(CONTINUED)

INT. BUSY CAFE - DAY

Two worn hands reach into a bag to gather a notebook and
pencil. Next to these objects in the bag is a book,
titled "Sydney" written by Gordon Brown. The cover is
blue and worn, read many times by a dedicated reader. The
spine of the book has the title and an image of a pair of
glasses.
JOHN (mid-late 20's) places these items in front of him
on the table. His blue eyes eclipsed by glasses look up
from the notebook, now opened, to spy a waitress coming
to greet him, menu in hand.
WAITRESS
What'll it be today?
John makes a low, throat-clearing grunt.
JOHN
Camomile. With honey.
The waitress leaves briskly, leaving the menu on the
corner of the table. John focuses on the menu, moves it
to his side of the table, then looks up as his eyes
follow the waitress back to the counter. Before she gets
there, John sees a MAN (mid 20's) out of the corner of
his eye. The man enters the cafe and sits down about 20
feet away. The man looks to be a similar build to John,
the same hunched shoulders and the same square face. The
man appears strangely familiar to John, which is shown by
the shocked look on John's face.
The man is sitting in a near by lounge-chair with a small
table at his feet. John plays with the glasses on his
face while he watches the man reach into his bag and pull
out a pair of glasses and a book, which he begins to
read. The book is titled "Sydney" written by Gordon
Brown, the copy also worn, much alike John's.
The waitress arrives at the man sitting in the armchair
and asks him for his order. John cannot hear this, but it
is implied. John does faintly hear the mans reply.
MAN
Camomile. With honey.
The man smiles at the waitress as she leaves. While the
man is still looking up, John hesitantly raises his hand
to wave at the man. The man doesn't see John as he looks
back down and goes back to his book.
2
(CONTINUED)
CONTINUED:
Without taking offence to this, John begins to sketch in
his notebook, the figure he draws begins to the take the
form of the man. John flicks his fingers before his eyes
to measure the length of the mans face and to identify
the curves of the way the man is sitting. John readjusts
his glasses many times while doing this.
John is forming the basic outline of the man in his book
when the waitress returns with his tea. John is flustered
by the interruption, as he huffs he makes room on the
table for his beverage.
As the waitress places John's tea down, John goes to pass
her the menu which she had left before. The waitress
promptly spills the tea on Johns notebook and John drops
the menu to the floor to try and stop the cup from
falling. As John leans down to pick up the menu, his
glasses fall from his face to the floor. The waitress
steps back and smashes Johns glasses under her foot in
the process.
John lets out a gasp.
The waitress drops to the floor and picks up the menu,
placing it on the corner of the table and leaves Johns
glasses in pieces on the floor.
WAITRESS
Oh my God! Oh dear! I am so
sorry. I'm so sorry, here let me
help.
The waitress gathers napkins to dry John's book. John
pushes her hands away from his drawing.
JOHN
Please stop.
The waitress scurries off, highly embarrassed. She is in
such a rush that she leaves the menu on the corner of the
table.
John takes up the tea-soaked napkins and attempts to dry
his sketch of the man. The drawing is smudged. John leans
into the book as he struggles to see without his glasses.
John lets out another sigh.
John looks down at his broken glasses and leans down to
pick them up. The frame and the glass are disgruntled. He
places the remains of his glasses on the table in front
3
(CONTINUED)
CONTINUED:
of him next to the notebook. Playing with the glasses,
John gives up and drops them to the table.
John puts his head in his hands in distress. John peers
through his fingers to see an object ahead of him.
Struggling, John see's that the menu is still on the
table. He leans forward as he struggles to see without
his glasses.
John lets out a sigh.
John leans in again and looks back to his drawing in the
notebook, smudged and wet. He looks up and finds that he
cannot see the man he was watching before. He leans
forward, however this still doesn't allow him to focus on
his subject.
John rubs his eyes and runs his fingers through his hair;
he looks again. The man is still a blur.
John's hands snap back to his bag on the floor and lifts
up the book which he hadn't picked up before. The book
labelled "Sydney" is placed on top of the ruined drawing,
next to the shattered glasses. John leans in to look
closely at the cover, his fingers tracing the drawing of
the glasses on the front.
As John lets out a light, sad sigh, he lifts one of the
larger fragments of glass to his eye. Looking through the
fragment of glass gives John a glimpse into his old,
clear vision. He turns his head, with the glass still to
his eye and looks through. This allows John to see the
man sitting in the chair. The man is drinking his tea and
reading his book. He has barely moved.
John moves the reading book aside to reveal his drawing
and flips a couple of pages to show blank, unstained
pages. John keeps the piece of glass to his eye and
begins a new sketch of the man in his notebook. John
keeps using his fingers to measure the man in the
distance through the broken glass, pressing pencil to
paper and using the tea for shading in his sketch.
Although John moves quickly, he is forming a very precise
drawing of the man by the window.
After completing his drawing, John signs the bottom of
the page. John picks up the book he was fingering before
and flips it to see the back. John (still glass to eye)
leans in to view the back of the book, which is blue and
shows a short blurb. At the bottom of the page is a
4
(CONTINUED)
CONTINUED:
photograph which, to John, appears blurry. John
repositions his glass shard and views the mans face with
great precision. John then looks back to his drawing.
They are the same man.
John then downs his tea and stands up, ripping the drawn
page out of his notebook. John folds his drawing in half
and writes something on the fold. He takes both the page,
the shard of glass and the book "Sydney" with him as he
gets up and hesitantly walks to the man sitting in the
lounge-chair. The man who has not looked up from reading
his book and sipping his tea.
John is standing before the man.
John makes a deep, throat-clearing grunt.
The man looks up from his book, surprised to see a man
before him.
JOHN
Gordon Brown, so very nice to
meet you.
John extends his hand to the man sitting in the chair,
drawing in hand. The man looks mildly confused.
Accepting the drawing, the man unfolds the paper and
studies the sketch within. He adjusts his glasses and
looks between the drawing and John many times, wearing a
humorously perplexed expression. John shifts his weight
from foot to foot, uncomfortable with the situation and
the time it has taken for the man to say anything.
MAN
(Smiling)
I think you may have me mistaken.
John has not use the glass shard since walking to the
man. He fishes through his pocket clumsily and places the
shard to his eye. On closer inspection, the man by the
window looks differently to before. The colouring of the
man and the ageing of his face are completely different
to his previous vision.
The man re-folds John's sketch and holds it out for John
to accept. The man's expression has changed from bemused
to worried.
5 CONTINUED:
JOHN
I am terribly sorry... I could
have sworn you were someone
else...
John moves his hands up to his face and rubs his eyes,
sore from squinting and without another word, turns
around and heads back to his table.
As John sits down at his table he unfolds his paper note.
The picture drawn on the piece of paper is a portrait of
John himself.
THE END