Crying Out Love In The Centre Of The World

I chanced upon this movie trailer while waiting for my friend at Orchard Cineleisure on Sunday. This Japanese show is really touching. The story is about a pair of Japanese high school sweethearts who corresponded by taping conversations and sending out cassette tapes to each other. Unfortunately, the girl was struck down by leukaemia, and in a bid to make her last days happy, her parents allowed her to slip into a wedding gown and take a wedding photo with her sweetheart. He brought her to the desert area of Australia, where she once told him it was the centre of the world, and if you cried out for love in the middle of the desert, your wish would come true. Both of them went there and started crying out for each other. It was a sad thing that she died from her illness. The movie actually started off about seventeen years later when the guy was reminiscing about his first love.

This movie struck a chord in me as it was very similar to a story I wrote many years back, which I submitted for a Singapore Press Holdings Young Writer's Short Story Contest. It was the one and only short story I ever wrote. I did not win anything of course (I was never that good in the first place), but when I saw the similarity between this movie and the story I wrote, I could not help but feel my story could have been made into a movie too.

I still remember my story was entitled "Over The Rainbow, Under The Sky". It was actually inspired by a few things - life as a JC student, The Teenage Textbook, The Teenage Workbook, internet dating of the modern times, typical puppy love of teenagers. The story was also a tribute to my favourite cousin who died of leukaemia. My central character was on a rich girl. She was the only child of well-established parents. Despite all the wealth and being a top student with lots of admirers, she was lonely. Sounds familiar? This character was modelled after Sissy Song of The Teenage Textbook.

Anyway she went online every night, going by the moniker "Juliet", just to bump into her "Romeo". They chatted about lots of things. She found herself seriously falling for this guy. And the guy? He was actually her schoolmate in secondary school who had a crush on her for the longest time, but he never dared to tell her as he was just an average-looking simple guy. He decided to forget about her and fell in love with his "Juliet" instead.

So one day they decided to meet up at the beach. Rain just stopped and there was a beautiful rainbow in the sky. When they recognised each other, he was surprised but pleased, but she was totally shocked. She rejected him upfront. But after a while, she started to reflect : she fell for him because of his intellectual conversations, his character, his depth. She knew him as a person, and fell for him as a person. Did it really matter even if he was not drop-dead gorgeous? She wanted a guy who was really intellectual and interested in her, and not someone who was only concerned of showing off his muscles. However, she felt so bad rejecting him that she did not dare to express how she really felt.

During the end-of-orientation night, she had to bring a date. Even though many guys in school were lining up to date her, she refused all of them and called her "Romeo" to be her date. He willingly obliged. While dancing a love ballad together, he finally expressed how he felt for her and this time, she accepted readily. Unfortunately, she started to have a nose bleed and fainted in the hall. She was rushed to the hospital and discovered she was down with leukaemia. He stayed by her side throughout her hospitalisation and took care of her. He pledged his undying love to her. Her parents brought her to America for treatment, but she did not survive. In her last letter to him, she told him not to worry as someday she would come back as an angel.

My ending was ten years later. He became a doctor and set up a research centre for leukaemia patients. One day, after work, he decided to stroll along the beach where they first met all those years ago. There was another rainbow in the sky. Just as he was about to leave, he saw a lady walking towards his direction. She seemed to be the splitting image of his "Juliet". They had eye contact and started talking. When she told him her name was "Angel", he felt that his love had come back to him. So he invited her out for dinner and she accepted and they went off together.

I know it seems like a rather lame story upon reflection. Perhaps that was why it never won anything. But after watching the trailer of the Japanese movie, I was really struck by the coincidental similarity between the storyline of the show and the story I wrote all those years ago. I wonder if I should change the original story into a script then? But that would be plagiarism, wouldn't it, since a movie with a similar storyline is already out on screens.