Giacomo Banchelli
LENA
Smashwords Edition
License Notes
Screenplay - English Translation
Copyright 2012 Giacomo Banchelli
ISBN 978-88-906678-5-5
Available in paper copy on
www.lulu.com/spotlight/GiacomoBanchelli
Translation
Francesca Forlani
Cover: Lyubimtseva Anna
Girl with blue eyes.
Shutterstock
This book is protected under copyright laws.
Any reproduction, event partial, is prohibited.
Many thanks to all the people who, in any way, have contributed to the creation of this text.
INDEX
Lena
16 years old. She's a slim and pale girl, she puts dark make up on and always wears black, but she’s not really a “dark”. She has a nice body, but her clothes are always too big and hide it. She has light blue eyes, a few piercings on her face, her hair is turnip top red because of a dye gone wrong. She has some scares on her arms that go back to the days she used to self harm when she was younger, in Sara’s company. She attends high school and always goes around with a red heart shaped bag with black straps on. She's a dreamer but she can be pretty pragmatic if there is the need for it and she knows how to use her hands in a furious way too. She has a controversial relationship with her mother, who’s divorced from her father and who's never around. She doesn't smoke cigarettes, only a joint from time to time. She doesn't take drugs but in compensation she likes to drink alcohol.
Lena’s grandfather
He's a pattern of wisdom and culture. He's Lena's dad's father, and Lena is closer to him than what she is to her mother. He's a sort of magician and speaks about everything with smoothness. When he was young, he used to be a philanderer and used to dance well. He's always lived in the same house he was born in. He knows how to use Tarots and is interested in occultism, secret history, UFO etcetera. He's a widower. At home he has a library well supplied with books about these mysterious subjects. When he talks with Lena, he always sips some hot malt drink resembling coffee, each time from the same cup. He has a certain sensitivity. He doesn't get along with Lena's mother, since after she divorced. He has a few heart problems and in fact he dies because of them.
Marco
A high school boy whom Lena falls in love with. He has many existential problems, he can't find his own place in the world, he feels an overwhelming emptiness inside of him and this sense of loss and nihilism induce him to commit suicide in the end. He is always on his own, doesn't have friends, he never speaks to anyone apart from Lena. His face is always sad. He wears dark clothes.
Sara
16 years old. She's Lena's best friend. She attends the same high school as Lena but in a different class. She dresses casual and sporty, she's not a dark. She doesn't like her body, she has some scars on her arms, cuts she has done herself while being with Lena, in addition she has red folds of both her elbows because of drug injections. When she was a little girl, she had seen her mother shoot herself in the head on a snowy day in the garden of the house, this memory tortures her and the guilt feelings cause her depressive crisis that she faces by consuming an increasing amount of drugs. To collect the money she doesn't hesitate to sell her body. For the same reasons she has self harming instincts. She has dealer friends who supply her at every occasion. She always brings with her a picture of her dead mother. She becomes a drug addict but she's willing to get out of it with Lena's help.
Catherina
Leader of a female gang who are violent and go around armed with knives. She always brings a butterfly knife with her and knows how to handle it well. She's not a dark. She's a repressed lesbian who works off her rage by using violence on other girls.
Lena's mother
She's an unhappy woman that after the divorce has become aggressive and stressing with Lena, she can't wait to criticize her and doesn't get along with her. She’s always dressed in dark brown clothes. She considers Lena’s grandfather a slob who has put in Lena's head lots of mystic esoteric foolishness. Even though she also knew how to use Tarots and had given her deck to granddad before leaving them and not to commit herself too much. She is at least about Lena's height.
Marika
One of Elena's classmates. She's a bit of a dark.
Lorena, Simona, Daniela
Catherina's three petite friends. Daniela is the one who films all of their evil deeds with her cell phone.
Elena
One of Lena's friends. Attends the same high school as Lena but in a different class. She is of age and drives a car. She's not a dark.
(1)-All of this scene of Sara can be split and switched with the one where Lena and Marco make love.
(2)-The scene can be spaced out with Decadence sequences and until she tries to commit suicide. It can even be an animation.
