Script excerpt from "A Simple Choice"

EXT. OPEN FIELD – DAY

A group of dozens of mourners sit in folding chairs, set up in rows in an open, grass field. A makeshift stage has been set up at the front, on which Brian is standing.

BRIAN
Nokia was not a gay man, but he cared about us, and he cared about our cause. He tried to help us. He tried to help his friends. He had no ego. Not a selfish bone in his body. He was a straight man who counted gay men among his best friends. That, in itself, is a wonderful and extraordinary thing. If more people could be like Nokia, and accept people’s differences, we’d be living in a much happier world. I’d like to read something now. At the funeral, his mother gave me this book. It’s his journal. I asked her if I could read something, and she accepted. She’s in the audience now. Mrs. Cowan, please stand up.

A WOMAN stands up, and a huge, thunderous applause rises from the crowd. The sound dissipates, and Brian goes on:

BRIAN
This is a poem, dated exactly one year ago today. I doubt he imagined a year ago that we’d all be standing here, doing this... But in that year, he accomplished something great. And with that said, I now read to you something he wrote, entitled, “This Afternoon”...

During the reading of the poem, the camera focuses on small groups of the crowd at once, cutting every few seconds.

BRIAN
“I want a girl with red hair, and a personality to match
Who smells of suntan lotion and burnt perfume
On long lazy afternoons,
On long, sleepless nights,
On curving roads that stretched into the haze
My only friend was the sky.
Turn the music up... loud, loud, loud...
For all the days
For all the nights
For all the words that flowed right through me
Like little bumps in the road.”