I knew he’d come. There, by the doorway, the middle-aged guy, the one with the red jacket over his arm– see? No, he won’t recognize me, I was always behind the camera. Now. He’s going over to that newspaper somebody left behind. Look at him. All this and he still reads newspapers. Watch his hands, tell me what you see, I swear the key to it all is somewhere in those hands.
I don’t know how many times I’ve watched the footage I shot that day. Sometimes I just sit in front of the screen, I just sit there at night, while it plays over and over again. You remember , everybody remembers – he stood beside his son’s coffin, that gesture – right? That hand. Reaching out to touch the coffin, like it was alive and dead at the same time. I know what I saw because everybody goddamn saw it. I don’t care what happened after that, what it became and where it all went. I want to start with the reality here. It’s all about the reality here. I want to start again, from nothing, and then maybe I’ll understand. That’s why, really. That’s all.
There’s history there, see? Look at his hands. Only a few tables away, flesh and blood. What? Just a little longer, I promise, I just have to watch a little longer. Please just stay with me. Just a few more minutes. Then we can go, I promise. When it’s over.
I like the voice and the voyeurism & projection which the reader is already complicit in. One goes back and re-reads, kind of like the speaker watching the footage at night. I enjoyed this very much.
i like this piece. it reminds me thematically of blow-up. which is a good thing. the voyeurism and reconstruction/interpretation and the way it’s turned around onto the reader–this goes a bit beyond the antonioni. but blow-up had the yardbirds, which is a tough thing.
Voyeuristic is the right word. The obsession over the one gesture. Fabulous. peace…
I also like how it’s ambiguous what exactly is being revisited. And the reader wants to know, is complicit with the watcher. Well done.
Forgot to say this, but the title is great, too.
thanks, all, it started out with trying to write about the gap between voyeurism and responsibility, and how it might play out with someone who knew something was wrong with near/far illusions, but couldn’t figure it out, was stuck there, going round and round. Steve, you were rather the inspiration in some ways – not for the character, hehe – rather, the ways you’ve articulated similar things structurally. So, maybe me trying to understand your stuff by imagining it in context, by embodying it. As for the Yardbirds? yeah, that is a big gap, sigh…what can I do?
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