After the Camers Stopped: Pulp Fiction (1994)

It's been a while since I wrote one of these. Enjoy.

Pulp Fiction (1994)
dir. Quentin Tarantino


The Story: Against her better judgement, a woman goes to gawk at a car-crash victim—more specifically, a man who got into a crash because, while driving like a drunken mad man, he plowed through an innocent man and then crashed into another car. This woman knows that it's bad kharma to offer aid—even if only in a feigning way, because, as I said, her true motive is rubbernecking—to a man responsible for so much damage. Nevertheless, she goes against her better instincts and stands by the drunken madman.

When the drunken madman's victim reawakens, the man whoozily squeezes off a few shots in the direction of the drunken madman and accidentally hits gawking woman in the hip. The price she has paid for offering fake aid to a criminal is a shattered hip. An important moral lesson is this movie.

Here's the movie:


What Happened After the Cameras Stopped: A new hip and many months of physical therapy later, gunshot woman is left in debt. And her attempts to bring justice to her accidental assailant prove fruitless. When the months of legal wrangling turn into despondent years, gunshot woman becomes crippled by legal and medical bills.

A couple decades pass, and gunshot woman—her body ravaged by both the gunshot and the ensuing depression-induced Ding Dong/lethargy binges—is now confined to a rascal scooter. When making her weekly liquor run, she spots her assailant, the shooter, the man who ruined her life. She sets her machine in high gear and plunges toward the man.

The man, turning, noticing at the last minute, exclaims, "not again."

Her machine bumps into his shin, causing him slight discomfort. Gunshot woman dejectedly hangs her head and continues on.