A RUN TO REMEMBER
A Screenplay
If you’ve been following this space for a while, the title and story below will look familiar. I’ve been working on this screenplay for a long time, and the process has pushed the original narrative into a much more heightened, vivid place. If you read to the end, I think you’ll see exactly what I mean.
In previous posts, I’ve mentioned that writing is cathartic for me. It’s a way to separate myself from the things I’ve done and experienced. It allows me to set aside those thoughts and feelings—not to ignore them, but to put them in a safe place where I can visit them on my own terms, rather than having them creep up on me when I least expect it.
Visualizing this story as a short film creates a new kind of distance. I’m no longer just a person writing down my experiences; I’m seeing them through the lens of a camera. It allows me to be “in the room” from a completely different perspective.
A Note on Reading a Screenplay
For many of you, this might be the first script you’ve ever read. Here’s the secret: screenplays are pure action and dialogue. Unlike a novel, you can’t simply write down a character’s internal thoughts. In this medium, emotions are lived out through the acting and the director’s choice of shots. (Using a voice-over to explain feelings is “cheating” in my book!)
So, get your mind’s eye ready. As you read, try to imagine how these shots would be framed and how these characters would move. Have fun with it.
INTERIOR. HOTEL ROOM TURKEY - EARLY MORNING
Mark, a 35-year-old, balding, Airman wakes in a dimly lit hotel room in Izmir, Turkey to the sound of Adhan, the Islamic call to prayer, outside his hotel room window. He sits up quickly grasping for breath, drenched in sweat. He holds his head trying to remember something.
CUT TO: EXTERIOR. MARSHA, AFGHANISTAN - DAY
In a dream state. Mark is in an irrigation ditch in full combat gear hunkered down with a Special Ops Medic next to him. Bullets are irregularly whistling overhead. A Special Ops Chief is standing on the berm of the irrigation ditch.
CHIEF The bullets are whistling over us. That means that they are really far away. Get out of the ditch. It would be a really lucky shot if they hit any of us.
Mark and the medic start crawling out of the ditch, but a bullet hits the Chief’s head and it unrealistically explodes. The Medic drags his body down and tries to revive him, but there’s no head left.
CUT TO: INTERIOR. HOTEL ROOM TURKEY - EARLY MORNING
Mark gets out of bed and walks to the window.
MARK (To himself) That’s not what happened.
He looks out the window. The sun is just coming up over the hills lighting downtown Izmir. There is a mosque right next to his hotel, Adhan emanates from its minarets.
CUT TO: EXTERIOR. IZMIR WATERFRONT RESTAURANTS - LATE AFTERNOON
Mark is with a group of 10 Airmen and their spouses. They are all dressed in civilian clothes. They walk past restaurants and shops stopping at several and reading the menu. People from all over the world walk past them speaking a variety of different languages. Mark looks out toward the harbor. There is a park with a strip of grass that separates the restaurants and the harbor right on the edge of the water is a walking path. People are riding bikes and walking along this path.
The horn of the ferry sounds as it pulls into port.
One of the members of the group suggests that they go into one of the restaurants, and they all walk in.
CUT TO: INTERIOR. RESTAURANT - LATE AFTERNOON
The group of ten cram around a table. Nan and hot hummus is served. Olives and charged vegetables are brought to the table. The conversations and the sounds of the restaurant are muted. Mark sits numb and emotionless. He continues to look at the waterfront as the sun sets over Izmir Bay. The streets and the walking paths continue to be filled with people from all walks of life.
More food is served. The server brings plates of midye dolma, chicken tava, whole fish, and fried shrimp and calamari.
CUT TO: EXTERIOR. DOWNTOWN IZMIR - NIGHT
The group of ten walk through downtown Izmir. They stop and look in the shops periodically. There are souvenir shops and home goods, Starbucks and Turkish coffee shops, a Victoria Secret and a Turkish store that sells burkas. There is a Catholic Monastery next to a Mosque. The group makes it back to their hotel and they all enter.
