. A happy husband is a well-fed one, even if his gravy comes in a pre-measured square.
Shirley
The Wit And Wisdom Of Horace B Miesner
The early worm gets the bird… eventually.
WRYL – The Voice of the Great Up North
The heavy front door of the VFW groaned shut, sealing out the amber light of the late afternoon. Peggy sat in the passenger seat of Eleanor’s battered Chevy. Her mind spinning faster than the gravel under the tires. Clutched in her arms, the “For Ethan’s Eyes Only” envelope felt heavy, a physical weight of secrets and skipped heartbeats.
“You’re awfully quiet, sugar,” Eleanor said, her eyes fixed on the winding blacktop. “Those old warhorses in there can talk your ear off, but they don’t mean much harm. Mostly just bored.”
Peggy looked at Eleanor’s profile. The woman’s hands were steady on the wheel, her face a map of small-town resilience. “Harold mentioned a woman named Grace. He said she stayed in Royal after everyone else left. After the power was cut.”
Eleanor’s foot hesitated on the gas for a fraction of a second. The engine hummed a lower note. “Harold always did have a soft spot for a ghost story. But Grace… she wasn’t a story. She was real enough.”
“Did you know her?”
Eleanor sighed, a sound like dry leaves skittering across pavement. “Everyone knew the girl who waited. She lived in that little Victorian house near Royal Park. The park with the gazebo. The house was a beautiful place before the quarantine. After? It was like the world just forgot to keep turning for her.”
Peggy’s breath hitched. The gazebo. The image from the puzzle, the image on the sheet music. It wasn’t just a romantic illustration; it was a landmark of a tragedy.
“She had a child, didn’t she?” Peggy pressed.
“A boy,” Eleanor said. “Born a few years before the ’59 outbreak. Grace was… different after that. Fiercely private. When the sheriff put up the roadblocks for the measles quarantine, she didn’t complain. Some say she liked the silence. But then the quarantine lasted too long. The measles story started to smell funny to folks in Oakhaven. People stopped getting sick, but the guards stayed. And when they finally left? Royal was just a shell.”
“Why didn’t she leave with the others?” Peggy asked.
“She told my mom once that she’d promised someone she’d be there when the music started again. Can you imagine? Waiting in a town with no lights, no mail, just the wind whistling through the abandoned town.” Eleanor shook her head. “She stayed until 1964. By then, the boy was school-age. The county finally sent a social worker in to force them out. They moved her to a state facility over in Chippewa Falls. The boy… well, he went into the system.”
Peggy gripped the envelope. “What was the boy’s name?”
Eleanor turned the blinker on, the rhythmic click-clack filling the tense silence of the car. “I really don’t remember. Maybe after his father. But Grace never would say who the father was. Just that he was a traveling man. Or something like that. Some said the father was a musician. He might have played in the Tommy Melk band”
The realization hit Peggy like a physical blow. Tommy Melk and the Melk Duds? Ethan’s grandfather? The family friend she told the old men about wasn’t just a friend. Could it be…?
As they pulled into the driveway of a small, neat house in Black River Falls, Eleanor turned off the ignition. The silence was absolute.
“Peggy,” Eleanor said softly, “that puzzle those old men were working on? It’s been in that VFW hall for years. No one ever finishes it because one piece is missing. Just like the truth about Royal. Some things are better left lost in the woods.”
Peggy looked at the dark silhouette of the trees against the twilight sky. Somewhere out there, past the highway and the history books, the ghost town of Royal was waiting. And she knew, with a terrifying certainty, that she held the missing piece in her hand.
