The Fire Tower
Perched on the granite spine of the Canadian Shield, two young artists stage a theatrical debate about the terrifying necessity of leaving home. As the northern summer heat presses down, their performative words fail to mask the impending heartbreak of adulthood.
EXT. GRANITE RIDGE - DAY
A landscape bleached by a sweltering July sun. The air is thick, a physical weight. Heat shimmers off a massive granite outcrop overlooking a rolling carpet of boreal forest.
SOUND of cicadas, a constant, high-pitched electric whine.
BETTY (22), theatrical and restless, ignores the view. She sits on a fallen log, peeling a strip of birch bark. Her fingers are stained with forest residue. She holds the white strip to the sun, inspecting it like a rare manuscript.
SIMON (22), a painter, sits on the hot rock nearby. Sweat beads on his upper lip. He wears denim shorts and a t-shirt stained with a smudge of phthalo blue. He looks drained by the heat.
BETTY
> To remain is to fossilize, Simon. Surely you perceive the calcification already setting in at your ankles?
Simon wipes his lip with the back of his hand. The grit of granite dust scratches his skin. He pitches his voice to carry over the cicadas.
SIMON
> Calcification implies a hardness, Betty. I feel more like I am liquefying. Melting into the Precambrian shield. By September, I shall be nothing but a puddle of anxiety and acrylic paint for the tourists to step in.
Betty finally turns her gaze to him. She wears dark sunglasses. They reflect a distorted image of the treeline and Simon’s own hunched, sweating form.
BETTY
> A tragic end for a painter of your potential. But we are not discussing the thermodynamics of your dissolution. We are discussing the train ticket. The departure. The Great Escape.
Simon shifts. The rock is hot enough to burn through his shorts. Below them, a lake is a sheet of hammered tin, blindingly still.
SIMON
> The ticket is a symbol, not a solution. One does not simply purchase a ticket to Toronto and cease to be a product of the North. We are made of rock and mosquito larvae. You cannot wash that off in Lake Ontario.
Betty lets out a sigh of immense, theatrical fatigue. She drops the birch bark, picks up her sketchbook, and fans herself with it.
BETTY
> Your fatalism is becoming derivative, darling. It lacks the freshness of your sophomore year. In 2025, geography is a choice, not a sentence. We have the internet. We have the hyper-loop proposals that never happen. We have feet.
SIMON
> And money? Do we have that?
BETTY
> Pedestrian concern. The starving artist is a cliché, but a necessary one. We shall eat ramen and spiritual fulfillment.
Simon watches an ant navigate the intricate topography of his running shoe. He feels a sharp pang in his chest. The saliva in his mouth tastes metallic.
SIMON
> You applied.
It’s not a question.
SIMON
> (CONT'D)
> To the conservatory. You sent the portfolio.
Betty stops fanning herself. The air goes still.
SOUND of a distant transport truck engine-braking on the Trans-Canada, a rhythmic thrum. A crow calls out three sharp CAWS.
BETTY
> (quietly)
> The deadline was imminent. To deny the impulse would have been an act of creative suicide. I require the friction of the city, Simon. I need noise. I need to smell exhaust and overpriced coffee. Here…
She gestures at the pristine, brutal landscape.
BETTY
> (CONT'D)
> Here, the silence is too loud. It drowns out the music in my head.
Simon looks to the horizon. The sky is a pale, washed-out blue. He thinks of the town below—the gallery now a vape shop.
SIMON
> So you leave. And I remain. The curator of the silence.
BETTY
> You could come.
She leans forward, her movement sharp, urgent.
BETTY
> (CONT'D)
> Do not pretend you are anchored here. You complain about the winter from October to May. You despise the small-town gossip. You said, just last week, that if you had to paint one more erratic boulder you would drink turpentine.
SIMON
> (muttering)
> That was hyperbole.
BETTY
> It was a cry for help!
She stands, her long shadow falling over him. She paces, jerky and animated.
BETTY
> (CONT'D)
> We are twenty-two years old, Simon. The world is collapsing, yes. The climate is erratic, the economy is a joke, and we might not retire until we are ninety. But right now, in this micro-second of history, we have the energy. If we stay, the moss grows over us. We become part of the scenery. ‘Look, there’s old Simon, painting the same pine tree for forty years.’ Is that the legacy you desire?
He looks up at her. Hair frizzed by humidity, eyes wide behind her lenses. A Valkyrie in a thrift-store sundress.
SIMON
> I am afraid.
The admission hangs in the air, breaking the rules of their game. Betty stops pacing. She crouches down in front of him, invading his space. He can smell her sunscreen, sweat, and peppermint gum.
BETTY
> Define the fear. Give it a name, a shape. Is it the failure? Or the success?
