Ash Cinema Read online

  I cried then. Cried until the librarian took the headphones from my head and pressed my face to her chest. I clung to her for I don't know how long but I was asleep on one of the couches, my eyes ragged and my pants bunched up. I sat up and walked back to the CDs and pulled Symphony No. 3 out again staring at the cover. The image made perfect sense to me and the tears rose to the back of my throat and just barely spilled over my eyelids. A woman alone, silhouetted, a ghost, her journey from here to there and back. My first true experience of loneliness and what it meant to be alone came that day. I played it again and again and again watching the sun go from noon to gone, my tears falling until I was thirsty.

  ***

  He taught me most of what I know about music. He loved Debussy and Satie, Wagner and Prokofiev, but was especially fond of Pärt and Glass. I remember lying in the dark with him, Spiegel im Spiegel giving texture to the room.

  'I've been listening to this since before you were born.' His breath came slow, on the precipice of dreams.

  'You've spent more time asleep than I have alive.'

  His silent laughter, 'That's probably true.' His voice was lower when he was falling asleep like he talked at the bottom of a lake and only the ripples reached my head pressed to his stomach. The violin, not crying, but breathing, exhaling and inhaling existence. Life captured between the tightrope that binds piano to violin.

  I sat up and sidled into him, my head on his shoulder, taking in the scent of his armpit, the sweat and musk that saturated every room of his house. 'What does this remind you of?'

  'Hm.' His eyes opened and he woke a little so as to converse in the realm of the waking. 'I get caught remembering a lot of things when I'm alone. Things I don't like to remember but don't want to forget.'

  'Other women?' I twirled his grey chest hairs between my fingers.

  'Yes. Older women, mostly.'

  'Did you love them?'

  He exhaled through his nose, 'Sometimes I think I loved them all.'

  'But you don't believe that?'

  'Heh, no. No, if I loved any of them, it was only one.'

  'Tell me about her.'

  'You know about her.'

  'I know. But I like to know. I like hearing about you. You become so different in reverie.'

  'Reverie, eh?'

  'I'm still young enough to learn new words. Now, tell me.'

  He laughed, his chest rose with a big inhale, the kind of inhale that could keep me inside him. That's how he breathed, hugely, and I tried, when he did, to get as much of me inside as possible, so I could always be with him, so he would take me with him, even after death, I'd be inside him. He'd smell me, feel me, so he could find his way home, to me. 'Genevieve. I met her a long time ago. I was older than you are now, just out of high school when I met her. She was a local painter of some repute, had been on the circuit for fifteen years already. There was a mural competition in town and I went to film it. It ended up being in my first film, the one you saw at the library, but you know that. She, Genevieve, god, she was beautiful. Short black hair, skin pale as porcelain, high cheekbones, square jaw, and greeneyes. Irish, full blood, even born there. She came to america around the time I was born and she was ready to start her career.

  'I don't know why I went there to film a painting competition. I never knew, but back then it didn't matter what I filmed. I just had to film things. Nothing could be more boring than watching someone paint, which I didn't realize until about an hour into it. An hour had passed but it looked as if they had only started, which they had. They don't do painting competitions like that anymore but it was a different world then. People read poetry to each other, painted in public, sang and danced. It was a bohemian life, the kind Godard hinted at and Rimbaud exemplified. The French were always good at that sort of thing, being artists. So, I'm filming this and realizing it's going nowhere. I was set far enough back to see everyone and would adjust my focus on one painter for a while then switch and so on. Well, needless to say I was bored and knew anyone else would be bored, too, but, instead of going home, I picked an artist, Genevieve, and focused solely on her. Why I picked her, heh, I wish I could say there was some deep meaning buried at the core of me but it was because I had never seen anyone so pretty. Even covered with paint, she was angelic.

