The Ride of Her Life
About Cecil Castellucci
Cecil Castellucci is the award winning and New York Times Bestselling author of books and graphic novels for young adults including Shade, The Changing Girl, Boy Proof, The Plain Janes, Soupy Leaves Home, The Year of the Beasts, Tin Star, Female Furies and Odd Duck. In 2015 they co-authored Star Wars Moving Target: A Princess Leia Adventure. She has also written Batgirl for DC Comics. Their newest graphic novel is Shifting Earth out on Dark Horse Comics. Her short stories and short comics have been published in Strange Horizons, Tor.com, and many other anthologies. In a former life, she was known as Cecil Seaskull in the ‘90s indie band Nerdy Girl. She has written three opera librettos Les Aventures de Madame Merveille (World Premiere in 2010) Hockey Noir: The Opera (World Premiere 2018) and Metternich! The Language of Flowers (World Premiere 2021). They are the former Children’s Correspondence Coordinator for The Rumpus, a two-time MacDowell Fellow, and the founding YA Editor at the LA Review of Books. Their pandemic projects have been rewatching every Disney film in order and researching a British World War I soldier. They live in Los Angeles and spend time Montreal.
The Script
The Ride of her Life
By Cecil Castellucci
For PJ Holden
Panel 1
We are on a Disneyland Ride. (I think ghost haunted mansion vibe, but you know, make it your own, if you want to go fairy tale or pirate, go for it) A woman is in the little buggy by herself. It is on approach to a scene in the ride where is an animatronic man with his hand out to an animatronic woman, but they haven’t quite reached each other.
CAPTION: I see her whenever she comes through. Our eyes always catch.
Panel 2
The little buggy is now closer, and it is stopped in front of the man who is still reaching out.
RIDE ANNOUNCEMENT: There are ghosts in the system. The ride will continue when we’ve spirted them away.
Panel 3
A bunch of tiny panels of the woman in the buggy and the man reaching out. I would love for this to be fractured action. Him reaching out, their eyes meeting over and over again, their bodies in their respective places broken up. As though time and space is cracking them and the possibilities open. You know. Some crazy shit! Here’s your billion panels in this one fractured panel?
CAPTION: What if I could change the story I live every day?
Panel 4
The woman from the buggy is now dancing with the man. The animatronic woman he was reaching out to is alone.
CAPTION: What if I asked her to dance with me for eternity?
Panel 5
The buggy is empty, a purse in the front seat is all that tells us that there was anyone there. In the distance we see the animatronic man and the woman from the buggy, still dancing.
RIDE ANNOUNCEMENT: Thank you for your patience. We’ll be on our way.
It’s a part where