Movie
This short story was made as a mid-term exam for my Creative Writing class with my lecturer, Ahmad Munjid, PhD. It was presented as a tribute to a song by Tom Misch with the same title and for my love for those I could not grab hold of as they left my life.
---
There is not much to do in San Francisco in the 1920s, except of course the raging war that was going on over the horizon of America. Our president, Woodrow Wilson, on his second time in office promises us that he will not bring the war to our free land as how he already promised in his first time officiate, alas you could not expect much from a politician.
I, however, did not have much care in the world as my world is only in the bound of my life and Theodore, the very soul I fell in. We were both at the peak of our age, young and lovely. We rather spend our most valuable time together rather than do things we do not have any correlation with at all. Therefore, our love for movies.
I met Theodore in my Philosophy class. We both go to San Francisco State Normal School[2]. That’s where we first know each other and in the end, fell in love. We quickly develop our relationship over our common interests. I knew from the first time I saw him that he will be the only one for me.
“I missed you,” as I had not met him for a month.
Theodore was away from San Francisco to attain a seminar on filmmaking in Paris. I was going to come with him, however, I couldn’t leave my thesis so he went along with a few other colleagues from our campus.
“How was it? I could have sworn that I saw René Clair[3] as one of the speakers!” Excited as I could be, I asked him to tell me how the event went.
Theodore loves to talk about the movie industry, moreover the French silent movie. He once said to me that they could convey what we couldn’t through mere pictures. I agree with him.
He said that one day he will go to Paris to start his own movie production. Those glimmers in his eyes as he told me what happened at the seminar, and how it sparks even more when talking about his dream is what made me love him. More and more, every day.
I always had the intention to go abroad after my study too, of course. I had my dreams too. We could talk to days end about what we would love to achieve in the world.
After Theo finished his story I would then begin babbling about mine. How my thesis was almost done and how we both could then go to chase our dreams. Theo and his vision to become a director, and me, as the actress.
I have always loved movies for how the actors and actresses convey their messages through their moves. It’s like dancing, once I said to Theo. How they don’t say any words, yet their feelings are delivered to the fullest. Those movies with deep meaning, messages, and not only entertainment are my kind of movies. I am deeply moved by those.
Dreams were what move us together. I believe if we try hard enough we can achieve whatever it is we have always dreamed of. Together, even, to the end of our line. I believe in myself, and of course, Theodore.
However, little did I know that we will have to part ways with our dreams, yet so soon.
It might be because of his big enthusiasm for movies that he wanted to make one or because of the seminar he attended. I’d like to think that it was because of both. The seminar was indeed a very triggering event for someone with a passion for movies as much as Theo and I, and our love for that particular hobby could be said to rival even those professional directors.
It did not take much time for us to pick up a camera. No.1 Autographic Kodak Junior[4] camera, to be precise. Along with every trinket it needs to operate. We saved up together to buy it, it cost us an arm and a leg, an arm from me and a leg from him. But it was worth it. We couldn’t get any happier when we land our hands on it.
It was the standardized camera at that time which was made with a cold stiff wooden body and the linen it uses within. The particular Rochester built is more capable of capturing motion and way more durable than the first generation. It became our first canvas for capturing our journey together in picturing our passion and love for each other.
We began capturing whatever we desire. Our long walks, his smile, my body, and the way we embrace each other. That camera was our silent witness.
Theo planned to make the movie, a silent movie–like how most films in our time were–to be taken frame by frame and then stitched together to make a moving picture. This is a brilliant method in our time where not many people has the willingness to make an independent film out of a junior personal camera. We planned the take of the shots throughout the months we spent together in the summer of 1923.
Time passes us fast when we were busy enjoying each other’s company. At the end of the summer, we managed to gather many shots for the movie. I was as happy as I could be. Theo, on the other hand, was as busy as he was gathering the camera rolls and tidying them up to make a proper film.
A few weeks after that, I finished my thesis. It was the proudest moment of my life when I finally graduated as one of the scholars of SFS Summer Graduate of ’23. My parents and little sister came to see me with my graduation cap on, Theo was also there with our camera, capturing the happy moments and the smiles we all emitted.
I never knew I could be that happy, how I wished that time could stop just for us to enjoy it over and over again.