CUT TO: INTERIOR. HOTEL ROOM TURKEY - EARLY MORNING
Mark puts on his running clothes, medium short-shorts and a form fitting shirt socks and running shoes. He exits his hotel room.
CUT TO: EXTERIOR. OUTSIDE HOTEL - EARLY MORNING
Mark walks out of his hotel and shivers in the cold spring air. He looks towards the bay and starts running in that direction on the sidewalk. There are people out again, but they are mostly locals. There are a few tourists, but not many.
Mark runs a few blocks through the city toward the bay. A group of girls from the local university look him up and down and snicker. He smiles and waves back. A group of local men look at him and yell something at him.
He makes his way to the waterfront path and turns left. His feet hit the pavement hypnotically.
CUT TO: EXTERIOR. MARSHA, AFGHANISTAN - DAY
Mark is standing on the roof of a two-story house talking with his EOD team member Nick and an Interpreter. The roof is flat, and the edge of the roof rises up to about three and a half feet and it is made of concrete. There are spent 5.56 and 7.62 shell casing all over under our feet.
NICK (To Mark) So did you kill... Something in Pashto comes over the Interpreters radio.
INTERPRETER (Interrupting Nick) Get down!
All three of them drop to the roof of the house. Shell casings shifting under them. NICK What the hell was that about
INTERPRETER There was a sniper asking his commander on iCom if he could shoot at the two Americans standing on the roof. That was you two.
NICK Holy...
CUT TO: EXTERIOR. WATERFRONT PATH, IZMIR - EARLY MORNING
Mark pounds away on the pavement down the waterfront path. There is a line of trees to his right. The crowds are getting thicker as he makes his way towards a ferry. People are looking at him, but he doesn’t notice. Mark just continues running in a trance.
He presses through a crowd of people that are getting on a ferry that crosses the bay. The crowd is mostly dressed in western apparel, suits and dresses, but they are all wearing clothes that cover their arms and legs. There are a few individuals that have on more typical middle east clothing, but all of them are looking at him as Mark tries to make it through the crowd. He doesn’t notice their looks.
Mark makes it past the crowd and continues to run on the path that wraps around the bay. The crowds are gone. There are a few people walking and sitting on park benches. He looks far up the path and sees a dozen or more people walking in the distance all dressed head to toe.
The horn of the ferry sounds as it pulls into port.
Mark stops abruptly. He looks up and down the path. There is no one else running, there is no one else on a bike. He looks up and down his own body, noticing all of his exposed skin. A look of shock and fear washes over him. His body slumps as if a great weight has been put on his shoulders. He quickly turns and runs back the way he came.
He blows through the crowd, head hung low, ashamed, trying not to make eye contact. After he makes it through the crowd he looks around, and he now sees the look of shock and scandal on the young women’s faces. He sees the anger in the men’s eyes.
Mark, running as fast as he can, makes it off the path and into the main city. And is immediately stopped at a crosswalk. He stands up straight and tries to catch his breath and then starts laughing uncontrollably.
Vehicles are traveling through the streets. The orange hand telling him to stop at the cross walk turns to white. The vehicles stop and he jogs across the street and into downtown.
He makes his way towards his hotel. About 100 feet from the hotel he looks down at his feet and shakes his head not looking where he is going. An Imam (Islamic Holy Man) steps out of a mosque to his left. They run into each other. And Imam falls to the ground. They lock eyes. The man looks at Mark in shock. Mark hesitates, deciding to help him, but he turns and runs.
CUT TO: EXTERIOR. MARSHA, AFGHANISTAN - EARLY MORNING
Suddenly Mark is back in Marsha. This isn’t like the previous memories. This is a flashback. He is standing on a different roof top. There are concrete walls that rise three and half feet above the roof. They are two stories up on the southwest corner of a crossroad. To his left across a road and a canal is a building 3 stories tall. Behind him a bazaar stretches in both directions. In front of him directly below is a small one-story mosque. On the other side of the mosque running to his left and right is an alleyway with mud brick walls. On the other side of the wall is a field, with dirt that has been turned and ready for planting.
