Read first Act 1 – Act 2

Act 3Final act

EXT Car 5pm

SALMA is driving while MOTHER sitting in the front seat next to her (Both with big well done hairs and full strong make-up)

MOTHER
It took us ages at the Saloon, we should hurry up before our guests arrive

SALMA with no reaction continues driving

MOTHER
I am so excited honey, it is your big day! Finally it arrived

SALMA with no reaction as well still driving

A moment of silence

SALMA
Mother, I have to take care of an urgent matter. You go now and I will be back in no time

MOTHER
WHAT? Where are you going at this time? We don’t have much time. You still have to wear your wedding gown before people arrive

SALMA
It would only take 10 min. I swear

SALMA stops the car at the side of the street for her mother to leave.

EXT Car 5:30pm

SALMA is driving alone. She is crying silently in the car. The tears mess up her make-up. Her phone rings, she doesn’t answer. She murmurs

SALMA
My wedding night! My wedding night! heh

EXT A Hill Sunset 6pm

SALMA parks the car in a quiet place, moves out nervously. She turns to the back of the car and opens the trunk. She picks a big bag that seems to contain a large white dress. She picks some baby dolls as well and moves in fast cold steps into an old abandoned house’s garden that is on a very high hill showing the mountains of Amman.
SALMA moves behind a big old tree, she drops the dolls on the floor

SALMA
Wanna see a bride kids?

SALMA takes off her clothes and wears her wedding gown. She moves and looks on to the old houses of Amman and shouts in a loud voice with tears covering all over her face

SALMA
Here I am! Your bride my lovely city
Am I good enough now?
MOTHER, am I good enough?!!

INT Kitchen 6pm

Mother on her phone, looking at the clock nervously.

MOTHER
Where is she?

EXT Hill 6pm

SALMA is standing on the hill facing Amman. A sad song in the background plays

SONG
SALMA ya SALMA, our lovely bride ya SALMA

SALMA picks up a sharp razor from her bag and cut off her left hand vein. Blood burst out and covers her wedding gown

SALMA
Here is the blood I have saved for your honor!

SONG
SALMA ya SALMA
our virgin ya SALMA, the blood of our honorable bride SALMA

SALMA cleans her tears with her hand and the blood covers all over her face. She feels like the world is circling around her

SALMA
I have always played by your rules!

SONG
SALMA ya SALMA, our lovely bride SALMA

SALMA
but it has never been good enough!
I denied my desires and dreams for your sake!
FOR YOUR SAKE! DAMN IT

SALMA cuts her right hand vein

SONG
SALMA ya SALMA, you’ll became a complete woman ya SALMA

SALMA
And yet you throw me to this man. As if my own misery is not enough for you. You want to bury me with him
FINE
I will let you burry me

SALMA collapse on the floor, she picks up the dolls and embrace them. She has no power left.

SONG
SALMA ya SALMA, our mother ya SALMA
Your blood covers the mountains of Amman ya SALMA
Your scream rings in our ears ya SALMA
Your sacrifice touches our souls ya SALMA
our beautiful bride SALMA

SALMA
Be gentle with my sisters

SALMA closes her eyes

INT House 6:30 pm

MOTHER hears the song, her face is pale.

SONG
SALMA ya SALMA, our beautiful bride SALMA

MOTHER
What have I done?

Read first Act 1 – Act 2 scenes (1,2)

** Be patient guys, only one act left 🙂

INT Inside the shop

SALMA is checking the dresses closely one by one.

SALMA
Excuse me, don’t you have black wedding gowns?

SALES PERSON
Are you kidding? What kind of a pride would wear something like that?

SALMA
me, anyway, can I try this dress?

SALES PERSON
Yes, for sure, what is your size?

SALMA
40

SALES PERSON
GO ahead and try it, it should fit you perfectly

SALMA goes in the change room; she takes off her clothes and puts the wedding gown on. She then goes out to check it in front of the mirror.

SALMA
Beautiful, isn’t it?

SALES PERSON
Yes, it fits perfectly. When is the wedding?
SALMA pays the bill, she moves towards her car with the sales person following her with the wedding gown.

INT HOUSE 6pm

SALMA enters the house with the wedding gown in a big bag in her hand. She notices the salon’s lights on and some men voices in there.

MOTHER comes out of the Salon, she grabs SALMA from her hand and whispers in her ears

MOTHER
Where have you been?! Yalla rush dress quickly. Abu Omar is waiting to see you

SALMA goes to her room, places the wedding gown in her closet then comes back to the Saloon to meet her groom.