The heart shaped bag is large but it has little thickness, it’s bright luminous red, it’s made of a stuffed and soft material with a long black strap to sling it over the shoulder. It is closed by a zip. Lena wears it always over her shoulder laid against her hip. During the horizontal filming of her walking alone filmed from her side, the bag is always between her and movie camera. The heart shaped bag symbolizes her own heart that is why it is used in a different way depending on her mood. In some scenes it is simply said that the heart shaped bag is not there, which could mean that Lena doesn’t have the bag with her, or that Lena has the bag with her but it’s not framed and so in this particular scene it does not appear. If nothing about the bag is specified it means that the bag is not there.
When a subtitle with “IMAGINATION” appears, it means that dreamlike scenes bred by one of the characters appear, if they’re good or negative it depends on its mood and they can be attached to the situation he’s going through or not. Before a dreamlike scene starts. there is an approach of the movie camera to the eyes of the character that pictures it.
For clearness matters the term “bathroom” and “lavatory” are used in a differentiate way: with “bathroom” it is meant the totality of the lavatories of the wall urinals and of the washbasins (especially during the shootings that take place inside of Decadence and the School), instead the “lavatory” is only meant to be a small space enclosed in between three walls and a door which contains just a toilet seat and a Turkish bath.
"V.O." means “voice over”: you hear the voice of the character but he is not really talking.
Giacomo Banchelli
LENA
On the bus along the streets of Bologna, no one speaks to anybody. Lena is sitting close to the bus’s central doors. She has the heart shaped bag on her legs. She leans her chin on her closed fist and looks at the city from the window. Her bare forearms reveal some of her scares. The window next to her has a wide and very clear crack, though it is intact.
LENA (V.O.)
I'm sixteen years old, sometimes I look behind a window at the world going by fast and I don't know what I'm feeling. Maybe because I prefer walking slowly, I don't like to go fast, it prevents me from feeling things, it prevents me from feeling people. I don't want others to become for me what they have become for my mother: habits, numbers, annoyances, or dangers. I don't want to become an adult lost in the world and lost inside of himself.
***
LENA'S IMAGINATION
While Lena is thinking, speed up scenes of the urban chaos of Bologna appear, made of lots of cars that run fast along the roads; people who walk fast without looking at each other nor communicate; people who go in and come out from shops and shopping centers with bags in their hands. Some of those scenes, not all of them, are shuffled with others of flying birds on the Reno river.
***
INSIDE BUS - DAY
Lena looks at the passengers who do not communicate with one another.
LENA (V.O.)
Sometimes I feel so detached from them, they all seem closed inside their shelves. Maybe they’re scared too, or maybe they're just confused and dazed, they have their thoughts and emotions closed in a cage. Sometimes I feel like destroying everything!
Lena bangs a fist against the crack in the window and the blow enlarges the crack.
***
LENA'S IMAGINATION
A herd of buffalos runs along the street. Then it diverts towards the top and it carries on along the vertical frontage of a big building. While the buffalos run along the vertical frontage of the building, their clogs shatter it and the pieces of glass spread in the air.
***
INSIDE BUS - DAY
The bus has stopped and the passengers look at her. She gets out from her imagination and, embarrassed, realizes that she has broken the window. She makes a stupid giggle.
The central door opens and she rushes out of the bus.
***
“VILLA SPADA” PARK - NIGHT
In the sky, a full moon and the stars illuminate the park. Lena is sitting on the grass under a lamp from which tap dangles a chain like the showers on the beaches. She has the heart shaped bag leaning next to her and turns her back towards the movie camera.
LENA (V.O.)
Maybe it’s me who’s closed in a cage and by reflection I think that others are too. I feel so small sometimes, I feel as if I'm a crippled pigeon in the middle of a square on a saturday afternoon.
Lena lifts her arm, holds the chain and gives it a small stroke downwards. A "click" is heard, like the ones you hear when you switch a lamp off, just as if the moon and the stars were lampshades. The sky is in complete darkness but Lena remains sitting in the light of the lamp.