The Spec Ops Medic is kneeling to his left; they have their guns out covering the field and the alleyway. Forty-five Afghan Commandos surround the rooftop. Chief is walking around commanding everyone.
An Imam steps out of the Mosque directly below Mark. He turns around and looks up and locks eyes with Mark. He is shocked. He hesitates deciding whether or not to go back into his Mosque or run. He runs for an opening in the wall that goes into the alleyway. Chief fires two shots. The bullets impact on either side of the wall. The Commandos follow Chief’s lead and unleash a torrent of bullets toward the alley. None impact the Imam.
A moment later the Imam pops out of the end of the alley to their left near a mechanics shop. Again, the Commandos fire hundreds of bullets, none hitting the Imam. Mark steadies his M-4 on the wall and looks through his ACOG placing the chevron three feet away from the edge of the wall of the opposite side of the mechanic’s shop.
The Imam hooks around the shop and as soon as Mark sees him, he squeezes his trigger. The Imam falls behind the wall of the alley and cannot be seen.
SPEC OPS MEDIC Wow! You got ‘em.
MARK I guess I did. (beat) I got ‘em.
Mark turns around and slouches against the wall. He puts his head in his hands. He closes his eyes and sees the eyes of the Imam filled with fear.
He raises his head.
CUT TO: INTERIOR. HOTEL ROOM TURKEY - MORNING
Mark is back in his hotel room sitting on his bed, drenched in sweat. He raises his head out of his hands and looks around shocked that he is back in his room. He looks down at his hands. They are visibly shaking.
He looks around his room and finds his phone. He calls a friend, Wilde shows up as the contact of the screen.
The phone rings four times.
WILDE (VOICE OVER) (groggy) Hello.
MARK Hey, Wilde, it’s Mark. Did I wake you?
CUT TO: INTERIOR. WILDE’S BEDROOM - NIGHT
Wilde is in bed, he reaches over and turns on his bedside table lamp. His wife is asleep next to him.
WILDE (A little more awake) Yeah, man but that’s fine. What’s going on?
MARK (VOICE OVER) What time is it there?
WILDE I think it’s midnight, but it doesn’t matter. I’m here for you. You still in Turkey?
Wilde walks out of his bedroom.
CUT TO: INTERIOR. HOTEL ROOM TURKEY - MORNING
Mark stands up from the bed and walks around his room.
MARK Yeah, I’m about halfway done.
WILDE (VOICE OVER) Fifteen months huh? That is rough. I don’t think that I could spend that much time away from my family.
MARK It has been hard, but there have been some really good things too. I think the hardest part is that I had to miss my daughter’s birth.
CUT TO: INTERIOR. WILDE’S KITCHEN - NIGHT
Wilde walks into his kitchen and grabs a glass of water.
WILDE Yeah, I saw on FaceBook that you guys had another one. You didn’t get to make it back?
MARK (VOICE OVER) No, I probably could have, but Sarah gave birth two months after I got here, and I didn’t want to use my mid-tour so early. I think I’m going to go home in July. That way I can be there for my boys’ birthdays. (Beat)
WILDE So, why did you call? You don’t just usually call out of the blue. Honestly, I haven’t heard from you for over a year.
CUT TO: INTERIOR. HOTEL ROOM TURKEY - MORNING
Mark continues to pace his hotel room.
MARK I had a dream last night and then this morning I did something stupid.
WILDE (VOICE OVER) What did you do?
MARK I went for a run in my short shorts in a Muslim nation.
CUT TO: INTERIOR. WILDE’S KITCHEN - NIGHT
Wilde sits at his kitchen table.
WILDE That is pretty stupid. And you aren’t dead?
CUT TO: INTERIOR. HOTEL ROOM TURKEY - MORNING
MARK Yeah, I guess that is the silver lining.
CUT TO: INTERIOR. WILDE’S KITCHEN - NIGHT
WILDE What was the dream about?
CUT TO: INTERIOR. HOTEL ROOM TURKEY - MORNING
Mark sits down on his bed.
