Experimental Film Read online

  Of course, it would’ve also helped if I’d actually been left in any sort of position to be able to watch said record, later on.

  I remember dreaming that time, which was different. Not the smash cut to black and sudden splice that connected the trip up to Quarry Argent with waking in St. Mike’s, heart all stuttery, eyes glued together and throat like a desert. Instead, there’s a sort of . . . soft dissolve, fading from me in the van to me back at the Fac, either late at night or early in the morning, following those directional traffic arrows painted on the walls through its creepily carpeted corridors. That building was a serious petri dish, sick to its core; every fall we’d all get the same cold, like grade school kids, and pass it around till the new year. Not to mention how the whole place was laid out like a prison, with umbilicus-linked checkpoint doors only accessible with card keys, like contact gates. The studios were all nude concrete, which made it a lot easier to build and strike sets, and there was one particular classroom I always seemed to end up in, right in the centre of the place—triangular, glass on all three sides through which you could glimpse either eddying crowds or a lonely expanse of empty hall, classic J-Horror style; a haunting waiting to happen.

  So: in the dream, I’m back in that classroom, standing at the board, giving a lecture. And as often happened in such cases, I’ve forgotten what the point of the exercise was—have to look up at my own handwriting to remind me, these scribbled notes done in dry erase marker. But suddenly even I can’t read them. Is that my handwriting, or someone else’s? The whiteboard’s cool, slick gleam, familiar as my laptop monitor, or a stretched expanse of paper browned with age, liver-spotted like the back of a hundred-plus-year-old man’s hand?

  Oh, ah: Mr. Sidlo, I presume. How unexpectedly nice to find you here.

  He’s sitting in the front row, space cleared for his wheelchair, those filmy eyes “looking” up over my shoulder once again—at my words on the board, unintelligible though they might be. I turn, and of course now they’re perfectly clear, or clear as anybody who spent ten years taking notes in the dark can really be expected to write. My own loopy shorthand: “th” reduced to a symbol like a crossed upper-case “L”; “and” consistently translated as a plus sign; “e’s” and “o’s” almost indistinguishable aside from context. A tree of observations, half blank verse, half equation, like so:

  technology = blessing + curse

  only way t/ make dreams palpable, but overwhelms/flattens in process

  inherently reductionist

  universal = myth

  dream to image = disappointment

  Is it now? I wonder. Is She coming? I look at Sidlo, who shrugs.

  How can we ever know? he seems to say.

  Then there’s a thump on the glass, from just outside: Don’t bang, there’s no reason to bang! And I glimpse Clark in the hall beyond, dancing and jumping, spinning in an endless circle. Singing, as he does: Backwards, forwards, more and more/Every image is a door—

  A door, yes. My plan, or all that’s left of it. Memory to film, dream to image, image to key, key to lock. Turning. Opening.

  But doors open both ways, by nature.

  This is how it happened, Safie would tell me, after everything. Had to tell me, just like she did about everything else—reminded me, I suppose, since I’d obviously been there, at the time. Summing up what I would’ve seen on the digital footage, if I’d only been able to.

  Safie was already rolling when we set Sidlo up in front of the windows in our “living room,” Simon hefting the ottoman aside, re-angling the couch to clear a path for his wheelchair then parking him with his back to the windows. Soon enough, Sidlo sat there sun-haloed, calm as a king enthroned. Since he claimed he’d need me close enough to touch, for an “anchor,” I hauled one of the dinner table chairs over and set it down in front of him, while Simon pulled the blinds—flat, cream-coloured roll-ups, amusingly reminiscent of old-style movie screens.

  “Not sure how much help I can be,” I told Sidlo, voice kept low, as I deposited the silver nitrate reel’s case on his lap. He simply smiled. “I mean, this is Mrs. Whitcomb’s memory we’re supposed to be imprinting, right? And between the two of us, you’re the one who knew her.”

  “Certainly. But you share her experience, as I never did. You saw Her.”