  'Anyway, I folded up my tripod and decided to hold the camera, a Super 8. I asked her if it was okay if I filmed her. She scowled at me, mouth open only just, disgusted. That was her response. Well, that and she launched paint over my head onto the wall she was working on. I figured I didn't need her permission, so I started filming. I moved slowly to keep the image steady. Concentric circles around her capturing not just the mural in progress but also her. Mostly her. I followed the violent gestures of her arm, the contortions of her face, the smiles, the way she wiped her face and left paint there. Her body moved electrically, charged with energy. There was a violence, a chaos to her, and it showed in her work. Abstract but also with a keen eye to form and an angry yet beautiful aesthetic. The image was of three women, I think. I don't even remember anymore it's been so long. So long even since I've watched my movies. But the bodies were made with a mix of motherly tenderness and petulance, abhorrence. She loved her art but wanted to destroy it. It was evident in her every movement, not just while she was painting, but even when she wasn't. I captured all of this, the process more than the product itself. I told the story of her mind by watching her body and she spoke to me in the language of arms and legs rather than words. Without that, my career never would've happened the way it did. I probably would've been making films like everyone else and I'd still have work, or at least funding.'

  I pressed my cheek to his, the cool hairs of his beard brushed my cheek, and I kissed him, his warm lips like a river between the jungle of his greybeard. Then, his eyelids, I kissed them and his forehead, his ears, his neck. 'What happened next?' I moved further down his body while he talked, feeling the warmth travel down him into his penis pressing against me.

  His hands in my hair, I could feel his gentle movements, his hips, his back. 'I filmed her until she was done. Two days of filming from morning to night. I caught everything, the cigarettes she smoked during her breaks, the way she stubbed them out, how her eyes avoided me, all the food she didn't eat, all the drinks she didn't drink. Just tea with her, always. I spent weeks editing it and ended up with a thirty minute montage of her at the competition only accompanied by the three versions of Spiegel im Spiegel. I made it all fit together, cut it all up, made it into something it wasn't meant to be. I stopped caring about time, how this happened before this or that happened before that. I made an exploration of her mind, of her body, and I took the beginnings and ends and middles and mixed them up, tied them all together, and created what is now left to the world. The curves of her legs, the hairs on her arms, the quivering of her lip when she spent an hour crying after the competition ended. I can't even remember if any footage of the actual mural made it into the film. I didn't care anymore. What matters was the song and the body. I wanted to capture her. Her very essence, her lifeforce, all of her violence and bombasity, and then layer it onto this, this gentleness, this tranquillity that I saw in her when she collapsed. She lost the competition but I found where she lived and went to her house.

  He was hard and I knew he was struggling but I teased him, drew him out, blowing on his penis, putting it in my mouth for only an instant, then withdrawing, kissing his thighs, caressing his balls, moving up and putting his penis against my stomach, touching it with my inner thigh, but never allowing him inside, even though his hips quivered, trying to find me. He could smell me, how wet I was, because he always knew. He controlled his breathing and continued even though he suffered so, his voice getting higher with every passing minute. 'She wouldn't let me in at first but eventually she opened the door and let me show her what I had done. In silence, she watched the entire thing without looking at me, sipping from her cup of tea. When it was over she didn't turn from the screen, just st
ared at the nothing there. After a while I stood up and collected my things. I was putting the film in my bag when I saw her standing beside me. She said, What made you film me like that? I don't know, I said. What made you come here to show me that? I wanted you to see it. And? I don't know, I said. Her face was inches from mine. I could see the wrinkles the edge of her eyes, the wear. Her face had started to sag. She was two decades older than me and she lived hard, furiously. It showed but it made me want her more, not less. I wanted her age, her wisdom, the lifeforce that pushed and pulsed inside her. There was a sadness to her eyes, a loneliness, but, more than that, she was determined, singleminded, indefatigable. Before I really knew what I was doing, I kissed her and she was already naked with my dick in her hand, but not rubbing it, just holding it, claiming it, maybe.'

  I felt the surging of his penis, not just from my touch, but the remembrance of his past, his idealised version of sex with Genevieve. 'Was that the only time?' I licked his tip, my tongue dancing on it.

