Hearts and Other Breakable Things

chapter one ✔️

janaurie robinson
- february 10, 2018 -

O̶N̶C̶E̶ ̶U̶P̶O̶N̶ ̶A̶ ̶T̶I̶M̶E̶

I̶N̶ ̶A̶ ̶G̶A̶L̶A̶X̶Y̶ ̶F̶A̶R̶ ̶F̶A̶R̶ ̶A̶W̶A̶Y̶

T̶H̶E̶ ̶F̶I̶N̶A̶L̶ ̶F̶R̶O̶N̶T̶I̶E̶R̶

A̶L̶L̶ ̶T̶O̶W̶N̶S̶ ̶H̶A̶V̶E̶ ̶S̶T̶O̶R̶I̶E̶S̶ ̶T̶O̶M̶B̶S̶T̶O̶N̶E̶ ̶H̶A̶S̶ ̶A̶ ̶L̶E̶G̶E̶N̶D̶

ALL GREAT MOVIES HAVE GREAT BEGINNINGS. Take for example, Saving Private Ryan released in 1998. The film opens to the American Flag waving in the wind with emotional music in the background to set the correct, mournful mood. We see a family walking down a path in a graveyard with an elderly man front and center; speeding ahead of the group. He moves through the headstones. He begins to cry and the family rushes to his side as he crumbles to the ground.

A few more shots of the cross-shaped headstones before the camera zooms in on the elderly man. He has this far-away look in his eyes. Thinking of the time that's gone by. Then it fades to black and the next thing you know, you're on the beach; June 6, 1944.

Although Saving Private Ryan is arguably one of the best films to be released in 1998, it also came out in the year of Disney's Mulan and You've Got Mail which also starred the talented Tom Hanks. Few movies capture chemistry like Meg Ryan's Kathleen Kelly and Tom Hanks' Joe Fox. Except, maybe, when they starred opposite each other in Sleepless in Seattle which came out only five years earlier in 1993.

Just once, I'd like my life to be somehow like that. And, I know a lot of people say they'd like their lives to be like a movie; usually in reference to some iconic 80's film like Dirty Dancing or Can't Buy Love. But, at this point I'd settle for anything. Preferably one with a complicated storyline and character growth like Gone With The Wind or The Game.

Yes, I know The Game is a suspense thriller, but that's just kind of where I'm at in my life right now. Anything would be better than the same old, same old routine I'm going through at the moment. That gut-wrenching feeling that I'm wasting my already numbered days. I think Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame said it best with;

"Life's not a spectator sport. If watchin' is all you're gonna do, then you're gonna watch your life go by without ya".

My leg bounced uncontrollably, shaking the entire wooden bench. The young girl on the other end probably wished she'd picked a different one to sit on now, but it would have probably seemed rude if she got up. Which was a real shame because had someone else been doing it to me, it'd be driving me up the walls.

She looked like she was in the midst of her high school career with that youthful look of hers; all that porcelain like skin. It boggled my mind that we were even sitting on the same bench at all. There I was, fresh off my twenty-second birthday and sitting next to a girl that looked like a younger version of Ruby Rose.