Flight of Fancy

Description

In a drizzly, East Anglian bird reserve, trainee conservation officer Jess has everything she needs to be happy. Oystercatchers. Woolly jumpers. Jaffa cakes. And then she meets fellow trainee Maya, and falls in love at first sight. Maya, meanwhile, is equally smitten with Jess. They both express their wild, romantic, bird-based feelings in song – but it’s a song that only exists in their imaginations. In real life, they’re tongued tied, their conversation limited to bird species and biscuits. Jess searches for Maya all over the bird reserve, but keeps missing her (Maya, meanwhile, is busily searching for Jess). When Jess finally finds Maya in a hide, she psyches herself up to ask her out. After a dramatic (musical) build up, she plucks up the courage to ask Maya… if she can borrow her binoculars. Before she can try again, she\'s interrupted by their grumpy manager, who looks in Jess’s wildlife log, and sacks her on the spot when she sees that it’s filled with approximately 214 doodles of Maya’s name. Jess has lost her job, she’s leaving the reserve - it’s now or never. She runs after Maya, gathers all her courage, begins to sing out her feelings, in all their wild, transcendent, bobble hatted glory. For a moment Maya looks at her totally blankly - and Jess thinks she\'s lost her dignity. Then Maya begins to sing back to Jess. It\'s a romantic duet of Biblical proportions, one that is full of bird-based metaphors and unbridled joy that they\'ve found each other. We leave them united and blissful, (despite the inevitable East Anglian rain).

Biblical Connection

I\'m adapting several elements from The Song of Solomon: most importantly its theme, which is the bliss and overwhelming power of romantic love. Other elements include the way the lovers are inspired by the landscape around them, and compare each other to animals, as well as the element of a chase and a duet. But where, in the original, the two lovers are bold, shouting their love from the rooftops, my characters are full of the rapture of romance on the inside, but remarkably inept, British and monosyllabic on the outside. They haven\'t yet found the words, or the courage, to declare their feelings. Flight of Fancy will chart their journey into fully embracing their love for each other, from shy beginnings, to a romance worthy of their Biblical forbears.