Chapter 2 - The Butterfly Effect

During his previous life, Simon had seen Kathryn Bigelow for the first time when she won the Oscar for Best Director for The Hurt Locker in 2010.

In fact, his first impression of Kathryn Bigelow was based on her beauty.

At the 2010 Oscars, Kathryn Bigelow, who stood tall in her long, grey silk evening gown, looked to be only 30 years old. In addition, both her figure and temperament were enough to crush most of the shorter actresses on the red carpet.

But, in fact, Kathryn Bigelow was born in 1951. Even now, in 1986, she was already 35 years old.

Simon could only inwardly shake his head in awe at this woman who could seemingly resist the erosion of time.

After seeing her at the 2010 Oscars, Simon deliberately watched several famous films by Kathryn Bigelow.

In all fairness, most of the films directed by her could only be rated as average, but the roughness evident in her films - like an ancient stone pillar - was quite unique. She seemed to be imbuing every scene with a sense of herself. The masculine atmosphere in the scenes conveyed to the audience that she could do what any man could do, and that she could also do what no man could do.

Simon even felt that sometimes Kathryn Bigelow went a little over-the-top in her efforts to portray her female characters as being just as crazy and distinctive as her male characters.

---

After a short stop, the bus resumed its journey south along California's State Route 1 highway.

Kathryn Bigelow focused all her attention on the manuscript in her hands after giving Simon a slight greeting. Simon curiously glanced at the manuscript and judged it to be a script from the text format, so he decided against bothering her.

Over an hour later, when Kathryn finished reading the final page of the manuscript, Simon quickly asked, "Is this a script?"

A woman's senses are always quite keen. While reading the script, Kathryn had felt that the young man beside her had been looking at her from time to time. As a beautiful woman, she has never had a lack of admirers and has become accustomed to such things.

However, the young man didn't bother her for more than an hour and didn't speak until she had finished reading the script. This left Kathryn with a somewhat favorable impression of him so she smiled at him and said, "Yes."

Despite the fact that she responded to his query, Kathryn did not have much willingness to talk to Simon, a total stranger.

Although the young man beside her had a handsome face with sharp features and a temperament seemingly more mature than his peers, he was obviously just a boy under the age of twenty. If her friends learnt that she was being hit on by such a young boy, she would never hear the end of it.

Just as she was about to turn her gaze towards the window to indirectly suggest her lack of interest, Kathryn heard the young man beside her speak, "Actually, I also have a script. It will take us several hours before we arrive at Los Angeles. How about we pass time by reading each other's scripts?"

Simon pulled down his backpack from the overhead luggage rack, picked out one of the two manuscripts inside it and showed it to Kathryn.

Kathryn felt a little surprised that Simon also had a script, but still felt that he was just trying to hit on her. She was going to express her refusal, but when she glanced at the title of the script in Simon's hand, she couldn't help but feel a little curious and subconsciously asked, "What does the butterfly effect mean?"

"It is a term coined by Edward Lorenz - a professor of meteorology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology - to explain his theory." Simon stated before handing the script to Kathryn and then continued, "Professor Lorenz hypothesized that when a tiny butterfly in the Amazon basin of South America flaps its wings, the influence of the flapping of its wings on the surrounding airflow continues to grow and spread, causing a series of chain reactions which ultimately results in a massive hurricane forming all the way up in Texas.

Kathryn listened carefully to Simon's explanation, but couldn't help shaking her head, "A butterfly flapping its wings would result in a hurricane? How is that possible?"

Simon replied, "Professor Lorenz used the butterfly effect as an analogy to explain that a small variable during the early stages can have a huge impact on the entire system at the later stages. In fact, I believe that it's very possible that a butterfly flapping its wings could result in a hurricane, but it's impossible to prove it."

Kathryn hummed softly and didn't argue with Simon. She was not the type of person who liked to argue with others. Realizing that she had unknowingly accepted the script called The Butterfly Effect, Kathryn opened it curiously.

Suddenly, she felt the young man gaze on her before she recalled his words.

After slightly hesitating, she handed over her own script to him.

'Anyways, like he said, exchanging scripts would be a good way to pass time during this long journey,' she thought.

After opening the script in her hands, she glanced at it and flipped through a few pages before being left amazed.

As it turned out, other than the title on the cover, the entire script was handwritten in neat English fonts similar to print. Kathryn turned to look at the young man beside her who had turned his attention to her script.

During this era, typewriters had already become a very common office tool. It was very rare to find a youngster who would handwrite a script containing over 100 pages, and that too so beautifully.

Simon didn't know what was going through Kathryn's mind. In fact, the reason behind handwriting the script was nothing as grandiose as she thought. He had very little money and lived in a mental hospital so even if his doctor allowed him to own a typewriter, he simply wouldn't be able to afford one.

Putting Kathryn's script on his lap and opening it, Simon recognized it as the script to Near Dark, the second feature-length film that she had directed. After she won an Oscar for The Hurt Locker, Simon briefed over her early films out of curiosity, but he didn't take the time to watch each of them.

After reading for a while, Simon managed to sort out the basic plot of the film in his head.