***
INSIDE SARA'S ROOM - NIGHT
The atmosphere has cold colors. There's a night table next to the bed, there's a mirror a few meters high against the wall. Spread around the bed and on top of it, there are joints and bottles of alcohol. The heart shaped bag is leaning on a chair.
Lena and Sara masturbate each on her own, under the sheets that cover them up to the neck. They wear a bra and their voices are shaped and padded by the pleasure.
LENA
Who are you thinking about?
SARA
I'm thinking about one of the dealers I know, I like him too much.
LENA
I'm thinking about Marco.
SARA
Always him, Marco the lonely.
LENA
I don't know how big his is cock but I want to fuck him.
SARA
You lecher.
LENA
Look who's talking.
Sara takes out of the night table a small bag of white powder. She opens it and puts some of the powder on top of a finger. She lays the top of the finger under one of Lena's nostrils.
SARA
Try this! Take a deep breath!
Lena breathes strongly and sniffs the powder.
LENA
What is it?
Sara spreads the rest of the powder on Lena's gums with her finger. Then she takes out some more powder from the bag, she sniffs it and spreads the rest on her own gums. She lays the small bag on the night table and goes back to masturbating herself.
SARA
Now you're going to find out.
Lena gets high, her eyes are wet.
LENA
Oh my God! What's this stuff all about?
SARA
It’s cool, isn't it?
Lena has an orgasm and calms down. She takes a bottle of beer and sips it while she looks at Sara. Down from her belly button she remains covered by the sheets.
Sara has an orgasm and calms herself down.
LENA
I have won.
SARA
(smiling)
You slut.
They look at each other and laugh.
LENA
What was that powder that you gave me?
SARA
A mix of heroin and other stuff.
LENA
Where did you buy it?
SARA
I bought it from some friends of mine.
LENA
The ones who are always around in that grey Alfa?
SARA
Yes, them. Anyway they're not with the Alfa all of the time, it depends on who's driving.
LENA
How much did you spend for it … How did you get the money?
SARA
What do you care? I have it.
LENA
Ok, anyway you could tell me that you do certain things.
SARA
It's not stuff you go around talking about as if it was chocolates.
Lena look at the small white bag on the night table. She handles a bottle of beer and sips it.
Sara gets off the bed, she has her panties on and stands in front of the mirror. She touches her butt and her breasts.
Lena looks at her with the bottle of beer in her hands.
SARA
I’ve added more cellulite.
LENA
Shut up, you're fine.
SARA
It's easy for you to talk, you're thin, you have a nice body, it doesn't cost you anything to tell me that I look good even though I don't.
LENA
Don't be a bitch!
Sara looks at Lena.
SARA
Why can’t you be honest with me about this? I have an ugly body, I have a large ass and small tits, they look like two hen-eggs … two fried hen-eggs.
LENA
I have a common body, I’m nobody, I wouldn’t have any chance during a beauty contest if I was compared to some other chicks. You’ve got to accept yourself Sara, it’s not difficult.
SARA
It’s not hard for you!
Sara looks at herself in the mirror.
LENA
There are some people who are physically awful but know how to live in peace.
SARA
I’m not sure how much they’re at peace with themselves or if they just want to make pretend.
LENA
If you don’t love your body, it doesn’t mean that everybody else has to have the same problem. It doesn’t seem to me that you ever had problems in finding boys.
SARA
Yes but it’s always ugly boys who don’t have nothing
better than to shag me.
LENA
That’s not true, Roberto was a nice guy, full of women.
Sara doesn’t listen to her. She widens up the elastic of her panties and looks at her pubes.
SARA
But I like my pussy, it’s cute.
LENA
Yes but there’s not just that, what about the rest of the body?
SARA
I don’t like the rest.
LENA
Ok, go on weeping about yourself.
Lena takes a sip of beer.
~~
Lena and Sara are both lying on the bed in their panties and bras. Smoking and drinking.
LENA
What have you decided to do with Gianluca?
SARA
I’m leaving him, we’re over. This relationship has only become a chore.