MARK Marsha.
CUT TO: INTERIOR. WILDE’S KITCHEN - NIGHT
Wilde closes his eyes.
CUT TO: EXTERIOR. MARSHA, AFGHANISTAN - DAY
Quick flashes of Wilde and a couple of ODA members and dozens of Afghan Commandos in an Afghan village going from house to house kicking in doors, a fire fight, Wilde putting a block of C-4 on an IED particularly exposed in a mud wall and then a large explosion, a medical helicopter flying into the village.
CUT TO: INTERIOR. WILDE’S KITCHEN - NIGHT
Wilde opens his eyes and rubs his face.
WILDE Yeah (beat) I dream about that one too. Was it the old man again, that Imam?
CUT TO: INTERIOR. HOTEL ROOM TURKEY - MORNING
Mark sits down on his bed.
MARK I bet you do.
CUT TO: INTERIOR. MARSHA, AFGHANISTAN - EARLY MORNING
Mark stands on the rooftop surrounded by Afghan Commandos and ODA members he hears a distant explosion and looks to the west and sees a mushroom cloud rising in the distance.
MARK (VOICE OVER) I remember when you guys set off that one IED. We had no idea if you had tripped it or someone on your team or if you had set it off trying to disarm it. I just remember hearing the explosion and then looking west. The cloud from the detonation was already hanging in the air. It hung there for so long, just taunting me that it could be the aftermath of a friend’s death. I was so glad to see you guys two days later when we got back.
A helicopter flies into the village in the distance near where the explosion had gone off.
CUT TO: INTERIOR. WILDE’S KITCHEN - NIGHT
Wilde sits at his table.
WILDE We were glad to see you too. There was so much that happened on that mission. It’s amazing that any of us made it out alive. Was the dream about the old man?
CUT TO: INTERIOR. HOTEL ROOM TURKEY - MORNING
Mark stands up and walks around his room.
MARK Yes, when I woke up this morning I was sweating. I knew I had been dreaming about something, but I couldn’t remember what. So, I went for a run and the dream started coming back to me. Chief died in the dream.
WILDE (VOICE OVER) But he didn’t in real life, right?
MARK No, I don’t know where that came from. But then I realized all these people were staring at me while I was running in my ‘underwear.’ (I just used air quotes.)
WILDE (VOICE OVER) I heard them.
CUT TO: INTERIOR. WILDE’S KITCHEN - NIGHT
Wilde sits at his table.
MARK (VOICE OVER) So, I turned around and rushed back to my hotel room.
WILDE Wait, you are in a hotel. Where are you at?
MARK (VOICE OVER) Oh yeah, I didn’t tell you. I am on a trip with the chapel. We are doing a tour of the Seven Churches of Revelation.
CUT TO: INTERIOR. HOTEL ROOM TURKEY - MORNING
Mark walks around his room.
WILDE (VOICE OVER) Wow! Really, that must be pretty amazing.
MARK We will see. I expect it to be, but we have only been to Ephesus and that was amazing in and of itself. So, to get back to what happened. I was running back to my hotel room, and I was less than a block away when I ran into an Imam. I was back there on that roof in Afghanistan. And you know the story.
WILDE (VOICE OVER) Was the battle damage assessment in your dream?
CUT TO: EXTERIOR. MARSHA, AFGHANISTAN - EARLY MORNING
In a dream state, Mark, the Scep Ops Medic, and five Afghan Commandos walk down the alley where they had fired at the Imam. They walk around the mechanics shop and look behind the wall where the Imam fell. There is a rotting corpse. He is lying face up. There is a large blood stain on his white man dress, but it is dark brown. His eyes are missing.
SPEC OPS MEDIC I guess you got ‘em.
CUT TO: INTERIOR. WILDE’S KITCHEN - NIGHT
Wilde sits at his table.
WILDE Wait, I don’t need to know all the gory details. You did do a BDA in real life though, right?
MARK (VOICE OVER) Yes.
WILDE And you didn’t find anything, right?