SIMON
> (whispering)
> It is the erasure. Here, I am Simon the Artist. I am known. I have a context. There, in the city... I am data. I am a rounding error in the census. What if I go there and realize that I am not actually talented? What if I am just... big fish, small pond? What if the pond was the only thing making me special?
Betty reaches out and pokes him hard in the chest.
BETTY
> Then you find out. That is the tragedy of the human condition, you fool. You cannot live in the Schrödinger's box forever. You have to open the lid and see if the cat is alive or dead. If you are mediocre, fine. Then you deal with mediocrity. But staying here to protect your ego from the truth? That is cowardice. And you are many things, Simon—pedantic, overly sensitive, prone to melodrama—but you are not a coward.
He swats her hand away, but without force. He feels dizzy.
SIMON
> It costs three thousand dollars just to secure an apartment. I have four hundred dollars and a collection of unsold watercolors.
BETTY
> (shouting at the sky)
> Money is a construct! We will work. We will scrub toilets. We will serve drinks to bankers who tip poorly. That is the romance of it! You want the bohemian life? That includes the poverty. You cannot have the garret without the hunger, Simon. It’s a package deal.
Simon lets out a dry, cracking laugh.
SIMON
> You romanticize suffering because you haven't done it yet.
BETTY
> I am preparing for it!
She sits back down, crossing her legs. A beat.
BETTY
> (CONT'D)
> Look, the bus leaves on Thursday. The morning express. It stops in Thunder Bay, then Sault Ste. Marie, then down. I bought two tickets.
The air thins. The cicadas seem to screech louder.
SIMON
> You bought two.
He stares at the intricate lichen pattern on the rock. A map of a country that doesn't exist.
BETTY
> Non-refundable. It was a gamble. A strategic investment in our shared destiny. If you don't come, I shall be forced to put my bag on the empty seat and look incredibly mysterious and lonely, which might attract a serial killer. So, really, my safety is in your hands.
Simon looks back at the lake. A tiny motorboat cuts a V-shaped wake through the water, disrupting the perfect surface. He thinks of his room in his parents' basement. The smell of damp carpet. The suffocating comfort.
SIMON
> Thursday.
BETTY
> 08:00 hours. Sharp. If you are not there, I leave. I will not look back. I will channel Lot's wife and refuse to turn into a pillar of salt, or in this case, a pillar of granite.
SIMON
> You would leave me?
She stares toward the sun, squinting.
BETTY
> (softly)
> I have to. We are not symbiotic, Simon. We are parallel lines. We can run together for a while, but eventually, the geometry has to change. I cannot stay here and watch you paint the same sunset until we are forty. It would break my heart more than leaving you will.
The truth of it hangs in the hot air. Tears prick Simon's eyes. He blinks them away.
SIMON
> (voice thick)
> It is... a compelling argument.
BETTY
> I thought so.
She reaches into her bag, pulls out a warm can of soda. She cracks it open. The HISS is loud in the quiet. She takes a sip, passes it to him.
BETTY
> (CONT'D)
> Drink. You are dehydrated. Your lips are chapped and it ruins your aesthetic.
He takes the can. The metal is warm, the liquid sugary and flat. He drinks anyway.
SIMON
> If I go, I am not scrubbing toilets. I will be a barista. There is a hierarchy.
Betty gives a real smile, wide and genuine, lacking all irony.
BETTY
> Acceptable. As long as I get free coffee.
They sit in silence. The sun begins to descend, the light shifting from harsh white to a bruising purple. The shadows of the pine trees stretch out like dark fingers.
Simon watches a hawk circle high above, riding a thermal.
SIMON
> (to himself)
> Do you think we'll make it?
BETTY
> Statistically? No. But narratively? We are the protagonists, Simon. We have plot armor until at least the end of the second act.
SIMON
> And then?
BETTY
> Then it's up to the critics.
She stands, brushing dirt from her sundress.
BETTY
> (CONT'D)
> Come. The mosquitoes are rising. The vampiric horde approaches. We must retreat to the safety of indoors before we are exsanguinated.
Simon gets to his feet. His legs are shaky. The horizon no longer looks like a wall. It looks like a ledge.
He follows her down the rocky path.
The air is cooling rapidly. A dark bank of clouds rolls in from the west. The wind shifts, carrying a new scent—sulfur and wet charcoal.
Simon looks back once.
HIS POV - The old FIRE TOWER stands silhouetted against the darkening sky, a skeletal finger pointing at the heavens.
SOUND of a sudden gust of wind rattling the metal frame, like bones shaking in a bag.
BETTY (O.S.)
> Hurry up, Simon!
Her voice is swallowed by the rising wind.
He turns and runs to catch up, his heart hammering against his ribs. They plunge into the dark tunnel of the forest path.
The sky above turns a bruised, sickly green.
A single, heavy drop of rain hits Simon's cheek. Cold. Wet. Like a bullet.