LENA
I knew it would have been your decision.
SARA
I had taken this decision long ago, but I didn’t know it at the time.
LENA
Who knows how he’s going to react.
SARA
To me he will cry.
LENA
Oh God, I hope not, I could not stand it.
They go on laughing and smoking.
SARA
Lena, do you feel like piercing my nipple with a needle?
LENA
A nipple?
SARA
Yes.
LENA
You want to get yourself pierced?
SARA
No, I just want a rush of adrenaline that can make my head take off and take me away from here.
Lena lifts up her forearm and shows Sara her scars.
LENA
We have done this sort of bullshit before in the past. If you want a rush of adrenaline give yourself a shot of epinephrine, we can go and steal it from the hospital if you feel like having strong.
SARA
Mmm … I don’t feel like doing it.
LENA
(touching one of her piercings)
Trust me, the moment you get pierced is not as thrilling. I can come with you to have it done from a professional if you want one more.
SARA
I don’t want one more piercing!
LENA
If you are keen on dragging up old crap, I’ll please you. Do you have a needle?
Sara takes out from the night table’s drawer a small box with needles and threads. She opens up the little box and handles a needle to Lena. She takes of her shirt and bra, then she lays down.
Lena takes one of Sara’s nipples.
LENA
Ready?
SARA
Yes.
LENA
You have really decided to suffer tonight.
They look at each other.
LENA
I’m really going to do it, don’t think that I’m scared.
Sara takes a deep breath.
SARA
Go!
Lena pierces Sara’s nipple and Sara grits her teeth, she feels pain and pleasure, she pants.
SARA
What a rush!
Lena lets the nipple go and the needle stuck into it.
LENA
Is it a punishment that you inflict to yourself because your body’s not like the ones that you see on television?
SARA
Shut up and pierce the other one too.
Lena takes another needle and pierces Sara’s other nipple.
Close up: From Sara’s nipples, a few drops of blood come out.
LENA
You’re as mad as a hatter.
SARA
I want to see myself in the mirror.
Sara sits on the edge of the bed and looks at herself in the mirror and Lena looks at her disturbed.
SARA
(laughing)
Oh my God! I’m truly a monster! A Freak.
LENA
Stop it know. You piss me off.
Sara looks at herself in the eye.
SARA (V.O.)
You’re a lousy freak that has left her mother away and did nothing.
Sara gets nervous: she turns the needles and pulls the nipples so that more blood comes out.
LENA
Hey stop it now, Sara stop the bullshit, what are you doing now?
Lena takes Sara’s hands. Sara feels lost and looks around.
SARA
(confused)
Nothing I just wanted to take them out.
LENA
I’ll take them out, we have been drinking too much tonight.
Lena makes Sara sit on the bed and unthreads the needles from her nipples.
SARA
I’m losing blood.
LENA
No wonder, you’re not a pincushion! It’s better if we go and disinfect them.
SARA
Stop all the bullshit for tonight.
Lena takes Sara’s face in her hands.
LENA
Yes exactly, stop it you’re causing me the one time distress and I don’t want it, I don’t want it anymore do you understand? … Let’s go.
Lena puts an arm around Sara’s shoulders and she takes her towards the room’s door.
SARA
Don’t worry baby.
LENA
You’re a self destructive bitch.
Lena opens the door and they come out.
***
INSIDE LENA’S HOUSE - KITCHEN - DAY
Lena’s home is an apartment in a block of flats. The furniture is simple, they’re not rich people. Lena is having breakfast in her pajamas, sitting in front of the television.
Her mom arrives.
MOTHER
Are you still eating? Move it’s late.
LENA
I’m coming, I’m coming.
MOTHER
Do you remember that the other day you got in class a quarter of an hour late and the professor made you bring the justification.
LENA
Again? There was an accident that was blocking the street and I had to take the long way around.
MOTHER
If you leave home earlier you can outfox the unexpected.
Lena lifts her eyes up because of the frustration.
LENA
Mmmmmmm!
MOTHER
And for the bad impression that you make me show, it’s as if I haven’t taught you anything!
