RYAN, a religious pilgrim. American, white of Irish descent. Wears backpacker's clothes and a large pendant made of a scallop shell.

EDWARD, Ryan's boyfriend. American. Dresses gay chic.

FELIPE, an old man. Spaniard. He is thin and worn but in apparent good health for his age.

YOUNG FELIPE, late teens. Poor rural Spaniard, circa 1925. Slight and seedy-looking.

THE PILGRIM. Rural Irishman circa 1925. He is short, wiry, strong from field-work but not large.

ST. JAMES, apostle of Christ. He also wears the scallop-shell pendant.

INTERIOR - HOSTEL ROOM

A small room in a pilgrim's hostel, a free lodging. It is clean but poor, lit by a single bulb in an old fixture, furnished with a bunk bed and a chair. The furniture is old and scuffed, the linens worn, threadbare, repaired. The walls are old plaster, cracked but not crumbling. A large backpack and a pair of good, heavily-used boots on the floor.

RYAN is writing in his diary. He is dressed, his socks dirty from several days' use.

RYAN (narrating): I was tired but also restless. I tried writing about my day --

RYAN'S DIARY: Day 22: Only 13 kilometers. The terrain here is flat and dull. Keeping a good pace is tough.

RYAN (narrating): But I thought about the past.

INTERIOR - APARTMENT

EDWARD talks with Ryan in their apartment.

EDWARD: Why do you have to go walk across Spain to make your parents happy?

RYAN: I'm not doing it for my parents. I'm doing it for my family.

EDWARD: What's the difference?

RYAN: My family's bigger than my parents. I'll be the fourth generation to walk to Compostela. It's a family tradition. That means something.

EDWARD: That means you want to make your parents happy.

INTERIOR - BEDROOM

Ryan and Edward in bed together, Ryan clinging to Edward's back. Even asleep, Ryan looks distressed.

RYAN (narrating): All our fights ended in bed, so they never really ended. So I never did explain it, that it was more than my family. It was my family's history, our story in this life. I wanted to be part of it, even if I didn't know why.

RYAN'S DIARY: 50 kilometers to Leon. The guidebook says the terrain changes there. I look forward to green countryside.

INTERIOR - BEDROOM

Edward in bed with another man who is not Ryan. Ideally a similar pose to the previous bedroom image, though here suggestive of transience, either a one-night stand or a much shallower relationship.

RYAN (narrating): I wondered who Edward was fighting with now.

INTERIOR - HOSTEL ROOM

FELIPE stands in the doorway.

FELIPE: Buenas tardes, senor.

RYAN: Buenas tardes.

FELIPE: It will soon be time to turn off the lights.

RYAN: Oh, yes. Of course. Thank you.

FELIPE: You keep a diary of your pilgrimage.

RYAN: Yes. Though I don't have much to write today.

FELIPE: This city is not much to write about. It has done badly here since I was young.

Ryan stands and offers his hand.

RYAN: I'm Ryan.

FELIPE: I am Felipe.

Felipe takes the chair and Ryan sits down.

RYAN: Do you run this hostel?

FELIPE: My children now. But I have worked here since I was a young man. It has been my duty.

RYAN: Duty?

FELIPE: My duty to Santiago, to St. James. In thanks for saving my life. When I was young I was poor and angry. There were many more pilgrims then. I attacked Santiago's pilgrims and stole from them. What is the word -- bandit. I was a bandit.

RYAN: So what happened?

EXTERIOR - PILGRIM'S ROAD

A sunny day outside. A bend in a dirt road used by horses and people on foot. The terrain is flat and rocky, dry but not desert. THE PILGRIM is walking past some bushes, behind which YOUNG FELIPE waits.

FELIPE (narrating): I attacked a man one day.

FELIPE (narrating): But he got the better of me.

Young Felipe on the ground, a large bloody wound in his abdomen, face contorted in pain.

FELIPE (narrating): The pilgrim ran away, with my knife. I was left to die. So I prayed, to Santiago, asking him to spare my life.

VISION (EXTERIOR -- PILGRIM'S ROAD)

ST. JAMES kneels by Young Felipe's body, touching his forehead.

FELIPE (narrating): I told him I would serve him if he saved me.

INTERIOR - HOSTEL ROOM

FELIPE: After my vision, I fell into blackness. I woke in hospital. A group of pilgrims had found me. They thought I was one of them, and carried me to town. I should not have lived, but I did. When I was well I came to work here; and here I am still.

Ryan is pale. He is astonished and terrified.

FELIPE: Senor Ryan, what is it?

RYAN: It's not possible.

FELIPE: What?

Ryan closes his eyes and smiles ruefully.

RYAN: I have a story to tell you.

INTERIOR - IRISH CHURCH

A small rural church made of gray stone. A young couple are getting married. The groom is the Pilgrim. The bride is plump and plain.

RYAN (narrating): My great-grandfather married young. He had little money.

EXTERIOR - FIELD

The Pilgrim, behind a horse-drawn plow.