He stops for a half-second, the dread washing over him. This doesn't feel like a beginning.
He runs on.
FADE TO BLACK.
A landscape bleached by a sweltering July sun. The air is thick, a physical weight. Heat shimmers off a massive granite outcrop overlooking a rolling carpet of boreal forest.
SOUND of cicadas, a constant, high-pitched electric whine.
BETTY (22), theatrical and restless, ignores the view. She sits on a fallen log, peeling a strip of birch bark. Her fingers are stained with forest residue. She holds the white strip to the sun, inspecting it like a rare manuscript.
SIMON (22), a painter, sits on the hot rock nearby. Sweat beads on his upper lip. He wears denim shorts and a t-shirt stained with a smudge of phthalo blue. He looks drained by the heat.
BETTY
> To remain is to fossilize, Simon. Surely you perceive the calcification already setting in at your ankles?
Simon wipes his lip with the back of his hand. The grit of granite dust scratches his skin. He pitches his voice to carry over the cicadas.
SIMON
> Calcification implies a hardness, Betty. I feel more like I am liquefying. Melting into the Precambrian shield. By September, I shall be nothing but a puddle of anxiety and acrylic paint for the tourists to step in.
Betty finally turns her gaze to him. She wears dark sunglasses. They reflect a distorted image of the treeline and Simon’s own hunched, sweating form.
BETTY
> A tragic end for a painter of your potential. But we are not discussing the thermodynamics of your dissolution. We are discussing the train ticket. The departure. The Great Escape.
Simon shifts. The rock is hot enough to burn through his shorts. Below them, a lake is a sheet of hammered tin, blindingly still.
SIMON
> The ticket is a symbol, not a solution. One does not simply purchase a ticket to Toronto and cease to be a product of the North. We are made of rock and mosquito larvae. You cannot wash that off in Lake Ontario.
Betty lets out a sigh of immense, theatrical fatigue. She drops the birch bark, picks up her sketchbook, and fans herself with it.
BETTY
> Your fatalism is becoming derivative, darling. It lacks the freshness of your sophomore year. In 2025, geography is a choice, not a sentence. We have the internet. We have the hyper-loop proposals that never happen. We have feet.
SIMON
> And money? Do we have that?
BETTY
> Pedestrian concern. The starving artist is a cliché, but a necessary one. We shall eat ramen and spiritual fulfillment.
Simon watches an ant navigate the intricate topography of his running shoe. He feels a sharp pang in his chest. The saliva in his mouth tastes metallic.
SIMON
> You applied.
It’s not a question.
SIMON
> (CONT'D)
> To the conservatory. You sent the portfolio.
Betty stops fanning herself. The air goes still.
SOUND of a distant transport truck engine-braking on the Trans-Canada, a rhythmic thrum. A crow calls out three sharp CAWS.
BETTY
> (quietly)
> The deadline was imminent. To deny the impulse would have been an act of creative suicide. I require the friction of the city, Simon. I need noise. I need to smell exhaust and overpriced coffee. Here…
She gestures at the pristine, brutal landscape.
BETTY
> (CONT'D)
> Here, the silence is too loud. It drowns out the music in my head.
Simon looks to the horizon. The sky is a pale, washed-out blue. He thinks of the town below—the gallery now a vape shop.
SIMON
> So you leave. And I remain. The curator of the silence.
BETTY
> You could come.
She leans forward, her movement sharp, urgent.
BETTY
> (CONT'D)
> Do not pretend you are anchored here. You complain about the winter from October to May. You despise the small-town gossip. You said, just last week, that if you had to paint one more erratic boulder you would drink turpentine.
SIMON
> (muttering)
> That was hyperbole.
BETTY
> It was a cry for help!
She stands, her long shadow falling over him. She paces, jerky and animated.
BETTY
> (CONT'D)
> We are twenty-two years old, Simon. The world is collapsing, yes. The climate is erratic, the economy is a joke, and we might not retire until we are ninety. But right now, in this micro-second of history, we have the energy. If we stay, the moss grows over us. We become part of the scenery. ‘Look, there’s old Simon, painting the same pine tree for forty years.’ Is that the legacy you desire?
He looks up at her. Hair frizzed by humidity, eyes wide behind her lenses. A Valkyrie in a thrift-store sundress.
SIMON
> I am afraid.
The admission hangs in the air, breaking the rules of their game. Betty stops pacing. She crouches down in front of him, invading his space. He can smell her sunscreen, sweat, and peppermint gum.
BETTY
> Define the fear. Give it a name, a shape. Is it the failure? Or the success?
SIMON
> (whispering)
> It is the erasure. Here, I am Simon the Artist. I am known. I have a context. There, in the city... I am data. I am a rounding error in the census. What if I go there and realize that I am not actually talented? What if I am just... big fish, small pond? What if the pond was the only thing making me special?
