past perfect

past perfect
Opening scene
used bookstore - a writer's hangout. Derek reads his essay.
the scene initially has only derek's voice as the camera begins to move from outside to inside of the bookstore
finally, as derek is saying his last line, the camera shows derek speaking to an audience of 10, as they sit below the
stage of the reader.
D: I am writer. I think in the present perfect. It is my allegory; it is my voice.
Derek, 41,high school english teacher, begins a new life after several tragedies in his past had given him wisdom to change.
He begins to write and eventually attends poetry readings, trying to carve meaning while keeping his past in the rearview mirror.
carla, 23, young, vibrant, energetic, meets derek at a poetry reading. Coincidentally, both have incredbly similar reading, which
fascinates carla, gaining courage to meet derek. They immediately bond, share their poetry, begin to discover each other.
carla, never really felt love; derek being her first. Whereas derek, just broken up with his girlfriend of three years; a former student and young,
this time with carls, didnt let his inhibitions stop him fro pursuing carla as well. Derek jaded yet finding a new life through poetry and writing.
carla, innocent, not having been through too much, moves in with derek. As they live together, they find out the tureness of each other's souls.
derek writes a biography of his past for carls, as she weeps and is saddened of his past. Derek tells carla, when you write, you see the past
so clear, no strings attached. You become the audience, rather the performer.
Derek talks of thureau, and questions whether farheneit 451 was prophetic. he questions hamlet intentions. H cries when he reads all quiet on the
western front to his class. as the whole class weeps, class is dismissed and derek begins to notice his affection to literature.
he says, " i finally have become the teacher i dreamed of."
happy and with an air confidence, he is shocked to hear carla has terminal cancer. his life turns tragic
carla dies; he reads poetry everyday at her grave. The situation turns ugly as derek begins to smoke crystal and gamble his life into
oblivion. he takes off in his car, goes to the place carla loved to be; huntington garden; he breaks into the library and passes out. He
is found in the morning, finally goes to therapy, and must reinvent himself again, testing wisdom and will once more.
　
i can look into my past and see beyond it. I dont have to feel pain no more. I am just a face in the audience, wetting
my melancholic fetish. i try to find the balance now. i try to live in the present perfect. I perform without an identity. I am
a blank slate. fate has been absent for awhile now. No longer does he lurk hideously behind the smoking mirror.
he has been fired; his place has no place. my script is left to the wind;
unwritten; my freewill prevails. I retired from acting. I walked away from tragedy. Time to time, i visit its ugly visage, his ghost
ever present, hovering around, not giving, not showing, not real anymore.
my tears; they do deceive me; they real yet empty of ego. . It is all too real. I am happy now