CUT TO: EXTERIOR. MARSHA, AFGHANISTAN - EARLY MORNING
In reality state. Mark, the Medic, and Commandos stand over the area where the body was and there is nothing. The Medic looks at Mark.
SPEC OPS MEDIC I guess you didn’t get ‘em.
CUT TO: INTERIOR. HOTEL ROOM TURKEY - MORNING
Mark sits down on his bed.
MARK Yeah, that’s right. Absolutely nothing, no blood trail, nothing.
WILDE (VOICE OVER) Why do you think that you are obsessing about this operation?
MARK I have shot two bullets in combat. One was that day. I watched the man fall.
WILDE (VOICE OVER) But you didn’t kill him.
Mark stands up and walks around his hotel room.
MARK How do you know that?
CUT TO: INTERIOR. WILDE’S KITCHEN - NIGHT
Wilde sits at his table.
WILDE Because you guys did a BDA and there was no body, there and no blood trail.
CUT TO: EXTERIOR. MARSHA, AFGHANISTAN - EARLY MORNING
In a dream state. The Imam lays on the ground blood seeping over his white man dress. A local villager runs up to him behind the wall and grabs his arms and drags him back towards the village.
CUT TO: INTERIOR. HOTEL ROOM TURKEY - MORNING
Mark sits on his bed.
MARK That doesn’t mean anything. He could have crawled away. Someone could have come and grabbed him.
CUT TO: EXTERIOR. MARSHA, AFGHANISTAN - EARLY MORNING
In reality state. (From the Imam’s perspective) The Imam runs around the mechanic’s shops. As soon as he rounds the corner a bullet cracks over his head. He trips and falls behind the wall. He quickly gets up, dusts himself off and sprints toward the village.
CUT TO: INTERIOR. WILDE’S KITCHEN - NIGHT
Wilde sits at his table.
WILDE Or he could have just tripped at the same time that you shot at him. You know how it is to get shot at. You hit the deck so quick that sometimes it seems like you are shot.
MARK (VOICE OVER) But he was a holy man, why did I shoot at him in the first place? He was unarmed.
WILDE You know what the ROE was for that mission. Plus, we do stupid things in the heat of battle. I understand why you are upset, but you need to stop beating yourself up over this one.
CUT TO: INTERIOR. HOTEL ROOM TURKEY - MORNING
Mark sits on his bed, exhausted.
MARK I know. Just when I ran into that guy today it all just came flooding back. I just feel this crushing feeling of regret and doubt and anger at myself for doing such a thing.
WILDE (VOICE OVER) Remember what you talked to me about six months after we got home from that deployment (beat) after Sergeant Chatwin was killed?
CUT TO: INTERIOR. WILDE’S KITCHEN - NIGHT (PRESENT)
MARK (VOICE OVER) Yeah, I do. Wilde exhales hard.
WILDE (Quite, raw) You said that you were in a bad place. Something about a wall between you and your wife… and nothing that could break it down. Your heart was hard and hers was getting harder every day.
FLASH IMAGE - PAST KITCHEN
Pomegranate on the counter. Split open. Red and wet.
BACK TO PRESENT
Wilde paces.
WILDE And then that thing with pomegranate that I’ll never really understand
MARK (VOICE OVER) (Interrupting) Johnston’s body was thrown into a pomegranate orchard.
WILDE Yeah. Whatever. Let me finish.
He grips the back of a chair. His knuckles white
WILDE You had your episode and this shit came spilling out. The pain. The hurt. The guilt. And it wasn’t just over Chat… or Johnston… or the mission where Sergeant McDaniels was killed back in ‘07.
FLASH IMAGES - AFGHANISTAN QUICK CUTS
- Helmet hitting dirt
- A gloved hand dragging a wounded man
- An Airman tries to extinguish a burning body with a fire extinguisher
- A stretcher rising into a helicopter
- The alleyway in Marsha, empty
BACK TO PRESENT - WILDE
He sinks into his chair, shaking his head.
