Cheeseburgers & Champagne Dreams

Sylvester Stallone meets Marilyn Monroe.

Scene: A diner somewhere outside time.
The kind of joint that never closes, where the ketchup bottle sweats like it’s seen things, and the jukebox doesn’t ask for quarters anymore.
Red leather booths. A chrome counter that reflects more ghosts than faces.
Enter Marilyn Monroe, radiant like starlight dipped in sadness. Across from her: Sylvester Stallone, muscles and mumbling, with eyes like two tired fists.
STALLONE (digging into a cheeseburger like it owes him money):
You sure you want fries? I mean, they go straight to the hips.
MARILYN (smiling like a secret):
Darling, my hips are national landmarks. Men have tried to scale them and fallen in love on the way down.
STALLONE (chuckling, mouth full):
Fair enough. You know, I never thought I’d be having lunch with the Marilyn Monroe. You’re kinda like… if dreams had legs.

MARILYN:
And you’re like if beef had an inner monologue.
STALLONE (points a fry at her):
That’s funny. I mean, you were always seen as the blonde bombshell. But you’re sharp. Real sharp.
MARILYN (sips her soda like it’s champagne):
I had to be. When they cast you as a joke, the only way to survive is to learn the punchlines before they land. You? They cast you as a tank with feelings.
STALLONE:
Yeah, well. Rocky cried. Rambo didn’t. Balance.
MARILYN:
So let me ask you something, Mister Underdog of America—did you ever want to not be tough?
STALLONE (leans back, eyes narrowing):
You mean, did I ever want to play a ballet teacher or something?
MARILYN:
No. I mean, did you ever want to just let yourself break on screen? Not in slow-motion, not with bullets. Just… break?
STALLONE (quiet now):
Yeah. I wrote Rocky with a broken heart. People saw the punches. They didn’t see the silence. You?
MARILYN (twirling her straw like it’s a wand):
They saw the wiggle and the wink. Never the woman waking up alone, wondering if being adored is the same as being loved.
STALLONE:
Damn. That’s heavy. I thought I had it bad.
MARILYN (grins):
We both had it bad, Sylvester. Just on different sound stages.
STALLONE:
What did you think of your roles? Sugar Kane, The Girl, Miss Casually Tragic?
MARILYN:
I thought they were all echoes. None of them ever knew my real name. I gave them giggles and they gave me golden cages. And you?
STALLONE (nods slowly):
Rocky? He was me with the volume turned up. A guy with nothing but heart and a dream so loud, it punched through concrete. Rambo… well, Rambo was what happened when America got tired of feeling guilty.
MARILYN:
Poor man’s Frankenstein. Built by war, abandoned by peace.
STALLONE:
That’s poetic. You sure you weren’t a writer?
MARILYN (softly):
Only in hotel rooms. On notepads no one ever read.

Waitress arrives. Coffee for him. A glass of pink lemonade for her. Neither of them drinks. They just let the condensation pool like regret.
MARILYN:
You ever feel like the movies were more real than real life?
STALLONE:
Yeah. In the ring, at least the punches made sense. Real life hits you and you don’t even know the score.
MARILYN:
Real life doesn’t have a script. It just hands you a costume and pushes you on stage.
STALLONE:
You ever want to play someone… ordinary?
MARILYN:
All the time. A librarian. A woman making meatloaf. Someone who didn’t have breathless jazz music follow her to the mailbox. You?
STALLONE:
A man who doesn’t fight. A man who just… listens. Maybe paints. Badly.
MARILYN (laughs):
You paint?
STALLONE:
I do. Abstract stuff. Lots of red. Sometimes I think it’s all just blood in disguise.
MARILYN:
I took acting lessons from Lee Strasberg, hoping someone would see I wasn’t just… a surface. But the surface made money. So they kept me there. Floating.
STALLONE:
You think they ever saw you?
MARILYN:
Only in the shadows between takes. That’s where I lived.
STALLONE (nods):
I lived in the cuts too. In the slow walk to the locker room. In the scenes nobody clapped for.
MARILYN:
Then we were both ghosts in our own stories.

A moment passes. The kind that belongs in slow motion, with violins. But there's no music. Just the hum of the lights and the crackle of old neon.
STALLONE:
If they made a movie about you, who would you want to play you?
MARILYN:
Nobody. I’d want her to invent me all over again. Softer maybe. Less alone. You?
STALLONE:
Someone who mumbles better than me. But looks worse.
MARILYN:
That’s impossible. No one mumbles like you.
STALLONE:
And no one sparkles like you. Even in pain.
MARILYN (gazes out the window, where the stars are static, like painted pinholes):
Maybe that’s all we are. Pain, packaged pretty. Bottled like perfume and sold with popcorn.
STALLONE:
But maybe that pain helped someone. Somewhere. Some kid watching Rocky, thinking they could get back up. Some girl watching The Misfits and realizing she’s not the only one lost in a crowd.
MARILYN (smiling faintly):
Then it was worth it.
STALLONE (raises his coffee like a toast):
To ghosts in film. And people who watched us bleed, and called it beautiful.
MARILYN (touches her glass):
To the scenes they forgot, and the parts we really played.

Outside, the neon flickers once. A jukebox plays a song from nowhere—part lullaby, part victory anthem.
They sit quietly, framed like a movie that never got made.
Fade to black.
Credits roll in lipstick and sweat.