found drama

Point-of-view: third-person, detached; think Cops.  Narrator/camera pans to follow two teenage boys walk, approaching a building.  The camera is already too close to see the full building but it has a vaguely institutional feel to it (architecturally) and the vibe we’re catching off the two boys is that this is a safe place for them (a church or a school or a youth center).  They come upon the entrance, open the door, enter a narrow hallway, and freeze.  Danger.  We can’t see why but our camera angle comes around to follow their gaze, meeting with a tall, white-hooded figure.  Klansmen meeting!

They discreetly sneak out, holding hands.  Camera fades-out for a scene change.

Fade-in, camera back on the crowd of KKK’ers — many of them unhooded in the audience.  The speaker is all fired up.  The door bursts open…  And police rush in, raiding the meeting.  There is moderate chaos.  Mostly shouting.  Very few quick movements inside the meeting space.  Among the more high-ranking members of this convened group, there are some suspicious glances among them.  Have we been betrayed?  From within?  That sort of thing.  The camera catches the scene in the parking lot where the chaos breaks open a little more and some of the arrested KKK’ers are trying to resist arrest, break away, run, jump in their cars, that sort of thing.

Our camera discovers one of our boys from the first scene, surveying the meeting hall in the company of a senior-looking police officer.  They find one of the elite KKK’ers in the back of the hall, watching the parking lot scene from the window and clutching a young boy (his son) to his chest.  He’s patting the boy’s head with fatherly affection but we also know that there is substantial evidence that this man is a sex offender against children.  Dark glances are exchanged between the senior KKK’er and the young lad who discovered the meeting as police take the man into custody.

Suddenly fearful, our boy takes off running.  The toddler takes off after him.  QUICK CUTS: various scenes through the city (typical chase montage) as the teenaged boy runs for his life through the streets, a violently angry toddler in toe.  They reach a bridge and suddenly they both morph into vegetables.  Our hero becomes an artichoke, the toddler a particularly round head of broccoli.  And the highway bridge itself?  A series of chutes.  The scene only picks up, going faster and faster as they roll through the chute, dodging other vegetables like they were traffic.  Our hero is trying to get home undetected.  He knows that if anyone (even this broccoli-shaped two year old) sees him enter his home that he will never have another peaceful day as long as he lives.  His only chance?  To go against the flow of traffic, take a wide and high detour, and roll faster than he’s ever rolled before…

About Rob Friesel