Chicken Nuggets, Religion and a Teen Suicide

1. EXT.BURGER KING DRIVE-THROUGH-NIGHT

Three girls sit in a tan Ford Explorer with their heads turned slightly left to read the brightly lit fast-food menu. 

2. INT. CAYLEE'S CAR- NIGHT

The passenger, CATHERINE, leans close to the driver CAYLEE.

CATHERINE

Look! They have the chicken fingers again. 

CAYLEE

Yeah, I know.

Catherine looks at the price of the chicken fingers. 

CATHERINE

Kinda expensive for so little.

CAYLEE

Are you getting something?

Catherine

Nah, I'm not that hungry.

Caylee leans out the window to order. 

CAYLEE

Um I'll get an order of chicken

 nuggets from the value menu.

INTERCOM PERSON

Will that be-

JULIA, sitting behind Caylee, quickly interrupts.  

JUlIA

Can I get some water?

CATHERINE

Oh, me too.

CAYLEE (cont.'d)

Actually I'll get two orders of chicken 

nuggets and three cups of water.

INTERCOM PERSON

Okay. Two orders of chicken nuggets 

and three waters. That'll be $2.98.

Pay at the next window. 

CAYLEE

Alright.

Caylee drives up to the next window to pay. 

CAYLEE

(to Catherine and Julia)

So I recently found out that 

someone I knew just died.

Catherine and Julia raise their eyebrows but remain silent. 

CAYLEE (cont.'d)

His mom posted a status on Facebook 

about praying for her son or something. 

Someone commented, asking what 

was going on. She replied that 

her son had committed suicide.

JULIA

That's crazy.

Caylee pauses then drives up to the next window for the food. 

BURGER KING EMPLOYEE 

Here's your chicken nuggets and waters.

He hands the food to Caylee. Caylee passes it to Catherine. 

CAYLEE

Thanks.

Caylee drives out the lot and into the city streets. 

CAYLEE (cont.'d)

I went to elementary school with him.

It was like a small Christian school,

 so there were only like...nine of us 

in the class. His mom was our teacher.

I liked him. He was so weird and funny. 

My brother was actually really 

good friends with him.

Catherine frowns as she looks at Caylee's solemn face. 

CATHERINE

I'm sorry, Caylee.

CAYLEE

No, it's not like that. 

Like I'm not really sad about it.

It was such a long time ago 

since I've seen him, ya know. 

I mean I feel bad for what his

family is going through, but

the whole thing has just 

made me like...think-

CATHERINE

It's made you reflect certain things.

CAYLEE

Yeah, exactly...It's just I clearly 

remember his mom always saying to us how

committing suicide was like the worst sin ever.

 And if you do it, you'll go straight to hell. 

Caylee reaches in the Burger King bag next to Catherine and pulls out some chicken nuggets.

CAYLEE (cont.'d)

I just don't get it.

He was so outgoing and happy. I mean I know

that was years ago, but how bad could 

it have been for him to do that?

Especially being raised super Christian

and believing those things.

She pauses to chew on her food. 

CATHERINE

He probably had severe depression. 

CAYLEE

Yeah, but you guys know how I have depression. 

I've been diagnosed with bipolar depression, but still-

JULIA

I didn't know that. 

Caylee slightly turns her head back to Julia.

CAYLEE

Yeah, my dad has it too.

CATHERINE

Yeah it tends to be genetic. 

CAYLEE

 So, ya know, I've had some really bad days. 

Days where I've had like really 

depressive thoughts to the point 

where I thought about like... killing myself.

But they were always just thoughts. 

I could never really do it'cause the 

thought of how it'd affect my family 

if I did...I just couldn't do that to them.

It'd be selfish of me. 

CAYLEE (cont.'d)

But what really stopped me was the idea of hell.

That if I committed suicide, I'd be damned to hell.

I'd eternally burn in the lake of fire. Like forever.

I mean we can't even truly understand 

what eternity would feel or look like

 'cause it's that fuckin' long.  

JULIA

I don't believe in hell. 

My mom didn't raise us to believe

 in really anything. Heaven or hell. 

CAYLEE

I don't know if I do either, but I was raised to believe that...
I go back and forth with it.

CATHERINE
I do, too.

JULIA
Well if hell is real, then I'm screwed. I drink, I've had sex before marriage, I-

CATHERINE
It's not about if you sin. It's whether you believe in Jesus Christ as your savior or not. Like even if you lived your entire life as a nonbeliever, but accept him as your savior in the last seconds of your life, you're good. That's what I was taught. 

CATHERINE (cont.'d)
Of course you have to ask for forgiveness for all your sins. Including things like lying or any lustful thought you've ever had. At least that's what the Catholics believe. 

JULIA
So we're all screwed then.

Julia chuckles.