Abu Omar is chatting with her FATHER, he looks as old as him with a long mustache and big belly.

SALMA cold like a corpse slowly approaches and shakes hands with him.

FATHER
this is my daughter SALMA. This is Abu Omar.

SALMA
Hi uncle

Both her father and mother give her warning look

Abu Omar
Hi SALMA, how are you?

SALMA
Fine, thank you

Abu Omar
How is your work? Sounds like a tough job. Do you always come home late?

SALMA
Sometimes

Abu Omar
Poor women, these days they have to work as hard as men and still take care of their homes

SALMA
yeah

FATHER interrupts
SALMA, Abu Omar’s Wife passed away 2 months ago.

SALMA
Yeah

FATHER
He is looking for a wife, and he just came today here to propose to you.

MOTHER
Abu Omar is a respectful man. We love you a lot and think that you would be in safe hands with him.

FATHER
What do you think?

SALMA
OK. When is the wedding?

FATHER and MOTHER looks at each other. Abu Omar smiles.

Read first Act 1

ACT 2

INT Social development department office 1pm

SALMA
I want to apply for custody for a little boy

OFFICER
you have to fill this application Madame and we will call you soon
Officer hands SALMA an application form. She sits down starts filling it.

SALMA
Excuse me, this application seems to be for married couples. Don’t you have any for singles?

OFFICER
Single? Aren’t you married?

SALMA
NO

OFFICER
Then you can’t apply. We only offer custody for married couples

SALMA
and who said so?

OFFICER
It is our regulations. We want to make sure that those babies get raised in a normal home with two loving parents that are capable of giving him the love and support he needs

SALMA
and who said that a single woman can’t raise a baby? I am well off financially and I can give this orphan the love he needs. One parent is better than no parent, right?

OFFICER
Don’t argue with me. Those are the rules. I can do nothing. Go and find a husband and get your own baby! Or is it too late for that?

SALMA opens her mouth in shock

INT SALMA’s car 3pm

SALMA is driving while being distracted. She has flashbacks

MOTHER (O.S.)
you can’t stay single forever, I won’t let you!

OFFICER (O.S.)
Is it too late?

MANAGER (O.S.)
Not good enough

She wakes up horrified. She presses hard on the brakes to avoid hitting the car infront of her.

SALMA is parking in front of a shop with a big display window showing wedding gowns. Her hands are shaking and she seems distracted.

SALMA murmurs
So mother you want a wedding? Fine, I will give you one

She looks from the window, sights, clears her tears, checks her purse, then leaves the car heading towards the shop.

Read first scene 1

INT Kitchen next morning 7am

SALMA looks terrible. Her eyes show that she hasn’t slept the night. She still has tears in her eyes. She is having a cup of coffee and moving nervously back and forth.
Her mother enters the kitchen

MOTHER
Here is my beautiful bride

SALMA
I am not beautiful, and I am not a bride. I told you, I won’t marry him!

MOTHER
Don’t say no before you meet him. He is a good wealthy man with good reputation. Besides, I want to see your child before I die

SALMA
I SAID NO, NO WAY. Over my dead body

MOTHER
you can’t stay single forever, I won’t let you!

SALMA
Can’t I be good enough without having a man by my side?!

MOTHER
You are a woman, and people don’t like single women
Mother comes closer and touches SALMA’s shoulder tenderly

MOTHER
Remember when you came crying from your friend’s wedding reception party? The bastard had your seat on the kids table!

SALMA in disbelief of her mother places her coffee on the table

SALMA
Ok..stop it

MOTHER
And when your car tire broke down and our neighbor tried to help you, only to stop when his wife yelled at him?

SALMA
stop it I SAID

SALMA, shaking, places her coffee on the table. She picks her bag, slams the door and leaves

MOTHER yelling
ABO OMAR is coming tonight. DO NOT BE LATE

INT Manager’s Office 12pm

SALMA is arguing with her manager

SALMA in a high tone voice
WHY did you promote Hussam instead of me?

MANAGER
you are so good at work, but after taking everything into consideration, we decided that Hussam is more appropriate for this position.

SALMA
More appropriate?! Why is that? I have more experience than him

MANAGER
But he can travel, and you can’t. Your family doesn’t allow you.

SALMA
OMG! You are basing your decision only on that!

INT SALMA’s Office 12:30 pm

SALMA is crying hysterically while talking on the phone.