  I shook my head, almost a shiver. “Something, maybe—I don’t even know what.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I feel the mark She left on you, as I did the one left upon Iris. More than sufficient impetus for a reading, allowing me to follow your own experience back into hers.”

  I bit my lip. Asked him, softer yet, “And . . . to open the door? Putting Her and me together, can you still do that?”

  “Better to have more fuel than we need than not enough to build that fire. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  I nodded, slightly: sure would, I might have been thinking. Not that I’ll ever know.

  “Not much film on that reel, by the way,” Safie leaned back in to caution me, pointing to the reel, unaware she’d even caught all of the above till she looked at it after. “Maybe ten minutes’ worth at most, so if this doesn’t work, I guess we’ll have to go back to my studio for more.”

  Simon looked up from what he was doing, his mind boggling once again, at least a little. “Just how much of that crap do you have?”

  “Not that much,” Safie began, but stopped when Sidlo raised his hand.

  “Ten minutes will be more than sufficient, Miss Hewsen,” he assured her.

  “Good,” she said. “Anything else, before we go ahead?”

  Sidlo nodded. “The lights should be turned off. All of them.”

  “Really?” This from Simon, who now stood hovering at Sidlo’s shoulder. “I was under the impression filming without light made things kinda, y’know, hard to see.”

  “I wouldn’t worry, Mr. Burlingame, given nothing literally visible will be recorded,” Sidlo replied. “In this case, I am the camera—the images pass through me, into the film I hold. And since I already know you think me completely deluded on the subject, what can it matter whether the lights stay on, or off?”

  “Good question,” Simon muttered, but I shot him a look—of the fairly classic just go along with this, okay, honey? please variety—and he subsided. I sat, reaching to let Sidlo take hold of my hand again, as Safie began turning lights down around us. Meanwhile, Simon covered the areas beyond her immediate reach: bedroom, closets, kitchen, Clark’s room. The apartment was submerged into dimness by increments, cold late-morning sunlight narrowing to leak ’round the edges of the blinds like fire.

  “Okay, we’re dark,” I reported to Sidlo.

  “Very well.” He closed his eyes and lowered his head, breath slowing, finding a long, slow rhythm. “Miss Cairns, do not let go; Miss Hewsen, please continue your recording. If you see anything unusual, be sure to tell me.”

  “Okay. Unusual like . . .?”

  “I believe the sort of thing I mean will very quickly become apparent.” To Simon: “Mr. Burlingame, I must ask you to make sure we are not interrupted before the process is concluded.”

  “How’m I supposed to—”

  “Stand by the door, that’s all; stay alert. Do not let anyone enter once we begin. The results might be catastrophic.”

  Simon’s eyes flickered back to mine, as though checking for any sign I thought Sidlo might be joking. When he didn’t find one, however, he simply nodded. “Understood,” he said, turning his back on all three of us.

  He passed me on his way to the door, Safie would tell me, and you weren’t looking, so you couldn’t have seen . . . all caught up with Sidlo like you were, studying him like you thought if you watched him close enough you’d be able to see what was happening inside, reflected on his eyes or something. And your husband, he was putting up a pretty brave front, but if you got in closer, you could see he was starting to get sc
ared. Same as a little kid who’s just realized they’re lost and can’t see their Mom or Daddy anywhere—he didn’t look like him anymore. Know what I mean?

  I do, yes. Did then, too. But I didn’t see it. I don’t know what I saw, really; can’t remember, not even in my dreams. Unlike—

  (other things, so many other things)

  “I’m going to start now,” Sidlo said.

  You think that being blind is darkness, and sometimes that’s true, yes. Mostly. Not always, though.

