Lip Service

I listen attentively to the French professor’s voice, slowly annunciating the question and scanning the room for an eager student, I follow his gaze and see her sitting in the front row. Plaid black and red skirt resting on her perfectly tanned legs, the top two unbuttoned buttons of her shirt tempt my gaze onto her chest and the professor’s voice fades into a background that didn’t exist a split second ago,

I’m mesmerized by her mouth. Her hand guards the professor’s view of her lips as she practices the French phrase silently to herself. Her forefinger rests just above the upper lip in a thoughtful pose and I can see the texture of her lips, the tiny hairs on her finger catch the glint of the light as my eyesight seems to miraculously improve and find a previously unknown precision of focus. I watch her lips move slowly, intentionally, forming the unfamiliar movements of brand new words. Involuntarily my breath deepens and slows, I watch as her thumb gently grazes her parting lips and now notice the detail on her polished thumbnail next to the shape of her upper lips.

My eyelids lower and close ever so slowly, the longest blink of my life sears the image on my mind, I breath out and as I open my eyes she’s still there, now bringing her bottom lip underneath the top and into her mouth and I can tell she’s about to wet her lips and practice the phrase again. She lets the tip of her tongue touch the knuckle of her thumb and mouths the words.  A string of spittle clings to her upper lip and then stretches and breaks as she opens her mouth, her tongue retreats into her mouth and as she feels the spit she quickly closes her mouth, purses and licks her lips clean of any excess, looks at her thumb to see if any got on her finger and then raises her hand to utter the phrase for the professor and the class. I don’t hear a word, none of my other senses work, sight jealously claims this moment as it’s exclusive property, shares it only with the memory, and I know I’ll never forget the gorgeous scene of young curly haired brunette silently practicing her French in the front row.

BLVD

A socially awkward, depressed man fakes a heroin addiction to get out of his office job and into a recovery program.

Frustrated with his life as office worker, a man decides to fake a heroin addiction to con his employer and insurance company into paying him to go to recovery.

Dean is lonely, depressed, and trudging aimlessly through his life as an office worker, exasperated and stressed-out he decides he cannot struggle on and decides to kill himself.  At the critical moment, he realizes he lacks the courage to commit suicide and stumbles upon an idea that will change his life and take him on an unexpected journey through the world of addiction, recovery, and the search for the meaning of life.  He fakes a heroin addiction and checks himself into a residential recovery clinic; he admits the "truth" of his “hidden” addiction to his family and friends and begins a year of "recovery.” 

Dean is lonely, depressed, and trudging aimlessly through his life as an office worker, exasperated and stressed-out he decides he cannot struggle on and decides to kill himself.  At the critical moment, he realizes he lacks the courage to commit suicide and stumbles upon an idea that will change his life and take him on an unexpected journey through the world of addiction, recovery, and the search for the meaning of life.  He fakes a heroin addiction and checks himself into a residential recovery clinic; he admits the "truth" of his “hidden” addiction to his family and friends and begins a year of "recovery.” Relating to other addicts at their most vulnerable, he goes through therapy, sober living, treatment and reintegration into society all the while hiding his true self and motives from everyone around him

Logline: Finding cubicle life in corporate America meaningless and empty, Dean wants to die, but lacking the courage to kill himself he decides to fake a heroin addiction hoping to pull off an insurance scam that will keep his paychecks rolling in while he begins his quest for a purpose in life.

In the blackness of Dean’s dreaming thoughts, the words “Everything is Meaningless” swirl in wispy circles like cirrus clouds, they form a whitening whirlpool and POP! Dean wakes up with a jump and walks directly to the kitchen, pours and swallows a whiskey shot and pours another; the clock reads 7:33 AM.  He blinks and in fast forward, he visualizes last night: She smiled and asked: “Hey, so when are we all going to have that ‘picnic on ice’ you were talking about?” WIth a racing mind and suddenly sweaty palms Dean looks to his friend for help, he has no idea who she is, “Yeah, bro I thought you were setting that up?” His friend said with a knowing look.  Dean met her 2 times before but introduces himself again. How many friendships can you make in a drunken blackout? In fast forward, Dean wastes his days away, drink, TV, drink, video games, drink, bathroom, drink, vomit, drink, sleep, drink, bathroom, drink, TV, drink.

Today he dies. Tomorrow is nothing.  Dean is lying on his stomach on a hotel bed, sideways across the bed with his head hanging off the edge in despair, staring at the floor in that gap between the bed and wall. He raises his head and bares his neck, ready to slit his throat he raises the knife and his hand trembles, he cannot finish it.  Vaguely hoping for any type of help he googles and calls a rehab center, the voice on the other end of the phone asks “What’s your drug of choice?” and the lie is out of his mouth before he knows it, he hears himself say, “Heroin.”