RYAN (narrating): He worked hard for his new family. So hard, that he didn't have much energy left ...

INTERIOR - BEDROOM

The Pilgrim and his wife, in bed asleep. Echoes other bedroom scenes. Here the Pilgrim is asleep from exhaustion, his wife awake and concerned.

RYAN (narrating): ... to make a family.

INTERIOR - HOSTEL ROOM

RYAN: After two years of marriage, my great-grandparents had no children. The village began to gossip, and in the pubs ...

INTERIOR - RURAL PUB

A donnybrook, glasses and fists flying, and at the center The Pilgrim is connecting a hard punch with the nose of another man.

INTERIOR - HOSTEL ROOM

RYAN: A man died in the fight. There wasn't enough evidence for the constable, but the village priest demanded a great penance from my great-grandfather. He implied that without the penance, God would make sure there never were any children. So my father got on a boat for Spain.

EXTERIOR - PILGRIM'S ROAD

The same pilgrim's road as in the earlier scenes with Young Felipe, but seen by the Pilgrim.

RYAN (narrating): My great-grandfather walked from the moment he got off the boat. He bought bread and meat in towns every two days.

Felipe approaches, his face angry, menacing with his knife.

RYAN (narrating): He slept under trees for a few hours a night. He wanted to be done with it.

The Pilgrim has stepped inside Felipe's lunging arm. The Pilgrim's elbow is jabbing into Felipe's throat. Felipe has let go of the knife; it floats in the air just beyond his hand.

RYAN (narrating): Once he was attacked by a bandit.

Felipe on the ground. In the distance, the Pilgrim running away.

RYAN (narrating): My great-grandfather didn't even stop.

EXTERIOR - PILGRIM'S ROAD, NIGHT

Under a tree, the Pilgrim huddled under a yellow raincoat. It is raining.

RYAN (narrating): But he knew what he had done. That night he prayed that the man who attacked him would live. In his dreams St. James visited him.

VISION

St James stands against a starry background. Above his outstretched hand the knife drips blood into a large scallop shell.

RYAN (narrating): Keep the knife, St James told him.

On a surface, the knife, still bloody, and a scallop shell cradling a baby boy.

RYAN (narrating): Keep this knife, and the Lord will bless you with one son, you and each of your descendents, so long as you keep the knife.

INTERIOR - HOSTEL ROOM

RYAN: Nine months after my great-grandfather returned home, his wife bore him his only child, a son. That son moved to America, and had one child, my father. And I am my father's only child.

Ryan opens one of the backpack's front pockets and removes something in a plastic bag.

RYAN: All of them walked to Compostela.

Ryan has removed the knife from the plastic bag. He holds it above his lap and stares down at it.

RYAN: All of them carried this knife.

The knife, in Ryan's open hand, point at the wrists and hilt past his middle finger. The wood handle is worn and dried. The blade is stained with rust in the same pattern as the bloodstain in the vision.

RYAN: It's your knife. I'm giving it back to you.

Felipe takes the knife gingerly and contemplates it.

FELIPE: But Senor, if I take the knife, you will not have a son.

Ryan looks wistful, bitter, resigned.

RYAN: No. I suppose not. Goodnight, Senor Felipe.

Felipe stands. Ryan sits, his head in one hand.

Felipe leaves.

INTERIOR -- HOSTEL SITTING ROOM

In a poor sitting room, two fat women in black sit crying. A young woman, pregnant, also in black, stands over them, talking on an old wall phone. Through a doorway is a reception desk. A middle-aged man, his back to the scene, stands behind the desk. Ryan, just visible, stands in front of it.

RYAN (narrating): In the morning they told me the old man had died in his sleep. I wanted desperately to see him, but there was no way I could ask.

EXTERIOR -- PILGRIM'S ROAD

The same section of road where the attack took place. The scenery has changed. A new railroad track is up the hill, with wires running over it and a structure of signal equipment mounted on one side. Ryan is on hands and knees in the dirt.

RYAN (narrating): A couple of miles outside of town my strength suddenly failed me.

Ryan close-up, face in the dirt, his eyes open but vacant.

RYAN (narrating): I must have fainted.

VISION

A field of mottled red and black. On it, a few bright spherical points, burning hot like miniature stars.

RYAN (narrating): I saw a darkness, with bright things floating through it.

The same field, but from farther away, with tens of bright points visible. The points faintly suggest a pattern, like constellations.

RYAN (narrating): The bright things were us, all of us. They moved around, willful, independent, going wherever they thought they wanted to go.

The same field, from much farther still. There are now hundreds of points. A few are still random, as if part of a much larger background, but most of them clearly form the shape of a scallop shell.

RYAN (narrating): But they weren't independent at all. They were part of something bigger, something they could never understand. Something too much, and too terrible, to know.

VISION (EXTERIOR -- PILGRIM'S ROAD)

Ryan lying on the road, face up, the same posture as the wounded Felipe. He is crying, his face contorted. St James kneels over him, touching his forehead.