Emma closes a door. Willie flirts with his neighbor. Joany contemplates water shoes. Raquel awaits the death of her parents. Pip pines for her cousin. Nadine measures proportions. Me, and you, and everyone else chain-smoke cigarettes while someone searches for an escape.
There Is No Escape. paints a series of intimate portraits, which reflect the age-old saying, "Wherever you go, there you are." This anthology chronicles the lives of distinct characters as they undergo varying states of desiring escape from their lives. The stories capitalize on the paralyzing nature of inescapability in love, loss, aging, and the passing of time. By overlapping in theme, but standing alone in content, these stories showcase the oddly relatable aspects of life despite the lone quality of experience.
The following is an excerpt from "Me and You (and Everyone Else)"
"...I envy those who obsess over saving time, rather than spending or wasting, but those people are either disgustingly happy or otherwise raising children. Saving, spending, not wasting-no matter the route, these are all just subversions from the moments when time starts to act on us. We are consumed with acting on time the way we so effortlessly did when we were young. Spending time spending time just to spend time or saving time to save time just to save time. Everything is boiling down to snapshots between and around each other-one spends time while the other saves, the two of them wanting something from time but nothing to do with each other.
If everything was everything for forever, time would not carry this much weight. Things would be slightly different for me. I would be one of those girls who posts dozens of pictures of herself, making the same blasé expression in the same boring, ugly-ironic outfit. Then, at the end of my life, I'd be content, left with hundreds of pictures of myself making the same face and wearing the same clothes. More fulfilling ways to spend the time would have never crossed my mind. Unfortunately, forever is a curious thing and I am not one of those girls. So instead, time eats me alive if I don't find something to satiate its passing..."
Sewell, Samantha: - Samantha Sewell is an award-winning film and literary writer. She received her B.A. in Psychology at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) before returning to UCLA's TFT Department for an M.F.A in film. Her film work has received recognition and accolades from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Ron A. Baham Memorial Fellowship, the Gilbert Cates Fellowship, BlueCat Screenplay Competition, Final Draft Big Break, and HollyShorts Film Festival. Her prose has been published in Fem Newsmagazine, Currant Jam, and Cult Magazine. In addition to writing, Samantha engages in experimental film, visual art, and interactive art. There Is No Escape. is Samantha's first published book. Raised in New York City, she currently resides in Los Angeles.
