There’s a scene between two characters I’ve finally gotten a feel for. One of them is the main character, who is the quintessential nice guy. The man has a steady moral compass, accepts loss with deep feeling, and he tries to do what’s best for everyone around him. The other is an agent of change, a woman with a strict sense of what is right and wrong and sees no gray area in anything. They both have the same goal, but where as the Main Character is willing to accept gradual change, the woman is demanding change happen now, yesterday in fact, and sees slow change more likely to turn into very little change or no change at all.

There are linked by the common good yet divided as to how it should be reached.

They clash early in the story, and he understands where she is coming from, and facilitates her plans for a rearrangement of the power structure. This forms an alliance between the two, and things looks good for the future, but a stranger arrives with secrets of his past, and now the mistrust has returned. The murder of this stranger sets the two against one another, yet simultaneously, unites them.

There is a scene, the two of them alone, facing one another, the man calm, the woman angry. She tell him, screams it at him, that his lack of passion for change will be construed as acceptance of status quo, and indeed, will be viewed by some as indifference. Nothing, she tells him, is more dangerous than the people who are simply willing to accept what is as all that is achievable. What, she asks him, are you willing to do, how far are you willing to go, how much are you willing to accept as your own responsibility, to create this change?

He calmly tells her he’s willing to do whatever it takes, but he doesn’t think he’s suppose to yell and scream and act like the world is coming to an end.

She grabs him by the collar and slams him against the wall, stunning him, shocking him, and she puts her face so close to his he can smell her breath.

“That is the attitude that got Christie murdered, the attitude this isn’t worth screaming about.”

I have found the scene.

Take Care,

Mike