  His breath was short, his heartbeat fast, all concentration keeping him from coming. 'No, I moved in with her shortly after. We made many films together. Only a few exist anymore, I think.'

  'She was your first great muse and collaborator.'

  'She was the vision, the reason to all of my work.'

  'And you loved her.'

  'Yes.' Ready to burst, his voice thick but higher pitched.

  'How long were you with her?' I kissed his thighs, his penis hard and wet, glimmering in the faint light.

  'Ten years.'

  'I wasn't even born yet.'

  'No,' his voice cracking, my touch soft.

  I took him in my mouth and swallowed him, all of him, to keep him with me always, to leave his scent inside of me so he could find me, his home.

  ***

  After a while things changed. One of the librarians took too much interest. I was listening to the Gorecki CD all day, from when I got there to when I had to leave, and if I managed to stay the night I listened to it till I fell asleep.

  'Hey, can I ask you a question?'

  Looking up from my book, probably Rimbaud again, one of the librarians stood across the table from me. 'Sure.'

  She sat. 'Aren't you in school?'

  'I do PSEO.'

  'You take all your classes at college?'

  I shifted in my seat. Already I wanted to leave, to run. I wanted that CD, though, that Symphony No. 3. I needed it then. "Yeah.'

  'Mhm.' She leaned back. 'Would you like to eat dinner with me tonight, when you're done studying here?'

  'That's okay. I probably need to get home.'

  She smiled. 'It's okay.' Her hand reached across the table, so I put mine on my lap. 'I want to help.' Her smile squinted her eyes but she looked pretty that way, her hair falling out of place, a few strands hanging into her face. Really pretty. I remember that. 'My name's Sharon.'

  'Hi.' Rain was blowing against the window. Short pelts, barely audible through the thick glass, but why such thick glass? Who was trying to break in? Her eyes were kind. 'My name's Karen.'

  'Karen, Sharon, how about that?' A slight laugh that I gave back to her. It hurt me, watching her, lying to her. And it was like I watched it, both of us, from far away. I felt so lonely watching her reach out to this poor dirty teenage girl. I could smell me from far away, the vomit and pissreek of homelessness and casual whoring. I hollowed out in front of her and I started to cry though I didn't want to, tried hard not to. She was the same one who hugged me that other day when I cried. She smelt the same, that rosy perfume smell. Clean, soap, she was a normal lady living a life so far removed from how I was surviving those weeks, desperation in every lung and mouthful. She cooed to me rocking back and forth, watching this, I wanted to cry, but I remembered I was crying, and then I felt sick but there was nothing inside me, just a lifetime of nightmares that I wanted to awake from.

  I guess I stopped crying and she stopped holding me after a while and let me alone. She told me to wait for her at closing time and she'd get me something to eat.

  I sat there for an hour or two watching the rain, not reading my book, then I grabbed Symphony No. 3 and listened to it twice staring out the window. Lonely, even the rain. I thought about her, the singer to these songs of sorrow. Not the actual singer, but the figurative singer. I tried to figure out what it was that she lost and what made her so alone but all I could think of were the things that made me desperate and alone way over here where I hid from ghosts. I saw them sometimes in the library but I didn't talk to them. They were all lost there, the ocean, their birthcanal too close for them to understand that they had left life behind. She was a ghost. Even still, it's how that makes most sense to me. A journey through life, past death, and back to life again. It's a cycle, perfect. The end is the beginning and the beginning is the end. It was almost five by then. I put the CD player in my pocket, rolled up the headphones and put them there, too. My jacket had big deep pockets so I could get by without a bag. It wasn't my jacket, not until I found it at some bustop. It smelt like stale smoke and cologne and rain.

  No one was at the front desk, everyone busy making sure the library was back in order. I walked out and didn't slow down when the alarm started ringing but I didn't run because running is the best way to get caught. I put up my hood, zipped up my jacket, and walked to the bus station. When I got there, I begged until I had enough money to take a bus out of town. North this time. North because I didn't care and it left sooner, but not till the following morning, so I slept and hid, ran and hid, slept until the bus left. I turned sixteen on the bus asleep next to a fat lady who smelt of pickles. Pickles, for god's sake.

