Screenplay ~~- The Song Of Solomon

The Shepherdess Dreams Of Her Shepherd Boy

1556 Characters =~1.6Min. Reading Time
Shepherdess springs to leap out of the palace window.
The Concubines grab her.

SAPPHIRE
(amidst fray)
No stud's worth dying for!

Concubines pull on Shepherdess' kicking legs.
She struggles against their hands.
She kicks... she screams.

They thrust her back inside the concubines' chamber.
Her head thwacks the marble floor.


INSIDE THE PALACE BEDROOM IN THE DAYTIME: (MOMENTS LATER)

The Concubines haul the delirious Shepherdess to her bed.

They strap her down on it.
CLICK CLACK! The buckles tighten on her whitening wrists.


INSIDE THE PALACE BEDROOM AT NIGHT:

In flashes, Shepherdess passes nights:

-- tossing;

-- turning;

-- beating her hands on the bed;

-- the Concubines stand around her bed laughing, pointing at her, again, and again...

SHEPHERDESS (Narration)
Night after night on my bed in Solomon's palace, my eyes search through my window-bars for the one my soul loves.

She peers through the window bars, eyes searching the city outside for a sign of her beloved.

SHEPHERDESS (Narration)
I seek him in tortured dreams.

She tosses on her bed, ravaged by tortured dreams, flashes of images:

-- Her lover carrying her to the treehouse;

-- Her falling off the chariot;

-- black goo dripping from her arms in the demon-concubine dream;

-- her falling down a black hole in the cave;

SHEPHERDESS (Narration)
But I never find him.

She collapses in tears beneath the iron-barred bedroom window.

Rapid-fire sunsets and sunrises pass as Shepherdess sits (slumped against the wall beneath the window) crying.