Film Analysis: An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge

In the 7th grade I had a crush on my history – geography teacher, Ms. Nail. She was in her early to mid twenties with jet black hair, slim and attractive, I thought she was Jackie Kennedy's sister. As I languished in the classroom staring at her every move like a mannequin, far too infatuated with her, and less interested in class assignments, she would call me out for not completing them on time. When she was lecturing about the French Revolution I was envisioning the two us at the Eiffel tower, she was my queen as I laid my cape down for her – only to snap back to reality as she exclaimed “David, are you with us? Or are you in some far away place again?” “Oh, if she only knew!” I recall one evening when I was at the grocery store
The following week in class, Ms. Nail had us watch a film titled, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” The plot was about a Confederate soldier sentenced to hang for being a traitor. Just as his execution was about to take place, Ms. Nail stopped the movie and gave us an assignment – we were to write how we thought the story should end. I wrote that the soldier was dreaming about his true love and the fact that he could not have her was akin to dying, to live without her was as painful as death. I received an A on my assignment – one of the few A's I ever got in her class, with the exception of a written report on the “The History and People of France.“ The following year I started 8th grade, and my infatuation with Ms. Nail ended. I never saw her at school again and assumed she had moved away-for me it was on to high school, college, I had pretty much forgotten her over the years. However, one night a few weeks ago, I was watching an old rerun of “The Twilight Zone.” The episode was “An Occurrence at Owl Creek