OLA (O.S.)
Calm down

SALMA
I can’t, everything is driving me crazy

OLA (O.S.)
I know something that might help you. Check out the news paper, page 3
SALMA grabs the newspaper; she opens it on page 3. There is an article about an abandoned child in trash

SALMA reads
‘Because of the current phenomena of abandoned babies, the social development ministry opens the custody door of abandoned babies to Jordanian couple’

OLA (O.S.)
Do it, I will back you up
SALMA grabs a pen and draws a circle around the article. She picks up her bag and leave

ACT 1

INT Room 7pm

SALMA in her pajamas is sitting on her bed typing on her laptop. She is posting on her blog ‘The Jordanian Spinster’.

SALMA
‘Does not having children hurt me that bad because it is natural for me as woman to feel so, or is it because people expect me to do so?’

SALMA pauses for a moment and looks at her little nephew’s picture next to her bed.

SALMA whispers
would I ever hear someone calling me mama?

She looks back at her laptop screen, erases what she wrote then types

SALMA
‘Whom should I blame for letting me build my focal point of life around a man that never arrived?’

Suddenly there is a knock on the door. SALMA tries to hide her screen

SALMA
Come in

MOTHER
hey dear, I want to talk to you about something, May I?

SALMA impatiently
What is it about?

MOTHER
I know that you hate this subject but we have to talk

SALMA
offft, again?!!

MOTHER
you are approaching 35 and you still single. I am really worried on you

SALMA groans

SALMA
Haven’t we talked about this millions of times before? You would never give up, would you?

MOTHER
I would only give up when I see you married

SALMA
Yeeeey, like it is up to me

MOTHER
Ofcourse it is up to you, if you just lower your expectations

SALMA
Expectations?? like I am having 100 proposals at our door.

MOTHER
You did have few before

SALMA
Last one I remember was something like 10 years ago! You wanted me to consider him regardless of his awful smell, remember?

MOTHER
You could have worked on his hygiene!

SALMA shaking in anger
OMG, can we just drop this?!

MOTHER
No, listen to me, you have just another chance now. Don’t blow it

SALMA with no reaction on her face looks at her mother as she moved closer to her and started telling her about the groom

I am really enjoying the ideation workshop training of the RFC. Yesterday I had to stay awake till 2 in the morning in order to re-write my first act and coming up with materials for my second act.

One of the advices the lecturer gave us is making our main character writing a letter for us before writing the script. Yesterday I was so busy and ignored the advice. Today I will try to do it here on my blog.

Dear Observer,
I am so sick of my life. No matter how much I do, I am never good enough to society. So what if I am a single woman in my mid 30’s? I do have my own career, and I work as hard as anybody else. I have even been a good support for my parents for the past couple of years while my siblings all got married and moved on with their new families and their new responsibilities.

Is it my fault that Mr. right didn’t come and propose to me? Is it my fault that I abide to the social restrictions of not being a proactive woman and run after men to secure a future husband? Is it my fault that i refused getting married to the few men – I felt nothing to – and which came with their mothers to evaluate how good of a woman I am?

And now, mother says that she is worried on me, worried to a degree of pushing me towards marrying a 60 years old man who has only buried his wife 40 days ago! Men can’t live without a woman! Is that an explanation a sane mother give to her daughter?! and am I that old where my chances of finding a man to love has shrunk to the degree of being asked to appreciate getting a shadow of a man?! A shadow that is better than the shadow of my room’s wall as in the arabic proverb!

And then there is this motherly need inside of me which makes me cry whenever I see a little kid. I became obsessed with my little nephews and nieces! How fair it is to live the rest of my life without hearing someone calling me mother! I can’t get custody of a child because I am single. Do I have to prostitute myself to a face husband in order to become a mother?!

and would I end up spending my old days lonely as a bitter woman knowing that my only sin has been being true to myself and to my family!

When will Amman start respecting her daughters? When will women become completly valuable for themselves without having to have a man by their side! When can I take control of my own life without the interferance of everysingle person I know?!

I protected their honor. I played with their rules. I worked hard in silence to make everyone happy, and yet never been good enough. Enough is enough, and the virgin 35 years old bride refused to be lead to her doom. The blood I have saved for my wedding night will cover my wedding gown, it will cover the mountains of Amman, and the scream of a spinster would ring in your ears my lovely city for I sacrifice myself for you to wake up and be gentle on my sisters

Yours,
Salma

No pain no gain, right? Hard work and struggle is essential for people’s growth. Yesterday I attended a lecture of script writing hosted by the Jordanian Film Commission for Mr. Paul Wolff – A professor at University of Southern Californian for Cinematic Arts.

