"How was Sylvia doing?"

"She was doing fabulous. You should see how great she was on the stage."
Helping me putting on "I Love NY" T-shirt Don got for me, he told me all the exciting things he did with Sylvia in New York. But his face wasn't beaming with joy. I could tell something was bothering him, so I decided to make it easier for him.

"What did Sylvia say about your script?"

 

At the very moment I asked, Don overflew with his emotion.

"I never thought she was that impatient. She kept asking me questions at every single line in my script. I told her to be patient and keep reading so that she would find all the answers reveal toward the end of the script. She didn't listen."

Don was mad. Furious.

"But your scrip is 300 page long..."

"Doesn't matter! You don't read any books backward, do you? The first chapter should take the readers to an unknown world. They don't need to understand everything in the beginning. "

"Maybe she couldn't wait until she gets to the page 300."

"That's why I am saying she is impatient! I even offered her to leave a copy so that she could enjoy exploring the story, but she said  if she doesn`t know what she is reading in the beginning, she wouldn't read it. What does that mean?"

I was discouraged to find Sylvia was hard on Don's script and I felt very disappointed about Sylvia.

"Then she criticized Hollywood going for only money and lecturing me how artists in New York are different from those who pursue only profits in Hollywood. Seems like she completely forgot the fact that she was born in Burbank and raised in North Hollywood! I'll tell Mrs.Malchovich New York is not good for Sylvia. It must be normal in New York to be impatient and critical. New York contaminated her."

I saw Don tightly clenching his fists on his laps with anger.

"Did Sylvia read the chapter where Robert meets the Princess Sun Shine?"

I asked Don, hoping to find at least one positive feedback from Sylvia. 

"No.We didn't even get there. "

Then Don's voice became weak in despair. 

"Sylvia kept asking me what the killer Global Warming was. She laughed at my idea of the killer Global Warming. She said such a creature was hard to accept. She told me replacing it with GOZIRA would make more sense."

Don's clenched fists got loosen and his shoulders slumped in discouragement. His disappointment came over me. With his head down, Don went on.

"The killer Global Warming is an invisible monster created by human beings.It was supposed to make their lives easier. But it turned out to be a monster and began to destroy the earth. People had no idea what they had created and they even underestimated a warning of this coming. They have got to pay for the consequence. Then Sylvia claimed my script has too many cruel death and too many explosions, which is, according to her, the easiest way to capture the attentions from the audience. She said, instead of letting them emotionally engage into the plot, I went for the easiest way, which won't reach their hearts and stay with them for long. That's what she was saying."

Don fell in silence again. He looked defeated.

 

 Having known how excited and nervous Don was about sharing his script with Sylvia, I began to upset about Sylvia's being so insensitive to Don's feelings.

"She doesn't get it!"

 I shouted with anger.

"I know."

We stayed quiet for a while to calm ourselves down.

                                  

 

Then Don turned his head and asked ,

"Have you ever seen something unbelievably beautiful? Something that makes you wonder how they are created and where they come from? "

Don opened the cabinet at his feet and took several books out of it. All of the books laid out on the counter were about the earth, the planets and the universe, showing the beautiful photos of them. Some of them were showing the amazing beauty of nature on the earth, too. Turning each page, Don taught me what each of the planets was called and which one we lived and what a beautiful plant we were living.

"When you look at this, you know we are very tiny living creatures on one of the planets. But we act like we are the only ones who have a power and knowledge to control everything. We think we own them, but we don't.We've been busy with thinking about how to make only our lives convenient. All the things God created are losing its balance because of us. I wasn't making any jokes by creating the killer Global Warming. I wasn't creating the explosions and the cruel death just to capture the attentions from the audience. We see bombings and cruel death in news all the time in our real lives. We have to realize how horrible monsters we are becoming."

Don closed the book and said in a sad tone, "Sometimes I wonder where we are heading to.Our purpose being here is sharing the earth with all the living creatures with harmony and appreciating the beauty of the earth. How simple is that?"

I wondered if Don shared this with Sylvia in the way he just did with me. But I assumed he didn't. Probably Don got mad at Sylvia's asking too many questions, and Sylvia got mad at Don's getting mad , which made Don more mad. Then things fell apart between them in New York. I assumed that's what happened.

But I understood what Don was saying and I trusted what he believed.

 

"Thanks for your faith. You know what? Creating the Princess Sunshine was a bad idea after all. She distracted a leading character, Robert, from his true mission of saving the earth. Deleting her will help me shorten another 100 pages. Gone Baby, Gone."