Distillations of Pure Joy

FADE IN:

INT. HOTEL BATHROOM IN SÃO PAULO - NIGHT

The pipes are screaming as though bringing me hot water is an endless labor of love. I put my hand behind the curtain to gauge the temperature and peel back the layers of clothing I've been sleeping in. It's colder than I packed for. This'll be the first shower in days. Suddenly the world erupts in cheers, so loudly that I resign myself to the fact that this hotel must be next to a stadium that I was too tired to notice on the way in, but I am wrong. There is no stadium. There is no crowd at all. I find out later that Neymar has scored, that Brazil will take gold in Men's Olympic Soccer and that what I just heard was the sum total of everyone in the city of Sao Paulo exploding at once. Alone, in their separate apartments, cheering together in unison, joy breaking from the seams of the city, ripping open the walls and the buildings and swallowing us whole.

DISSOLVE TO:

INT. EL DORADO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT IN BOGATA- DAY

I walk alone to find coffee. The airport is sleek and modern and almost entirely empty. That one Weakerthans song plays in my head. I hear laughter to my left and look to see a mother running next to her son who is also running but is aided in his journey by a mechanical walkway. He is going as fast as he can. She is purposefully slowing down to let him win. When they reach the end, he collapses into her arms and buries his head into her shoulder.

BEGIN FLASHBACK

INT. SPARE BEDROOM IN PHILADELPHIA- DAY

I see my father and I in a photograph. We're in a hotel room in Tennessee. I am four. He is maybe twenty-five. We are jumping from one bed to the next and laughing loudly. I do not recognize myself in this photo. I never recognize myself in photos but I recognize the look in my eyes and I saw it again in that boy in that airport on that mechanical walkway in Bogata.

DISSOLVE TO:

EXT. MEIJI JINGU STADIUM IN TOKYO- DUSK

Without speaking Japanese, it seems as though every batter has their own theme song and as they approach the plate, the crowd begins singing. The sun starts to set over the Tokyo skyline and we see the buildings in the fading light from the right field stands. Yamada puts a ball into deep left that sneaks over the fence and we jump to our feet to celebrate. I turn around to high-five a family that's sitting behind us. Their young son cowers away at first, startled, but when his parents celebrate with me, he does too, and then disappear into the concourse.

The boy and his father reemerge some fifteen minutes later. He is wearing a new Tokyo Swallows hat and a Yamada jersey and they arrive just in time to see him put another one into the seats. The boy taps me on the shoulder, smiling from ear to ear and puts his hand up to greet mine.