Image by tata_aka_T via Flickr
I'm not exactly sure what the following writing selection is. I woke from a dream with the image of this story in mind. I guess you could say it would be a screenplay for a short film. At least that's how I best envision it. I hope you enjoy it.
Screenplay for a short film.
"Up to Jamal"
There is little boy (8-10 years old) together with his parents at an airport. The father is white and the mother is black, the boy is much more fair-skinned than his mom. The Father drops off his wife and son at the curb with their luggage, and goes to park the car. The mother moves with the luggage to the check-in counter. She tells her son to stay close, while Dad takes care of the car.
The little boy hears the sound of faint music and leaves the side of his mom. He follows the sound of music and it becomes stronger. It is an African rhythm, with a strong beat, and an unusual, but very beautiful sound. The boy stops and looks ahead of him. There is an African man dressed in tribal costume standing perhaps 30 or 40 feet away. The man nods his head slowly, and looks at the boy. He has a beautiful feather in his hand. It is striped with both black and white feathers. A broad smile comes to the face of the African man. He gently lifts the feather in the air, and the wind takes it up in the air. It floats up high, and across to the little boy.
The boy looks up at the feather and is blinded momentarily by a flash of light from the sun. He hears a strong, deep voice say to him. “It is up to you to solve the problems between black and white in this country”. The feather lands in the boy’s hands and as it lands, the colors of the feather seem to reverse between black and white from their original colors. The boy blinks in astonishment, and grabs the feather and holds it tightly in his hand. Suddenly he remembers what his mom told him, and thinks she might be looking for him. As he runs back to find her, he glances over his shoulder and the African man is gone.
The boy finds his mother around a corner, and she shouts as she sees him. “Jamal, where did you go, I was looking everywhere for you ? Didn’t I tell you to stay close ? I’m waiting for Dad, now don’t wander off ! And where did you get that feather ? We are running late, so your Dad is going to meet us at the gate.”
With baggage in hand, the mother and son move toward the gate and approach the security area. The mother passes the security check point without incident, but the boy sets off the alarms. Unlike the normal sounds, the buzzers do not buzz just once, but continue to buzz, abnormally, without shutting off for half a minute or so. The boy is asked by a security person, if he has anything in his pockets, and the boy says no.
The security guard, (a black man), asks the boy to put the feather in the box, and the boy hesitates, but looks at his mom, and she nods to him, so he reluctantly agrees. The security guard watching the feather pass through security sees a bright blinding light as the feather passes under the radar, but there is no sound. The security guard shakes his head and his partner asks him, Is everything OK ? The man says "yeah, I guess so".
The boy passes through security the second time without a sound. The security man stands up and moves over to the little boy. He gives the boy a big smile, and says to him, "Take care of that feather, OK" ? The boy responds, “I will.”
As the boy and his Mom move away from the security area. The security guard can’t take his eyes off the boy as he walks away. A voice in the background, (same voice that Jamal heard before), says. “Don’t leave everything up to Jamal. We are all brothers and sisters in one Family of Man under the one True God.”
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