A new writer emerging from The Story Mint, Azadeh writes with an experienced eye on life. I am sure we are going to see a lot more of her work very soon. This is a serial starter.
Azadeh Nafissi is a writer/ filmmaker who lives in Paris, France. She grew up in Tehran, Iran and after finishing her BA in English Language and Literature; she traveled to New Zealand and studied MA in English Literature and PGD in Communication Studies. Her passion for cinema drew her to Paris where she studied filmmaking.
She has written several short and feature scripts and directed some short documentaries. She has recently participated in chapter/starter writing for the Story Mint serials. Apart from her scripts, she is also working on a collection of short stories.
Maggie and Danny ©
Maggie was preparing the material scheduled
for the coming week’s episode when the head of the station called her to his
office. He leaned back in his chair and beamed. “Well, Maggie, how would you like a promotion to host and be
programmer for the youth section?”
While the promotion excited her she
nervously wondered how she could possibly connect with teenagers. She was
thirty years old and struggled to recall her own troubled teenage years.
Experience taught her that writing useful programs for those viewers was
extremely demanding. Their fragility had to be subtly and sensitively depicted.
She needed to show she understood teenagers’ complicated tastes and that was
not going to be easy.
She realized she had to put herself in
their place and to recall what she liked when she was a teenager. Those were
anecdotes, songs, toys and board games. As a lover of animation characters, she
created a sidekick named “Jiggy Bo,” a hand puppet with inquisitive eyes and
gentle manner. She based him on Mr. Pricklepants from the adorable Toy Story
series.
As the show received many positive reviews,
schools, charity events and teenage rehab centers invited her to perform.
One day she was due at one of these
centers. She had watched documentaries and seen how tough life was inside them
and this worried her. Her anxiety heightened when the nurse searched her for
illegal drugs.
To calm down she left her team setting up
and took a walk down the echoing hallway. She came upon a young person who
shyly smiled at her. He was playing with his long hair and looked cutely
androgynous.
He started to greet her when the nurse
interrupted. “Danny, get back to the room and take a seat,” she barked.
The smile immediately disappeared from
Danny’s face and a scowl replaced it. He spun on his booted feet and
disappeared with a flick of tartan skirt. The nurse followed Maggie’s gaze,
then rolled her eyes, “She,” the nurse rolled her eyes… “He, is only fourteen
but such a troublemaker. We are all absolutely sick of him.”
Troubled by this, Maggie returned to the
room where the crew was setting up. It buzzed with the sound of chattering,
giggling teenagers. She settled Jiggy Bo on the table next to her and began to
read some poems. She continued with a play and ended with a small quiz. The nurse
told her not to make the show longer than one hour, and Maggie made sure to
finish just before dinner time. As she performed, her eyes kept returning to
Danny who sat away from the rest of the group, legs and arms tightly crossed.
Afterwards, instead of rushing from the
room as the others did, Danny stayed and drifted about. She began playing with
Jiggy Bo's arms, twisting the arms around his floppy body. Danny cautiously
looked around then said through his wild brownish hair and pleading eyes, “Can you
adopt me? I’m really scared of this place.”
Azadeh Nafissi (France)
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