WILDE It was all of it, what they asked us to do. We were so young. His breathing gets shallow. He reaches toward an empty place on the table.
FLASH IMAGE - WILDE KITCHEN PAST - EVENING
A bullet sits on the table where his present hand just reached. 19DEC09 is written on it sharpy. He puts it in a magazine and slams it into his pistol.
His phone sitting on the table vibrates.
Mark’s name lights up the screen.
Wilde recoils like it’s hot.
WILDE (Shouting) Fuck!
He picks up the phone - goes to throw it - stops himself - forces his breathing to slow.
WILDE (Rough, shaky) What do you want?
CUT TO: INTERIOR. HOTEL ROOM TURKEY - MORNING
Mark sits on his bed listening quietly.
WILDE (VOICE OVER) But the one thing that you said to me (beat) was that if it wasn’t for the pain, you would’ve never have tried to make sense of all this. You were numbing yourself in some stupid ways. Trying to bury that pain and guilt so deep (beat) but it was still there. You felt the wall.
FLASH IMAGE - MARK’S PAST
- Mark holding a beer alone in the dark.
- Mark staring at a closed bedroom door.
- Mark in bed with his wife there backs to each other.
BACK TO PRESENT - WILDE’S KITCHEN
Wilde paces in a slow circle.
WILDE Then your marriage was doing so much better. You stopped drinking. And I didn’t get it. I really don’t, man. But you were finally making sense of shit.
He stops walking and sits down at the table.
WILDE And it clicked for you. Jesus had already taken that pain and guilt. (Long beat) And somehow I saw that sacrifice and connected it to when Tony was killed. He stepped on that IED. It could have been me. But he gave his life for me for the whole team.
FLASH IMAGE - AFGHANISTAN
- Tony laughing
- Tony clearing into a compound with a mine detector.
- A deafening blast.
- Dust swallowing the frame.
FLASH IMAGE - WILDE KITCHEN PAST - EVENING
Wilde sets the phone down and drops the magazine out of the gun, pulls the bullet out of the magazine and puts it in his pocket.
BACK TO PRESENT - WILDE
Wilde wipes his eyes. He stands up from the table… crosses the kitchen. He opens a cupboard and pulls an empty whiskey bottle hidden deep in the cupboard.
WILDE That is when it turned around for you (beat) And that is when it turned around for me too.
It rattles as he pulls it from its hiding place. The EOD badge is engraved on the bottle. He uncorks it and dumps the bullet with 19Dec09 written on it into his hand.
WILDE Seeing how you found meaning. And it was actually working. It actually fucking worked. Your marriage got better. (softer) You’ve done the work, you’re doing the work.
CUT TO: INTERIOR. HOTEL ROOM TURKEY - MORNING
Mark sits on the edge of the bed. A tear runs down Mark’s cheek.
MARK Thanks man. I’ll try and take that in. But… honestly? I think that it is going to take me a lifetime to just start comprehending God’s love. (beat) And I’m supposed to share at the church we are visiting today. And I am falling apart. (smiles through tears) I knew you’d kick my ass.
CUT TO: INTERIOR. WILDE’S KITCHEN - NIGHT (Present)
Wilde sits again, calmer.
WILDE No, problem. What else are friends for?
He drops the bullet back into the whisky bottle. It clatters when it hits the bottom. Wilde finally smiles.
MARK (VOICE OVER) What was that?
WILDE Nothing, man. (beat) Now tell me… how fast did you run back to the hotel? Because you were quick under normal circumstances?
CUT TO: INTERIOR. HOTEL ROOM TURKEY - MORNING
Mark laughs softly.
MARK Pretty fast. I was so embarrassed once I figured out what I had done. (beat) Alright, I gotta go.
Mark hangs up. He sits still as he stairs across the room. The city noises seep into his room growing louder and louder.
CUT TO: INTERIOR. WILDE’S KITCHEN - NIGHT (Present)
The silence is jarring. Wilde walks over to the cupboard and hides the whisky bottle back in its place. Be slams the cupboard shut.
FADE OUT ON SILENCE: