SYNOPSIS

High above the trees, a beautiful, color-filled day, birds singing, nearly idyllic. We gently glide down to find a Man, walking along a tree-lined path. He is beyond content, totally present in this solitary moment,  hearing the bird-song over head in the trees, feeling the breeze on each inch of his skin. A perfect presence.

Then: a gunshot. As a group of birds immediately scatter frantically from the trees in front of our Man, the visual world, just as immediately, now in completely de-saturated black and white, slows to a barely perceptible trudge: birds halt in mid flight, trees sway at a glacial pace, an eery stillness. The Man looks down at his hands, to see if they move normally. They do. He seems to be the only one able to move freely in this nearly frozen moment. He sees the stillness in front of him. He takes in the world around him. But sensing he's not alone he turns completely around to look behind him. Then, a look of knowing disbelief and recognition on his face. As we shift perspective, we now see the Man from a distance, from the point of view of who, or what rather, he recognizes, an unknown yet familiar foe: a bullet. No gun, no gunman. Just a bullet, quasi-frozen in mid-flight, spinning slowly, vapor trail in tow.

He begins to sing. As he does, he moves in towards the bullet. As it continues to spin and inch forward ever so slowly, the Man walks around the bullet, getting a unique, up-close perspective. He circles it, studies it, taunts it.

As the Man continues to sing, he realizes the bullet is moving to where he was first standing, the kill-spot, the finality of this moment starting to sink in. With both anger and dread in his tone, he walks beside the bullet, almost guiding it to its intended target.

As he steps back in front of the bullet, backing slowly into his original position, he begins his final, frantic, repetitive mantra. Now, the scene shifts back and forth between images of the Man and moments of the bullet’s previous interactions: a bullet-riddled traffic sign, a bloody, lifeless rabbit, kids running away from a school, the Kennedy motorcade, infantry-men from WWI, mothers crying, flesh ripping, blood spilling; a visual cacophony.

As the music and images slowly dissipate, we are left with just the Man. He rips open his shirt, chest heaving, laid bare and vulnerable. There is a stillness, an uneasy quiet; just our Hero’s breath.

Finally, with a look of resigned disbelief, he whispers his final command: “Here.”

Silence.

Then: Gunshot. The same one we heard just minutes ago. Immediately, we are high above the trees again, in full color, the birds scatter in real time.

As the world continues to turn, we are left here, in this stillness, silent witnesses above a canopy of trees that cover the hidden death below.