If destiny has her way, 84 is when I’ll be saying so long and see you all in heaven. I’ve mentioned my quarter life crisis a couple of times in the past and here’s why. To put it all in context, I’m 21 studying in Perth, Australia and enjoying myself quite a bit but started to worry about life in general. Unanswerable questions started to plague me … who am I? What am I going to do? How am I going to survive as a writer? Yah, the standard crisis stuff. My dear old friend then was going through her own crisis … she was in love with 2 guys at the same time. This is how our scene begins.

FADE IN:
1. MURDOCH UNIVERSITY LECTURE HALL – DAY
Carlene meets Natasha.

CARLENE
I think I’m going through a quarter life crisis.

NATASHA
You’re going to die at 84?

CARLENE
No!! That’s not what I mean … …

NATASHA
(walking into the hall)
Crisis, I’m the one with the crisis.

CARLENE
(following Natalie into the hall)
Being in love with two people does not qualify as a crisis.

FADE OUT:

A beat

FADE IN:
2. MURDOCH UNIVERSITY BOOKSHOP – DAY
Carlene and Natasha walking towards the ASTROLOGY section.

NATASHA
I need a sign on who to pick.

CARLENE
And your sign will give you a hint?

NATASHA
One’s a Taurus and the other a Capricorn and …

CARLENE
(cutting Natasha off)
… you’re Libra.

Natasha flips through books and Carlene starts to walk into a different section of the bookstore.

NATASHA
What time were you born?

CARLENE
12:10 in the afternoon why?

NATASHA
You have to come see this.

Natasha goes over to where Carlene is, where she’s flipping through screenplays. She looks at the page Natasha is pointing to and it says the life expectancy of a person born on the the 24th of February, between 12 – 12:15pm is 84.

They look at each other.

FADE OUT:

A beat

FADE IN:
3. FREMANTLE MARKETS – DAY
Carlene and Natasha walking towards to the Tarot Card reader’s booth.

NATASHA
You can’t tell me, that it doesn’t intrigue a little.

CARLENE
Intrigue with astrology and stuff, sure but to subscribe
to it wholly and base my life decisions on them, nope.

NATASHA
(as she goes behind the curtain that
shields the market form the booth)
You wanna come in?

CARLENE
It’s ok, I’ll wait here.

Carlene walks across to the honey booth and starts tasting the different jars of honey. (in an actual film, it’ll probably cut into the little reading room and show you what Natasha was told but since I wasn’t there, in my version I can’t tell exactly what happened in there :P)

NATASHA
(coming out with the Tarot Reader)
Thank you, that was helpful.

TAROT READER
Not at all, most of us have our answers
within us already, we just need to listen.

Carlene walks over to them and smiles at the Tarot Reader who gives her one of the warmest smiles she’s ever seen.

NATASHA
Thanks again.

TAROT READER
(gesturing to Carlene)
Your friend?

NATASHA nods.

TAROT READER
(continues towards Carlene)
You’re a blessed one, aren’t you? You’ll never
get rich but you’ll never be poor, you’ll always
have enough… and you’ll live a nice long
life … till your 80s … 83 or 84.

Carlene and Natasha look at each other.

FADE OUT.

True story. It happened all in one day too. At that time, I remember thinking that there’s no way in hell am I going to live that long. Especially if I kept my uni lifestyle, eating badly, sleeping very little and hardly any exercise. That was 13 years ago. Today, I eat much better, sleep a lot more and actually exercise regularly. So far it’s been true too, I HAVE been very blessed.  Maybe the universe knows something I don’t … and maybe just maybe, I’ll live a nice long life 🙂  50 years and counting 😉