M’r Wolff will be lecturing a team of around 12 Jordanian young talents about script writing for week time workshop. Fortuantly I was selected to be among those Jordanians and attend this workshop. (I am excited about it)

But this is not my subject here. Mine is something Mr’ Paul said trying to explain how pain is good for our growth.

He asked:
Do you know how pearls are made?

They are made when a grain of sand slips into the oyster’s shell, in order to protect itself from irritation, the oyster will quickly begin covering the uninvited visitor with layers of nacre, and thus ending up making a pearl (read the whole explanation of the process here)

Me – The moral of the story: We can create pearls with our struggle.

He then continued and asked:
What does happen when you rub two sticks togather?

You get FIRE

Me – Isn’t it amazing how much we can do with persistance?

We all face some hard times in our lives. We bury our pain inside of us without realizing that what we reside is a treasure that can turn into pearls once we let it go and show it to people. People who suffer the most are those with bigger treasures inside.

Sounds like an interesting start for the workshop, isn’t it?

I am the kind of woman that no matter how many times my boyfriend tells me that he loves me, I still want to hear it more and more. And no matter how much he shows affection and love, and how much he takes care of me, I still have this weird need of hearing him say it, the magical word: Love you.

Even when he does so, I like to emphasize on what he means by loving me and explore the dimensions of his love and analyse it in every possible way. Do you love me for my body or for my mind? I ask him over and over again – which can be a very tricky question that I am, myself, not sure what I want the answer to be.

In school, they taught us to cherish the platonic love through Arabic old poems. In Arabic it is more of virginic-love (7ob 3ozri) – exuse my translation – and is not related to Plato as in English. What is interesting is that while checking out wikipedia’s page of platonic love, there seem to be some question mark on the nature of platonic love that is highlighted at a point of time where homosexuality was at the center of the Greek culture.

Jamil Buthaynah the Jahili Arabic poet (pre-Islam poet), and where his name got attached with Buthayna the woman he loved and flirted with in his poem. He got famous for his love for Buthaynah and his platonic poems describing her beauty and his love for her. Now with the Plato vague link to homosexuality, it makes me wonder about Jamil’s love for Buthayna, and why was it platonic at an erra of time pre-Islam where sex was not considered to be a bad thing in Arabia?

So because of some cultural infleuences and school teaching, I have always considered a platonic love a good thing, and always wanted a man to love me for my mind. At least that is what I have been trying to convince myself with and stating in public while discussing it with other people. In truth, what I really want, is a man, who LOVES me for my body. I don’t want a man to tell me that I am smart or intellectual. I want one who would tell me: You are BEAUTIFUL.

No matter how shallow this might sound, what makes me happy is to have someone who loves me for my looks. (I am a woman and don’t have to explain myself).

But then, I want my man to love me for the person I am as well, and thus, I carry on with my questions to my boyfriend: What if I go through a sex change operation and end up with a man’s body? Would you still love me?

Ofcourse he CANT answer no. He has to love me as a whole, and now trying to manuver at the deep end of things, my body should not be the base of our love! We all know the our bodies detoriorate with time, which means that if our love is based on bodies, then it would detoriorate with time as well (No?), and we don’t want that either, do we?

Technically if I am to do the sex change operation and become a man, do I really want my boyfriend to still be attracted to me? Doesn’t that make him slightly bi-sexual? and I don’t want him to be that? or it would be okay as long as he keeps on loving me no matter the sex of my body? or are love and sexual attraction two different concepts that are not related to each other?

Then again, thinking about it rationally. I don’t think that it is fair to ask him to keep his love for me if am I to change my sex. He loves me now the way I am, and if I changed, then I become a different person, and he doesn’t have to love a different person? On the other hand, we change every single minute, and in 10 years, I would be a different person! If we are to commit into a marriage, he should commit to love me no matter how much I change! (even if I became a dracula?).

Actually what I really want to is the kind of love in the movie P.S. I love you. The guy loved his woman unconditionally, and while being in his death bed, he planned everything to help her go through the transition of losing him, and in which included her to get to date and have sex with other men so that she would carry on with her life. He wrote to her: You were my entire life, but I am just a beautiful phase of yours.

I wonder how many Arab men are ready to let their wives more on with their lives when they pass away? How many young widowed women stay single for the rest of their lives for the sake of their dead husbands? whom if they really loved them, would want them to move on.

It is good to acknowledge an unconditional love, but also it is good to know the importance of sex appeal in our love. It is what the fire of our love needs, and I accept it.

Regards,
Haya