LENA
Big deal, it will be me the one who makes a bad impression, not you.
MOTHER
No, sorry but I will do too! And I don’t like these spectacles with the professors who then say that I don’t worry about my daughter getting late into school. You’re always late for god sake!
LENA
You always worry about the bullshit people thinks, how can you live like this? You need a little frivolity!
MOTHER
Politeness Lena! What are you going to do after school?
LENA
I’ll meet Sara and Elena, the others are supposed to be there too, then I’m going to visit granddad and after that I’ll be going to Decadence.
MOTHER
(annoyed)
Granddad!
LENA
Oh stop it!
MOTHER
What can I do about it if I can’t stand him?
LENA
I like granddad.
MOTHER
He certainly is not a good example for you, with all his up in the clouds talk.
LENA
Granddad is not a dreamer, he’s just wise.
MOTHER
Pfff …
From this point on, the discussion starts to ignite, Lena’s and her mother’s tone starts getting more aggressive and louder.
LENA
Is there anything I do that doesn’t have to be put before your criticism and opinion? Is there anything that you can take fairly as it comes without making any mental problems out of it or not?
MOTHER
I don’t make mental problems, I just keep my feet on the ground unlike you and your granddad. And I don’t like that you visit him so often ok? Can I say so?
LENA
You can but in any case. I don’t agree.
MOTHER
Do what you like then, don’t ever listen to anybody!
LENA
In fact I do as I like, otherwise I’ll have to put a chain around my neck, get a bowl on the floor and have my tits milked in the morning.
MOTHER
Oh such drama! Such drama! As if I prevented you from getting out the house or as if I made you do who knows what!
LENA
That’s not the point, you always go looking for the lacks in whatever I say or do, you always bring down my initiatives and turn off my mood, you have three thousand obsessions and fears that you pass on me and I don’t want them! I don’t want your obsessions and fears even as first thing in the morning!
MOTHER
I always try to make you reason because you always have your head up in the clouds, it won’t be long before you get run over by a car in the middle of the street, while you’re walking with your nose stuck up in the air like an idiot! And you always give credit to the stories that old man tells you instead of growing up!
LENA
(the tone is reproaching not aggressive)
At least he tells me some stories.
MOTHER
Far too many! You can tell by the marks you get in school and by the fact that you roam all day like a stray dog with nerds who don’t bring nothing good for you.
LENA
They give me their friendship to start with! People have to hang around with each other just so that they “get” something back? What should they give me? Are you talking about money? Or a pat on the shoulder? I’m fine with them and this is enough for me.
MOTHER
I’m not talking about money, see you don’t understand?
LENA
What if it’s me who wants to give them something just because I love them?
MOTHER
You’re turning into a tramp just like them, smoking, drinking and maybe doing something else at the back of a disco!
LENA
What about this idea you have about people without knowing them? That is why you don’t have friends and not even a new partner, because if they’re not as placed as you, they don’t do. People don’t want you around because it’s YOU who doesn’t want to have friends, people’s rejection is only a reflection, so stop playing the victim and stop making me laugh!
MOTHER
It’s just a reflection? Here’s your grandfather’s bullshit!
LENA
Why do you have to pester if something’s not as you say it should be?
MOTHER
Listen to me kid, in here you stick to my rules otherwise get out!
Lena’s mother pulls her from one of her ears.
Lena rebels, she takes her mother’s hand off with a slap and stands straight up, hitting the chair with her legs. She lays her fingers on the fork next to the plate she was eating in.
They look daggers at each other.
Lena sits down turning her back to her mother.
LENA
You are a shit mother!
MOTHER
What did you say?
Lena bangs hard the palm of one of her hands on the table, it makes a lot of noise and shakes everything that’s on the table. Then she turns straight back to look at her mother.
LENA
(shouting)
I told you that you’re a shit mother and that you always assault me if I don’t say what you like.
Lena once again turns her back to her mother and tries to finish her breakfast in vain.
MOTHER
You only do crap.
Lena’s mother leaves angry.