---

Caleb, a young man on a farm in Oklahoma, met a girl named Mae and fell in love with her at first sight, but Mae was actually a vampire who turned Caleb into a vampire on impulse.

Caleb was subsequently taken away by Mae's vampire friends and began traveling around with them.

Although he now possessed the ability to live forever, after several twists and turns, Caleb realized that this was not the life he wanted, so he decided to run away from his fellow vampires.

At the same time, Caleb's father and sister were also running around looking for him. By the end, the family reunites and defeats the vampires for a happy ending.

---

After reading the last page of the script, Kathryn looked towards Simon and found that he was still reading her script. She suddenly felt a tiny urge to snatch her script back from him.

Although she didn't like the overly pessimistic tone of the The Butterfly Effect, Kathryn had to admit that its ingenious and novel plot was many times better than her own Near Dark.

At the end of the day, Near Dark was simply a romance film dressed in the coat of a vampire story. The script even had a few loopholes that she was unable to change without having to re-do the entire story.

After waiting for Simon to finish the script, Kathryn couldn't help but ask in an impatient tone, "How is it?"

Simon thought for a while, and said, "I like the scene where Caleb kneels in front of Mae to drink blood through her wrist. It carries a supernatural sense of mortality. This scene should've been inspired by the image of a lamb breastfeeding. If shot correctly, this scene will be very touching."

Kathryn didn't expect Simon to understand the profound meaning behind the scene. Although the script of Near Dark was not written entirely by her, she had written the scene Simon referred to with the mind of expressing some of her own thoughts and feelings.

Usually, after watching a film, many fans would excessively deconstruct certain scenes such that they stray from the director's original intentions, but Simon's understanding of the scene perfectly coincided with her own thoughts. She had a background in fine arts, so she occasionally added some symbolic shots to her scripts.

"Then," after slightly hesitating, Kathryn bluntly asked, "do you think there is anything in the script that can be improved?"

Hearing her question, Simon was a little surprised, but he quickly replied, "Perhaps, the farm can be changed into a ranch. The script has a lot of farm scenes, but no matter how well maintained, a farm can't match the visual beauty of a ranch with bright, green pastures."

Kathryn thought for a while before she nodded and asked, once more, "In the film's final scene, Caleb and Mae return back to being humans. Do you thing there is any better way to deal with the ending?"

In the script of Near Dark, the male and female leads return back to being humans after going through a simple blood transfusion. The logic behind this scene is indeed very far-fetched.

However, Simon shook his head and said, "You should have already revised the script many times, right? If you could've changed it, this scene wouldn't still be on the script. There really is no way to change this ending without altering the entire second half of the script which would simply turn it into a completely different story."

Kathryn nodded, knowing that Simon was telling the truth, but she still felt disappointed.

Simon looked at her expression and said, "Actually, there is one more thing that can be changed."

Kathryn turned to him, expectantly.

"The protagonist's name." Simon said with a smile at the corner of his mouth, "You must know that 'Caleb' is derived from Hebrew, but it actually means 'ferocious hunting dog' which really doesn't match with the protagonist's personality."

Kathryn understood from Simon's smile that he was just joking, so she also smiled and asked, "You can speak Hebrew?"

"Yes, I'm quite fluent in it too, so I will definitely be able to go far in Hollywood in the future."

---

Hebrew is the mother-tongue of the Jewish people. It is common knowledge that Hollywood is controlled by Jews. Most of the filmmakers and studio executives in Hollywood tend to be of Jewish descent. Being able to speak Hebrew fluently would definitely earn Simon the favor of many Jews in Hollywood.

In fact, due to inheriting the memories of a dozen other souls, Simon could not only speak Hebrew, but also German, French, Russian, Spanish and Italian, in addition to English and Chinese. All of these languages combined covered most of the mainstream world. Therefore, even if Simon ended up being just a translator, he would be one of the highest paid translators.

---

Hearing Simon's words, Kathryn had a slight urge to roll her eyes at him. She even felt that the young man had subtly changed the topic as he didn't want to comment too much about her script. Perhaps, compared to his The Butterfly Effect, her Near Dark really didn't have too many things worth commenting upon.

Still, she continued the topic touched upon by Simon to keep the conversation alive and asked, "Then what do you think Caleb's name should be changed to?"

"How about Simon?"

Kathryn was slightly confused and asked, "What's special about Simon?"

Simon smiled, reached out his towards Kathryn and said, "I'm Simon Westeros. Miss, may I know your name?"

Kathryn suddenly understood that Simon was the young man's name.

"I am Kathryn Bigelow," shaking his hand gently, Kathryn also introduced herself with a smile before she curiously asked, "Westeros... that's a very rare last name. Since you can speak Hebrew, is your last name Jewish?"

"No." Simon shook his head and stated, "This name belongs only to me."

"Westeros" was an original term which would be created by George R.R Martin almost a decade later. Therefore, Simon was undoubtedly the only "Westeros" in this world.

Kathryn could feel the slight sense of superiority within Simon's words, but she didn't feel that there was anything wrong with it.

He was able to write an outstanding script like The Butterfly Effect; he could casually explain the theory of an M.I.T professor; and also managed to master a niche language like Hebrew. It should only be taken for granted that such an extraordinary young man was prideful.