Chapter Ten – Shizuku's Vision

A 3/4 front view of a black car driving along. Streetlamps and trees go by, other traffic passes in the opposite direction. The car is driving on the right hand side of the road. Seiji and Shizuku can just be glimpsed in the back seat, Shizuku behind the driver. Nondescript light industrial buildings are behind them. Its growing dark now, the sun has set.

Cut to:

Shizuku looking out the window. She's tired but also eager to see her first Italian city. Trouble is this area of Milan is a poor advertisement for Italy as a whole. Factories go by, warehouses with lorries parked outside, anonymous office buildings. The light industrial quarter of Milan is pretty crappy; as uninspiring as the light industrial quarter of everywhere else in the world.

Shizuku: "Seiji, was this taxi sent by the school? Does it take us all the way to Cremona?"
Seiji: "No, oh no. We're catching a train. Grandpa arranged the taxi transfer, students have to make their own way to the school. The train ride is about an hour so you can take a nap then."
Shizuku: "Uhnnn, 'Kay. I just wanna be there already."

Shizuku turns her attention back out of the window. The car is entering a city centre area now and there are many derelict and boarded up factories. It looks like a site earmarked for land clearance and redevelopment. For no apparent reason Shizuku's eyes widen and she winds down her window.

Shizuku: "Hey, did we drive in a circle?"
Seiji: "What?"
Shizuku: "It feels as though I've been here before. The driver isn't doubling back to make more money or something is he?"
Seiji (concerned): "I don't think so."

Shizuku has her head almost out the window now.

Seiji: "Signore – uh - sa dov'è la stazione?"
Driver: "Si, si."
Seiji: "He says the station is this way."
Shizuku: "There's a canal up here."
Seiji (not that interested): "Really?"
Shizuku: "No, I mean I know there's a canal up here, and a stone bridge over it."
Seiji: "What are you on about? Are you writing a book aloud now?"
Shizuku: "Seiji, this is weird. I know that this street crosses a canal by a stone bridge. There's factories down below. I know. I've been here before."
Seiji: "Could be, lots of factories round here."
Shizuku (to herself, a little afraid): "What's happening to me?"
Shizuku (to the driver): "Tassista? Mi scusi, ci sono dei canali qui?"
Driver: "Si, si, ce n'è uno vecchio – abbandonato?"
Seiji: "Did he say old?"
Shizuku: "Here it is, what did I tell you?"

Cut to:

Outside view of the taxi passing one last boarded up old brick warehouse and crossing onto a bridge, the bridge is wide with filthy plate girder side walls painted a dull rusty red. It's dark now. There are streetlights along the edge of the bridge. The car slows down, in fact the whole scene slows down to slow-motion. The taxi passes out from under a pool of lamp light into an unlit area on the middle of the bridge.

Cut to:

Shizuku's face, close up from outside the car and a little behind. We see her in left profile. Her hair is blowing in the wind but in slow-motion, each strand lifting and waving gently. Time is stopping. Suddenly her face, the side of the car and the road it's travelling along are lit by full sunshine. It's not like a light switch coming on but the light grows slowly as though a door is being gradually opened. The area of light begins with Shizuku's face and grows like an ink-stain encompassing the car, then the road surface, then the side of the bridge. As the road surface and bridge side are illuminated, they change. It's not dazzling bright light but the diffused light from a warm cloudy day. Shizuku sharply draws breath. Both her hands come up and grip the car door.

Shizuku: "Oh. Oh, my God…" (her eyes grow even wider in shock).

Cut to an outside view of just above the taxi and on Seiji's side of it so we can see a wider view of what Shizuku sees. It's full daylight. The bridge they are slowly crossing is surfaced now with stone cobbles. The balustrade is stone pillars, ornately carved and with a stone handrail. There are no streetlights. Below the bridge is a wide clear canal, to the right is a dirt roadway. Travelling away from us along the roadway is an old fashioned brown lorry made up of a tractor unit and a flat bed trailer. It jostles down the unmade road raising dust. To the right of the road is a wire fence and beyond that an overgrown derelict plot. But it's to the left of the canal that our attention is drawn. Factories line the canal. They are not derelict but alive, working. They are of tin construction and painted pale green. One section is a saw-toothed roof of glass. At the far end a tall old style brick chimney vents dirty smoke into a sky of hazy blue. Along the canal-facing wall of one building is painted the name PICCOLO SpA.

Cut to:

Shizuku's face, her gaping mouth and wide eyes tell us all we need to know.

Cut to:

Inside the taxi. We see Seiji lean forwards to peer out Shizuku's window. He moves in slow motion. The back of his head is visible to the right, Shizuku's head to the left hanging out the window. Beyond the two heads we see darkness, the dirty bridge side, derelict factories in the distance.

Seiji: "What?"

Cut to:

The view from outside and above the taxi again from Seiji's side. Beyond the bridge it's dark. We see a muddy ditch full of weeds and shopping trolleys. The roadway is choked with undergrowth. To the right there is a clear concrete space with a modern steel famed single storey warehouse on it. Lines of modern trucks have their trailers backed up to loading bays. In the distance to the left all is dereliction. The taxi passes from the pool of darkness into the pool of light from the next street lamp. The slow-motion effect is slipping away and the taxi accelerates again back to real time.

Cut to:

A view down from the bridge parapet in daylight. A motor barge comes out from under the bridge, its old engine makes a low and slow erratic chugging. We just glimpse the bow come into view and some tarpaulin covered hatches. By now the brown lorry has reached the factory. Dust hangs in the air along the unmade road.

Cut to:

Shizuku's face in profile looking out the taxi. This view is from beside the driver's side window and we are looking back at her right profile. The scene is still lit and we hear the barge's motor but then the light begins to fade, first from the bridge then the roadway then the side of the car until finally only Shizuku's face is warmed by the summer sun of 60 years ago.

Shizuku: "No, don't go."

The light is gone. The harsh light of a streetlamp lights her face casting deep shadow under her brows, nose and chin. The taxi passes off the bridge and the scene is cut off by a building.

Cut to:

Outside view of the taxi driving along modern streets, traffic passing the other way.

Cut to:

Inside the taxi looking back from the drivers seat. Seiji sits back in his seat, looking at Shizuku with concern. Shizuku is still looking back behind the taxi. She lets go of the car door and turns to look out the rear window. It's dark back there, only streetlamps. She turns round and looks down, she's tightly clasping her hands in her lap. A warm breeze comes in the open window and ruffles her hair.

Cut to:

Close up of her face. There is wetness at her lower eyelids.

Seiji: "What was it?"
Shizuku: "I… I'm not sure."

Cut to:

Seiji's face in close up. He looks worried.

Cut to:

Shizuku's face.

Shizuku: "It was daytime, a long time ago. There was a boat on the canal, men working in the factories."

She turns to Seiji.

Shizuku: "Can jet lag cause hallucinations Seiji?"
Seiji: "Not that I know of."
Seiji: "Come here, you must be exhausted."

Cut to:

Inside the taxi looking back from the drivers seat. Seiji reaches out for her and Shizuku crumples into his arms, lifting her clasped hands to her chest in a worried knot. She rests her forehead on his shoulder.

Cut to:

Outside view of the taxi driving along. It's just another summer evening in Milan.