Betty reaches out and pokes him hard in the chest.
BETTY
> Then you find out. That is the tragedy of the human condition, you fool. You cannot live in the Schrödinger's box forever. You have to open the lid and see if the cat is alive or dead. If you are mediocre, fine. Then you deal with mediocrity. But staying here to protect your ego from the truth? That is cowardice. And you are many things, Simon—pedantic, overly sensitive, prone to melodrama—but you are not a coward.
He swats her hand away, but without force. He feels dizzy.
SIMON
> It costs three thousand dollars just to secure an apartment. I have four hundred dollars and a collection of unsold watercolors.
BETTY
> (shouting at the sky)
> Money is a construct! We will work. We will scrub toilets. We will serve drinks to bankers who tip poorly. That is the romance of it! You want the bohemian life? That includes the poverty. You cannot have the garret without the hunger, Simon. It’s a package deal.
Simon lets out a dry, cracking laugh.
SIMON
> You romanticize suffering because you haven't done it yet.
BETTY
> I am preparing for it!
She sits back down, crossing her legs. A beat.
BETTY
> (CONT'D)
> Look, the bus leaves on Thursday. The morning express. It stops in Thunder Bay, then Sault Ste. Marie, then down. I bought two tickets.
The air thins. The cicadas seem to screech louder.
SIMON
> You bought two.
He stares at the intricate lichen pattern on the rock. A map of a country that doesn't exist.
BETTY
> Non-refundable. It was a gamble. A strategic investment in our shared destiny. If you don't come, I shall be forced to put my bag on the empty seat and look incredibly mysterious and lonely, which might attract a serial killer. So, really, my safety is in your hands.
Simon looks back at the lake. A tiny motorboat cuts a V-shaped wake through the water, disrupting the perfect surface. He thinks of his room in his parents' basement. The smell of damp carpet. The suffocating comfort.
SIMON
> Thursday.
BETTY
> 08:00 hours. Sharp. If you are not there, I leave. I will not look back. I will channel Lot's wife and refuse to turn into a pillar of salt, or in this case, a pillar of granite.
SIMON
> You would leave me?
She stares toward the sun, squinting.
BETTY
> (softly)
> I have to. We are not symbiotic, Simon. We are parallel lines. We can run together for a while, but eventually, the geometry has to change. I cannot stay here and watch you paint the same sunset until we are forty. It would break my heart more than leaving you will.
The truth of it hangs in the hot air. Tears prick Simon's eyes. He blinks them away.
SIMON
> (voice thick)
> It is... a compelling argument.
BETTY
> I thought so.
She reaches into her bag, pulls out a warm can of soda. She cracks it open. The HISS is loud in the quiet. She takes a sip, passes it to him.
BETTY
> (CONT'D)
> Drink. You are dehydrated. Your lips are chapped and it ruins your aesthetic.
He takes the can. The metal is warm, the liquid sugary and flat. He drinks anyway.
SIMON
> If I go, I am not scrubbing toilets. I will be a barista. There is a hierarchy.
Betty gives a real smile, wide and genuine, lacking all irony.
BETTY
> Acceptable. As long as I get free coffee.
They sit in silence. The sun begins to descend, the light shifting from harsh white to a bruising purple. The shadows of the pine trees stretch out like dark fingers.
Simon watches a hawk circle high above, riding a thermal.
SIMON
> (to himself)
> Do you think we'll make it?
BETTY
> Statistically? No. But narratively? We are the protagonists, Simon. We have plot armor until at least the end of the second act.
SIMON
> And then?
BETTY
> Then it's up to the critics.
She stands, brushing dirt from her sundress.
BETTY
> (CONT'D)
> Come. The mosquitoes are rising. The vampiric horde approaches. We must retreat to the safety of indoors before we are exsanguinated.
Simon gets to his feet. His legs are shaky. The horizon no longer looks like a wall. It looks like a ledge.
He follows her down the rocky path.
The air is cooling rapidly. A dark bank of clouds rolls in from the west. The wind shifts, carrying a new scent—sulfur and wet charcoal.
Simon looks back once.
HIS POV - The old FIRE TOWER stands silhouetted against the darkening sky, a skeletal finger pointing at the heavens.
SOUND of a sudden gust of wind rattling the metal frame, like bones shaking in a bag.
BETTY (O.S.)
> Hurry up, Simon!
Her voice is swallowed by the rising wind.
He turns and runs to catch up, his heart hammering against his ribs. They plunge into the dark tunnel of the forest path.
The sky above turns a bruised, sickly green.
A single, heavy drop of rain hits Simon's cheek. Cold. Wet. Like a bullet.
He stops for a half-second, the dread washing over him. This doesn't feel like a beginning.
He runs on.
FADE TO BLACK.