Lunch Date Part 3

EXT. Empty diner on the side of the road.
INT. Two people (FATHER and DAUGHTER) seated at table. They are the only customers. They do not have menus. The Daughter looks at the walls that are filled with portraits of dogs and photos of celebrities that no one's ever heard of, and describes them to her Father. This song is playing.



Daughter: This song reminds me of Topanga.
Father: Yeah I think it was playing last time we were in here.
Daughter: Wouldn't that be funny if it was just playing on a loop?
Father says nothing, just listens.
Daughter: Or if there was a tiny person behind a curtain in the back who just kept putting the needle on the record back to track 3.
Father sings with song "Rejoice, rejoice, we have no choice" Like a very old rock star. "But to carry on"
Daughter: Oh my god.
He laughs.
Father: (still singing) Carry on ...Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaove is coming. Laaaaaaaaove is coming to us all.
Daughter: You make it sound frightening.
They laugh.

Sound of two people arguing from the kitchen.

Father and Daughter look up. Waitress with long black braid walks from the back to their table. A man with a huge purple birthmark across the lower half of his face stands in the doorway smiling. Daughter leans forward and says, Okay, here we go.

Waitress: Would you like to see a menu?

FREEZE.

***

Okay, I thought if I walked into this scene from a different angle that I might be able to figure it out. I mean there's a weird thing that happens sometimes, especially when you're with a person you've known for a long time, through various stages of your life, which is that you are always three, maybe more, people at once. Then, in the remembering of the scene, and the telling of it, you are another person, embellishing or creating certain details for emphasis. I guess this happens all the time, all day, every day really, even with people you don't know very well. But I think that it gets multiplied by 1000 when you're with your parent. With them you also have unspoken conversations about heavier topics that you touch on and then move away from: perspective, relationships, getting old, dying.

None of it is mentioned usually, but it's there. If you don't have parents, or if you don't see them often, it probably comes up with those you are closest to. Or it will eventually. That's what I wanted to get at, that, and the way that nothing that's ever happened in a David Lynch movie, not the little person who speaks backwards, or the ear found on a sidewalk, or the policeman who weeps at a crime scene, is stranger or more perplexing.