  ***

  He's still not here. He can't find me. I've waited for months, years now. I'll be twenty one soon but none of it matters without him. I know he can't come back, not the way the singer came back, but even his ghost is enough. Just to see him, even the him that he is now. I'll know him by the smell. Sometimes I think he's here in bed beside me and then I feel the warm body there and I scream until he or she leaves. I've made a habit of forgetting the present because maybe it will bring back the past and the only part of the past still inside me is him. Obliterate the now and there's only the then and the soon to be.

  When I found him finally, I thought I'd never be alone again. It never occurred to me that he'd die, even after the first time. The problem is that love doesn't die. Life would be bearable then, if the dead took everything with them, and I guess they do. But we're left behind to hold the tattered remains.

  I keep writing but nothing changes. Even the weather, perpetually perfect here. It mocks me. The sun keeps shining, the wind keeps blowing, the waves keep crashing. We did so much more, so much better when we were together.

  Do you remember?

  It's the only thing I live for, the memories that I'm afraid to remember too often in case they fall apart the way toys and clothes do. I can't let go of him but my hands grasp at air, at only the faint shadows I think are his face.

  ***

  For a while I thought it was the places I went that were haunted, that I was unlucky. Years go by and I realize that the places are fine. The alleys I slept in, the houses, the motel rooms, the libraries, the buses, they weren't haunted. Full of ghosts, maybe, but not haunted.

  It's me that's haunted.

  Haunted by everything and everyone except the one I want.

  ***

  A new town, a new library. The CD player's batteries died so I ditched it but kept the CD. For a while, I fell into the same routine. Rimbaud, Gorecki, hiding, sleeping, disappearing within myself, talking to ghosts, or not talking to them but watching. Routines can only last so long, especially when you're sixteen. Nothing lasts when you're sixteen. Even habits don't stick. The new library had a viewing room where movies could be watched. Comfortable chairs, loads of movies, and dim lights. Sleep is what that means.

  I rifled through the movies, lots of Disney and classics, and then random others. One that h
e taught me about. At the time, though, I didn't watch it. He showed it to me. I passed the days watching or sleeping through movies.

  There were a series of short films by a man named Sebastian Falke. Everything changed the day I finally set down to watch one.

  A black and white image of a child holding a skull on the cover below bold script that read Songs for the Dead. Her head was bowed down to the skull in her hand and her eyes closed, black hair falling over her face. My interest piqued, I put it in.

  The film begins without a title screen or credits and the image looks rusty or dirty, old, as if the print was washed with dust. Black and white, the screen opens to a great white emptiness but I felt the camera moving. No points of orientation but the dust and dirt of the film racing by and the camera swept left then right then back and finally it went down, so far down that I thought it had to be going back up again and then it landed on the face of a women with pale porcelain skin. The camera retreated and her whole head came into view, the blackhair spread in all directions from her head. The woman was not the girl on the cover but the resemblance made me think it could be forty years in the future. Her eyes opened and, at the same time, a piano key hit and began to drone a repetitive melody made with the use of only five keys that repeated over and over. The camera fell back until all of her was in view. She wore a plain black dress without sleeves and no shoes. The contrast of her skin and her dress, complete opposites married within her. A slow chiming bell joined the piano but in opposite direction. Where the melody of the piano rose, the bell dropped. She opened her mouth and plants sprouted and grew at an alarming rate until they covered her face and spread over her skin like a disease. The pace of my heart panicked, racing, but the music remained calm, quiet. Covered by flowers and new plantlife, the camera fell from an overhead shot to a point of view at the place where the woman's feet used to be. All in a single uninterrupted shot, she disappeared and then a tree thrust from the earth through the center of what her body once was. The tree grew and grew and the camera dropped back to keep it in frame, a longshot with the entire upper third of the screen taken by the canopy of the tree.