***
STREETS - DAY
Lena walks different streets where she mostly finds stones, asphalt and buildings. She has the heart shaped bag over her shoulder. A wind that ruffles her hair is blowing.
***
“SANTO STEFANO” (Saint Stephen) SQUARE - DAY
Andrea, Mauro, Sara, Elena and Marika are sitting on their mopeds, they chat, smoke fags and pass a joint around.
Lena arrives on foot with the heart shaped bag on her shoulder. Sara has the joint in her hand.
ANDREA
Oh look who’s there!
LENA
Hello everyone!
SARA
Hi, come here baby, give me a kiss.
Sara and Lena hug and kiss one another on the cheek.
LENA
Hi.
ELENA
Give me a kiss too.
Lena gives Elena a kiss on the cheek.
MARIKA
Hello Lena.
LENA
Hello.
Lena gives Marika a kiss too.
LENA
So what are yourselves doing apart from smoking? By the way, pass me some!
Sara passes the joint to Lena, she takes a smoke and passes it on.
SARA
Andrea was telling us about one of his friends who used to take acids.
ANDREA
He used to, now he’s not even able to center his front with his own fingers.
LENA
If acids remove grease from tubes, I can’t see how they can be good for someone’s health.
ELENA
Well they’re not the same kind of acids.
LENA
I’m joking, but if they have been named so, there must be a reason they haven’t called them sugar lumps.
ANDREA
They burn your brain and your dick. Have you ever seen this fellow with a woman? Now he needs a nurse to help him piss, thank god his family’s rich otherwise they would have had to put him in a mental institution.
ELENA
Who are his parents?
ANDREA
His father is a lawyer and his mother’s an architect, two graduates with high grades who have given birth to a first category prick.
SARA
Who knows, maybe he’s suffered from inferiority complex towards his parents and he has not kept up the comparison, he preferred to burn out everything and let go.
LENA
What a turd! He deserves to have become a zombie.
Sara turns her head towards Lena.
SARA
How nasty you are!
LENA
Come on, is there nothing else better to do than to stick them things on your front or on your tongue like mongoloids so that you become a mongoloid for real? Dick head!
Andrea laughs.
ELENA
Let’s change the topic, where are we going tonight?
MARIKA
We are going to Decadence, there’s a concert I want to see.
ANDREA
Who’s playing?
MARIKA
Presadiretta. It’s a punk rock group who make songs about social politic topics. The singer is one of my friend’s boyfriend.
ANDREA
The music scene is full of these “social committed” groups and they’re all pretty the same.
MARIKA
They’re better though and they’re my friends and so I want to go and see them, I’m not going to miss they’re concert, you can do what you like.
LENA
It’s fine for me.
MAURO
Perhaps we can go downtown, to the cellar bars.
ANDREA
Not downtown, merci, not tonight as well!
MAURO
Try going there less on your own, so that when we go you can come too.
Lena gives a small stroke on Sara’s arm and speaks close to one of her ears.
LENA
So did you do it?
SARA
Yes I did.
Lena giggles and takes Sara to the side, she makes her get off the moped and they walk away a few steps from the rest of the group.
LENA
Come here, tell me everything.
SARA
When I told him it was finished between us he started crying like a baby, what a pathetic scene, you should have seen him.
LENA
I told you he was soft balled.
SARA
And then I said to him “sorry but didn’t you realize by yourself that things were not working between us anymore? We were not able to laugh at each other anymore” et cetera, and he was like bla, bla, bla, but “I still love you, I want to be with you because I really like you”, yes dear, I’ve understood, but once something is over, it’s over, even though you want to stay with me but I don’t want to anymore, you need to accept the fact that I don’t have the same feelings anymore, and on the contrary, maybe I had overrated them. Then he tells me he’s sorry, that he wants me to think it over, and I told him “no, I have already thought about it enough, it’s over”. And he calls me a bitch!
LENA
(Laughing)
Oh Really?
