Mel & Me

 

I had a dream where I am out and about in NYC reading a nonfiction war book a la Tim O'brien and end up running into Mel Gibson.  I'd just read a particularly beautiful and profound passage and wanted to share it with him.  He sees the title of the book I'm reading and it opens him up to talk to me.  We start to talk about our favorite war accounts out there and get increasingly excited about what we are discovering about each other.

He then gets a peculiar look in his eye and he tells me to follow him.  We go to his private pad and he pulls out several sheets of paper of a war movie screenplay he is working on and it is all hand-written.  He has me read some of it and explains the creative process he uses to write.  I offer him suggestions to the story and an amazing chemistry starts to form as we flesh out these ideas making them fuller and stronger.  The thought occurs to me, if this movie actually gets made I might get some credit for it!

He then takes me to Central Park and asks me to help him act out a particular scene.  It seems he has me pegged for a particular character and I do my best to say the lines in a convincing way w/o being too self aware.  My mind starts to race about what all this could mean for me.  Will I be in this movie?  Will I become his new writing partner?  Would I make enough money to be able to switch careers?  

Then my daughter wakes me up.

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Image is from Terrence Malick’s “The Thin Red Line”