  When I woke up back in St. Mike’s, Mrs. Whitcomb’s ghost voice in my ear and her bony hand in mine, the world around me had all gone hot and stark, consumed by the idea of brightness without any of its effects. Reduced to a vague tint of red, polluting an otherwise unbroken absence. And what I found was that this would wax and wane as time went on, with no apparent consideration for what time of day it was supposed to be, outside my own head—that ’round midnight I often seemed to orbit a weird, unblinking light, pitiless as some supermax prison cell’s single bulb, while at noon things became still and quiet, colourless, nothing but gloom on gloom.

  “Hysterical blindness,” said Dr. Harrison’s disembodied voice, intruding to anchor me where I floated, abandoned by everything. “Acute onset, since you don’t seem to have any other type; probably an accompanying seizure, taking your additional memory loss into account. Conversion disorder, that’s what Freud called it—apparent neurological symptoms with no identifiable systemic cause, produced by converting intrapsychic distress into physical symptoms.”

  “So it’s all in my head, huh?”

  “To some extent. The brain subconsciously disables or impairs a bodily function as a side effect of the original repression, thus relieving the patient’s anxiety.”

  “I don’t really feel all that relieved, per se.”

  “Well, no. You wouldn’t.”

  Dry Dr. Harrison; thank Christ for him and his refusal to let me feel sorry for myself. If I hadn’t had his snark to bounce off of, I don’t know what I would’ve done.

  He told me they’d given me another MRI, run all the same tests as before, plus more—stuff they hadn’t thought of the first time ’round. Told me I was otherwise fine, no ill effects, aside from a certain basic inability to see any-fucking-thing. While I just sat there thinking about poor Derek Jarman, about that last film of his, Blue. What I’d have given to see a colour of my own, any colour, beyond red and black.

  A blind filmmaker—that’s a joke, right? That’s irony. And a blind writer, one specializing in writing about film . . .

  “What’s the prognosis? Treatment?” I asked Harrison, who paused before answering, possibly to think. “Or . . . should I even . . .?”

  “Oh, always better to know, Ms. Cairns,” he responded crisply, over the slight break in my voice. “Nothin’ get ya nothin’, after all, as my old granny would say. So, for treatment—physiotherapy where appropriate; occupational therapy to maintain autonomy, as regards activities of daily living; treatment of comorbid depression or anxiety if present, which I’d say they are. Yes?” I nodded, throat tight, useless eyes burning. “As to prognosis, meanwhile . . .”

  “Don’t hold back, doc.”

  “. . . conventional wisdom states most conversion symptoms disappear within two weeks in hospitalized patients, which I suppose bodes well. Twenty to twenty-five percent of patients have a recurrence within a year, sometimes with further recurrences thereafter, but the statistics aren’t really there yet, in terms of prediction. Still, you’ve got all the hallmarks of a favourable recovery—acute onset, clearly identifiable stress beforehand, plus a very short time between onset and treatment. We could start this afternoon, if you wanted.”

  “Sure. Hell, why not start now?”

  “Well . . . there are some people outside who’d like to speak to you first, unfortunately. From the police.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. That’s why you’re still here, actually—they don’t want you going home, not till they clear what they’re still calling the crime scene.”

  “Crime scene?” Again, he fell silent; unavoidably, probably, though he must’ve known how off-putting it was for someone in my position. “But why . . . just what happened this time while I was out?”

  Another pause, though shorter, this time. “I think they’ll probably want to fill you in on that themselves,” he said at last.

  “What exactly is it you were trying to do with Mr. Sidlo, Ms. Cairns?”

  The lead detective, who’d introduced herself as Susan Correa, had a businesslike alto voice: Ontario native, stringently polite, though the question held an inherent challenge. Her hand had felt firm enough in mine to put her anywhere from thirties to forties, but that was as far as I’d be willing to go, if asked.

  “Interviewing him,” I replied, quickly; wasn’t a lie if it was the truth, at least halfway. “For a project Safie—Miss Hewsen—and I pitched to the NFA, the National Film Archive.”

  “Before the fire, I take it.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Our liaison there was one of the casualties, which means it’s back-burnered, for now. But Safie had already tracked down Sidlo, and I wanted to keep going—guy was really old, so time was a factor.”

  “Understandable. I must admit, we’re somewhat surprised you’d want to go ahead and do it while your son was still in hospital, though.”

  I could feel my face redden. “His grandparents were with him, both sides, and we all had our phones. They knew to call us if anything changed.”

  “And has it?”

  “I don’t know. You’re the first people I’ve talked to, besides Dr. Harrison.” A beat. “Actually, I’m kind of surprised my husband wasn’t here when I first woke up.”

  “Mmm, well, we’re sorry for that. That’s because—”

  “He’s in custody,” her partner’s voice intruded, from further back—Valens, he’d called himself. “Her too, Safie Hewsen. Your colleague.”

  “What?” I blurted, stomach lurching, suddenly all cold acid. “Custody—like jail? Why?”

  “Not jail,” Correa hastened to assure me, playing classic bon cop to Valens’s full-on asshole. “They’re neither under arrest, just being questioned down at 54 Division—making statements, so we can figure out what happened. They’re free to go at any time, as I’m certain they’ve been informed.”

  Valens: “We’d have you there, too, believe me, it wasn’t for your . . . condition.”

  “You think I’m making this shit up?”

  “Oh no, no, no—not the first two seizures, anyway; that’s documented. Kinda convenient, you having another one, though, isn’t it? Under the circumstances.”

  “Convenient,” I repeated, trying my best to stay calm. I took a breath, made myself wait. “I wouldn’t call it that.”

  “We really don’t mean to be insensitive, Ms. Cairns,” Correa said. To which I just snorted.

  “Really?” I replied. “’Cause it kinda sounds to me like you do.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, ma’am.”

  “Okay, that’s nice. Thanks.”

  She was probably making some sort of placatory headshake gesture right then, not that I’d know. Valens kept on moving around the room like he was pacing, trying either to trip me up or intimidate me, or both; the way my head snapped to follow him every time his shoes clopped across the floor must’ve looked pretty fucking funny, I guessed, though the casual disorientation factor was already getting old. Still, they call them micro aggressions for a reason, right?

  “This Sidlo,” Valens began after a moment. “Like you said, he was old—in a nursing home, right? You get permission to take him to your place?”

  “He gave us permission before we left,” I claimed, straight-faced, not actually knowing even vaguely if it was true. “He was glad we came, that we’d managed t
o find him in time to get him on tape. Been waiting years to tell his side of the story, so he wanted to do it as quickly as possible, someplace other than there.”

  “Yeah, all right—but permission from the home, that’s what I meant. Quite a risk to the health getting yourself all twisted up like that, ’specially at a hundred-plus.”

  “Mr. Sidlo’s an adult, detective. He knew what he was doing.”

  “Not most of the time, according to his caregivers—including Nurse Amy Bedard, the girl who showed you to his room. She says he was barely lucid, tired easily. Says she didn’t know you were going to take him off-site, either, or she’d never have let you see him in the first place.”

  “That was Sidlo’s idea, like I said,” I claimed, digging myself deeper. “Why don’t you ask him why he suggested it?”

  “We’d like to, certainly,” Correa said. “But we can’t. Because he’s dead.”

  “Why else would we be here?” Valens threw out, from yet another direction, making my neck twist so fast it actually hurt.

  Dead. Jesus, no wonder they were pressing so hard.

  “How?” I asked, finally.

  “Natural causes, according to the paramedics,” Correa replied. “But then again, at that age, any sort of death is bound to look natural. . . .”

  “Are you implying it wasn’t?”

  “Was it?”

  “I don’t know,” I bit off, teeth grinding slightly. “Not anything that happened, not after a certain point, just like the last time. Dr. Harrison would’ve told you how long it’s been for me, right—a week ago, basically? When I fell down in a Quarry Argent glass house, almost cut my own throat?” No reply. “Paramedics, though . . . who called them? Was it Simon, Safie?”