SARA
He says that I’m a bitch, a slut, that I fuck other people, that I give head around, that I get my ass fucked even from Albanians. Come on, are you kidding me? How dare you tell such things to my face? Maybe your mam’s the one that goes around given head for having brought you up as such a nerd … and I even got with him. So he started crying while insulting me, you know them kids that fight with each other over lego.
Lena laughs.
SARA
Look, fuck, it’s since we have come here that we’re talking about people that I would cudgel. And then he goes on, he insults me once more, he told me all sorts that I can’t remember and I don’t give a fuck about! Well, you can say that I’m a junkie, a drug addict if you want because this is partially true, I admit it.
Lena frowns her front a little when she ears the word “drug addict”.
SARA
But you can’t say that I’m a fake and a liar and all the rest, no! In the end I said to him “listen cutie, fuck off, go crying home to your mom, I’m erasing your number from the phone index, stay away from me and don’t break my balls anymore, get out the way!”
LENA
And you went away without turning back.
SARA
Hell yeah! I left him there like a prick! If I don’t want to talk to him anymore, stop, it’s finished! I just catch some air and that’s it. I should have realized the way he was by his nonsense in bed. That has turned out to be the same out of bed.
Sara takes her cell phone out of her pocket, she open it, looks at the display.
LENA
You made him cry poor little star. Did you buy him a feeder too?
They laugh, then, Sara takes Lena’s arm and they gather with the group.
Andrea gets off the moped and talks while he opens the back seat to get his crash helmet.
ANDREA
Guys I must go home, see you tonight at Decadence, if anyone needs a lift, just give me a tinkle.
ELENA
At this point I’m leaving too, I need to get washed, I’ve been out all day and I stink like a goat.
SARA
(talking to Lena)
Are we going away too?
LENA
If you feel like staying longer, I’ll stay too.
SARA
Ok, let’s stay. Feel like rolling up another joint?
LENA
Yeah, go on, I haven’t even felt the last one.
***
OUTSIDE LENA’S GRANDFATHER’S HOUSE - GARDEN - DAY
Lena’s grandfather’s house, is old, small, on the seashore, on two levels. It has a garden and there’s the outbuilding attached to the house.
Granddad’s watering the plants and the small garden gnome close to the garden’s fence.
Lena arrives on foot with the heart shaped bag over her shoulder. She opens the small gate and enters.
LENA
Hello granddad.
GRANDFATHER
(very happy)
Hi Lena, how are you?
LENA
Good, what about you?
GRANDFATHER
I’m fine too.
Lena and her grandfather hug. Then, he lifts her chin up and looks at her in the eye.
GRANDFATHER
Let me guess … when you have that face on it’s because you’ve been discussing with your mother.
LENA
A little bit.
GRANDFATHER
When that happens, your eyes loose a bit of their brightness, you can easily notice it when you know how they look like when they sparkle.
LENA
You almost know me better than I know myself.
GRANDFATHER
No it’s just that you can’t fool me, though it shouldn’t be me the one who always has to investigate about you, when you come here just blast away by saying: “granddad, this has happened to me”, or “granddad, I have this feeling inside of me”, it a bad custom to having other people to investigate your mood, you force them to strive to give you attention and so you embezzle their energy by playing a faulty game.
LENA
I know, sometimes I forget.
GRANDFATHER
Oh don’t worry, you have all the time in the world to learn to know yourself better, though I must admit, surprises never end. Anyway, because you have arrived unexpected and your visit has already brightened up my day, I cannot resist anymore to a temptation, it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time and I was wandering when was the right time to do it. At first I thought that your birthday would have been the most appropriate but my interior voice told me I would have not resisted until then.
LENA
(smiling)
What?
Both Lena and her grandfather stop a few meters before the outbuilding.
GRANDFATHER
Who cares, I’ll buy you something else for your birthday.
LENA
Oh come on there’s no need for you to buy me presents! With the shitty pension that you get, you even think about buying me presents?
GRANDFATHER
I haven’t spent anything for this present, it has been ready for forty years.
LENA
What is it?
GRANDFATHER
You have no patience? You fuck off.
LENA
Ok, I’m not going to say anything else.
Lena chews the inches moving the legs.