excerpt from
OF FONTENCLARC
EXT. RAINY CITY - DAY
(A rainy, grey, Northern European city in the 1980s. Streets. Rain coming down a gutter-pipe. A tired milkman rolling his cart down the street. Wet post tied together with string deposited through a mailbox.)
NARRATOR (V.O.)
While I was there it rained for thirteen consecutive days, a record for the country which was the subject of both national pride and evident consternation, and the source of constant floods and ruined harvests.
It was also true that I hadn't brought enough books - my luggage in general was sparse - and even on arrival I was already worried about my boredom in the following weeks.
I still would give anything to go back there.
---
INT. GREY TOWNHOUSE - DAY
(A moving company brings boxes into the living room of a grey townhouse. A middle-aged man, our MAIN CHARACTER, brings them around the house after they leave.)
NARRATOR (V.O.)
The moving company I had hired was slow and for three weeks I worried I had lost everything. It wasn’t an obnoxious worry, I went to work fine and I could always get to sleep afterwards. The greater worry was that my feelings manifested in acceptance. I figured, if they really had lost my things, my personal things, so be it. But I still had me. And this was the worrying thing, that I thought I was enough and my recollection was enough.
---
INT. THERAPIST'S OFFICE - DAY
(Grey. Peeling paint and damp damage on the ceiling. A poster with a stupid message hangs on the wall below a frozen clock.)
A
I feel like a lonely old man throwing the ephemera of his life onto the curb, in defiance of my own failing memory. I feel as though I must get rid of things that remind me of my life. Will… eventually… will they all become hollow old photos in a flea market, faces without names?
THERAPIST
Do you have any children, Mr. Zweyden?
A
No. That is another conundrum.
---
INT. STUDY - DAY
(Glowing lines from the sun through the blinds. A pounding at the door. A man with a wispy moustache and a red visor apologises for the delay and signs over the contents of the MAIN CHARACTER's previous estate. There is a bed, a sideboard, fifteen chairs of different styles, and an ornate fire grate. The MAIN CHARACTER separates the boxes.)
NARRATOR (V.O.)
One morning, when the sun sent glowing lines through the blinds in my study, there was a pounding at the door, and a man with a wispy moustache and a red visor apologised for the delay and signed over the contents of my previous estate. There was a bed, a sideboard I had forgotten about, fifteen chairs of different styles, an ornate fire grate. I separated the boxes of books in the front room, and the boxes of kitchenalia and homewares in the dining room, and the few boxes of personal belongings were grouped with the boxes of clothing and moved into the bedroom.
(Though he'd only been away from these things for several weeks, it felt as though he had rediscovered everything. He finds a small and heavily worn box wrapped in swathes of tape.)
NARRATOR (V.O.) (CONT'D)
Though I'd only been away from these things for several weeks, it felt as though I had rediscovered everything. There was a small and heavily worn box I had packed many years ago, wrapped in swathes of tape, and this went to the top of the closet on a thin shelf. After pushing it to the very back, which I had done at my previous house too, and the one before that, I paused for a moment, and brought it back out and set it down on the kitchen counter.