CATHERINE
Yup, pretty much. 

JULIA
That's my problem with religion. Like we were built to have sex and lustful thoughts. It's human fuckin' nature. But instead we're suppose to abstain from it and feel bad if we do? Like even the Buddhists- they're all about reaching a state in which you no longer desire anything anymore...that's what they believe in right? 

Julia looks at Catherine. Catherine shrugs. 

JULIA (cont.'d)
And that's bullshit. I mean I'm all for trying to have peace within ourselves and in our minds but no desire? To desire is to have ambition, drive and motivation in our lives. What's wrong with that? I don't know...It's bullshit. All of it.

CATHERINE
I get what you're saying. But I wouldn't want to live in a world where everyone acted out their lustful thoughts or desires 'cause there's some fucked up people out there. I see why religion is needed in our world.

They all paused, consumed in their own thoughts.

JULIA

Alright, I gotta get going. I have work early tomorrow morning. 

CAYLEE

Okay, I'll drop you off. 

CATHERINE

Yeah, it's getting pretty late. I need to be home, too. 

Caylee nods. 

3. INT. CAYLEE'S CAR PARKED IN FRONT CATHERINE'S HOUSE- LATE AT NIGHT

CAYLEE

I don't know what scares me most- hell or the belief that it's just nothing after we die. Just an eternity of blankness. I mean I hope hell isn't real, honestly. But at the same time, I don't really see the point of all of this if there isn't like a heaven or something after we die. What's the point of being a good person? Why not just say 'fuck it, I'll do what I want'?

CATHERINE

I don't know. My friend John explained it this way: after we die, we are no longer conscious. Like how we were before we were born. But when he said that, I just thought 'the difference is I've lived a life now.' Ya know? There's meaning to it now. Before I was born, I was blissfully ignorant of it all. I didn't know what I was missing out on.  But when I'm on the verge of death, all I'll think about is the life I've lived. 

CAYLEE
Do you think he saw his life flash before his eyes before he died?

CATHERINE
Who? Your friend?

CAYLEE
Yeah.

Catherine contemplates her next words.

CATHERINE

I don't know, Caylee. 

Catherine looks at her friend with empathy, feeling as lost as her.  

  

Good vs Evil

 At a very young age I was taught about satan: the fallen angel, the prince of demons, all that is evil and unholy, etc... I was told the story of satan as once being an angel of God named Lucifer who was part of God's divine council. He later became envious of God's power, believing he could be better than Him. He was thus exiled from the heavens for thinking in such ways and became a fallen angel, according to the story. 

And at a very young age, when being told this, I questioned certain aspects of the story. How can emotions such as envy or jealousy exist in a place like heaven that is suppose to represent everything holy, pure and good? Why didn't God just forgive Lucifer, as his son Jesus teaches us to do with one another everyday? And did God create 'evil' if he is the creator of all things? 

Yet after so many years, these questions go unanswered. And I'm not sure if anyone or anything will ever truly have the answers to them. 

But when learning about the origins or 'birth' of satan, the concepts and where they derive from become a lot more clearer. 

It's always been clear that most cultures and religious beliefs contain an entity that represents, or is, 'evil' and darkness. In the Hebrew bible, the Torah, satan was first written as 'the satan' as a description of an evil action rather than a personified being. Later, we see 'the satan' meaning 'the accuser' in which he is an angel serving God that essentially does the dirty work. It is truly until the New Testament that we see satan as God's archenemy. 

But if God is the most powerful being, can he really have an archenemy or an equal opponent even? If he created satan then isn't satan always inferior to God? I've always been told that satan is indeed less powerful than God, yet they're always contrasted with each other as equals. 

I've always saw the need for evil in the world, as horrible as that may sound. To me, I believe that you can't appreciate the beauty and light of the world without experiencing the darkness and pain at times. And if our lives consisted of only goodness, than it'd become the norm of our world and the idea of 'free will,' in which God supposedly gave to us human beings, cease to exist. 

I do believe that there is good in the world as much as there is bad. I've seen it. I've experienced it. But I don't believe in bad or good people. I think we do good things and sometimes we fuck up and do bad things. And some people fuck up more than others, but no one is entirely evil or entirely pure. But it's so much easier to qualify people underneath a certain category rather than viewing us as complex beings with multiple factors that cause us to do what we do and be the way we are. 

So if satan is simply the accuser, he can only accuse us if we do something bad which is entirely our choice under the belief of free will. He isn't evil himself as much as I don't think God is ALL that good if he feels emotions such as jealousy and anger. 

Obviously I don't have the answers or even a conclusion to all this. I'm simply putting my thoughts and reflections of all this in a blog post. I'm sure I've contradicted myself and my ideas somewhere along the line as most spectators do. But this is a start. A start to understand our world and why and what influenced us to believe the way we do.