However, not being able to meet him for a long time has been making me lovesick. What can I say? He’s the love of my life. I met him from time to time but he was too busy with work. Since I graduated, I had been searching for work but it was not as easy as drinking water. Therefore my boredom with being alone and having nothing to do. Alas, I should, at the very least, let him finish our movie.
On November 1923, as how the proverb says, ‘Such things bring grist to his mill,’ my wish to meet Theodore come. Not long after, Theodore came to my apartment to tell me that he had finished the movie. Not only he had brought the movie roll, but he also came along with a movie projector that he had to borrow from his friends. The joy that we shared that day was beyond what we had before. We proceed to set the player to project the movie to my thin grey wall on the right side of my small apartment, in front of the sofa we used to sit and ponder.
Theo clicked the roll into place, and I pressed the button to turn it on.
Our movie played out.
I watched it carefully, trying not to blink so often. I tried to see every detail of every frame and memorize it so that I can always play it in my head. It was the most beautiful film I have ever seen.
It was not much, exceptionally simple even. However I did not mind, it was still very lovely. The frames that played out and the sublime melody that plays in the background with it were enough to keep my eyes on the screen for the ten minutes duration of the movie. I was in love with it, and my love also grew stronger for the form of art that is film.
I turned my head to Theodore as I finished watching the movie. He turned to me and smile.
“It was beautiful…” I said to him as I slowly hug him, “I don’t think I could ever love anything or anyone as much as I love you.”
I had been blessed with such wonderful company and predilection that connected me with him, and I was as grateful as I could be.
However, Theo looked at me with an awfully serious look in his eyes. I was a bit puzzled as to why he looked at me like that.
I let go of my caress, “What’s wrong, Theo?” I asked. “Is there anything on your mind?” I inquired.
Theo sat beside me in silence. The look still lies on his face, yet nothing came out of his mouth. I began to shiver a little, feeling something out of the place is going to happen. My smile has now gone and changed into a worried expression.
Theo slowly stood up. He walked to the projector and began disassembling it. I did not know what happen nor what to do, I followed him and began helping him in disassembling the machine in hope that he will talk to me after. I assumed that the movie was not to his liking but I could not believe so as it was indeed very beautiful.
“Did you not like the movie you made?” I finally asked him another question after we finished packing the device into the case. Theo shook his head while still gripping the roll of film he made.
"Then what is it?” I could no longer hold my curiosity. I had never seen him this uneasy before and I feared that something wrong had happened to him.
Without saying any words, Theo put the roll and reached into his aged brown messenger bag. He took out a white sheet of paper, and before he hand it to me he was hesitant.
He finally mustered up the courage to give the paper to me and with a swift gesture I took it from his hand. I looked him in the eyes and wondered what is written on it that made him this worried.
I switched my glance from his eyes to the paper. It was a letter. The first thing I noticed was his name and as I read it from the top to bottom, my heart began cracking in the most peculiar way.
It was a draft letter.
Theo had been enlisted as one of the men ordered to go to the war. I could not believe my eyes. Not even a bit.
I dropped the letter. I was visibly shaken by the reality whilst Theo tried to hold me. My body trembled in the midst of my own thoughts. Theo, my loved one, has been drafted and will fight for our country on the front line.
The peaceful and precious evening turned into the worst memory I could not even imagine. We were in our own world and everything was going fine until that letter came, separating us from each other.
The evening ended with me crying on his chest, sobbing away the reality that Theo will be gone without anyone knowing how his fate will unfold after. The flashes of notions in my head on how we will live together, grow old, becoming a family have been shattered. However, what made me weep as hard as I could that day was the fact that we could no longer chase our dreams together.
I was broken.
“I will,” he said, “I will never forget to remember you,” he continued. I knew he was trying to calm me down. He was trying to say that everything is alright, that it will be fine in the end. But how could he calm the raging storm that is my heart?
“I believe you,” I lied.
He holds me in his hands. His hug was the only thing that seems to be able to soothe me. His small whiskers he maintain as much as he maintain his own mother, akin to the soft bristle of a palm-fiber broom, grazed my right chap.
He jumped to his platform, onto the train that will take him to God-knows-where. I had yet to find any intention to find out where he is going, I could not bare myself to know where my darling was taken. I chose to be silent, to stand still, and to be a fool.
From the far-off side of the station, I could hear a whistle blowing. Hard. That was the sign that the train is moving. In my heart, the ache grew stronger. I could not help myself but tremble. I was trembling from the feelings of not knowing whether I could see my love again. The pain was unbearable.
I looked up to see him waving, yet again telling me that everything is going to be okay with his gentle smile and soft gesture. I could not hold it. The feelings I held for so hard began pouring out as I try to chase the moving train. My tears were falling from my cheeks, dropping those salty and sore sentiments on the ground. I was crying as I was running.
Yet, no matter how hard I tried to grab a hold of him, he kept getting further away. Away from me. Away from our dreams. Now the only thing I could use to remember him is our creation, our movie. Now I could only remember him on the screen, fresh out of black and white.
---
Movie
– a short love story
MY
cheek brushes against his. Smooth on stubble for a moment, and then it's gone!
He walks along the platforms into the dream. Every fiber in me wants to shout
and scream, “Stop!” To run across to him, to take him in my arms. To tell him,
“I love you! You silly, silly man, I love you!”
But instead, I stand still, heart cracking. Those little curls on the back of his head bounce as he steps out of my life, forever.[1]
But instead, I stand still, heart cracking. Those little curls on the back of his head bounce as he steps out of my life, forever.[1]
***
THEODORE
has
always been the love of my life. Although he may not be the first, he was
always the one that I could love the most. When I say we have a lot in common,
I mean: we have a lot in common. We both love pastries, while I love some blueberries
in mine and he loves marmalade. We both fancy nature, and the park is where we
spend most of our time. And we both love art, but the form of art that we both
love the dearest is movies.
There is not much to do in San Francisco in the 1920s, except of course the raging war that was going on over the horizon of America. Our president, Woodrow Wilson, on his second time in office promises us that he will not bring the war to our free land as how he already promised in his first time officiate, alas you could not expect much from a politician.
I, however, did not have much care in the world as my world is only in the bound of my life and Theodore, the very soul I fell in. We were both at the peak of our age, young and lovely. We rather spend our most valuable time together rather than do things we do not have any correlation with at all. Therefore, our love for movies.
I met Theodore in my Philosophy class. We both go to San Francisco State Normal School[2]. That’s where we first know each other and in the end, fell in love. We quickly develop our relationship over our common interests. I knew from the first time I saw him that he will be the only one for me.
***
“THEO!”
I
shouted his name as he turns around. I leaped into his arms, sinking myself into
his warm embrace.
“I missed you,” as I had not met him for a month.
Theodore was away from San Francisco to attain a seminar on filmmaking in Paris. I was going to come with him, however, I couldn’t leave my thesis so he went along with a few other colleagues from our campus.
“How was it? I could have sworn that I saw René Clair[3] as one of the speakers!” Excited as I could be, I asked him to tell me how the event went.
Theodore loves to talk about the movie industry, moreover the French silent movie. He once said to me that they could convey what we couldn’t through mere pictures. I agree with him.
He said that one day he will go to Paris to start his own movie production. Those glimmers in his eyes as he told me what happened at the seminar, and how it sparks even more when talking about his dream is what made me love him. More and more, every day.
I always had the intention to go abroad after my study too, of course. I had my dreams too. We could talk to days end about what we would love to achieve in the world.
After Theo finished his story I would then begin babbling about mine. How my thesis was almost done and how we both could then go to chase our dreams. Theo and his vision to become a director, and me, as the actress.
I have always loved movies for how the actors and actresses convey their messages through their moves. It’s like dancing, once I said to Theo. How they don’t say any words, yet their feelings are delivered to the fullest. Those movies with deep meaning, messages, and not only entertainment are my kind of movies. I am deeply moved by those.
Dreams were what move us together. I believe if we try hard enough we can achieve whatever it is we have always dreamed of. Together, even, to the end of our line. I believe in myself, and of course, Theodore.
However, little did I know that we will have to part ways with our dreams, yet so soon.
***
THE
other day after a few weeks Theo attended the seminar, he told me that he
wanted to make a movie. I asked him what kind of movie he wants to make.
Nothing much came from him, he simply said it could be ‘something out of
us.’ I found it quite intriguing.
It might be because of his big enthusiasm for movies that he wanted to make one or because of the seminar he attended. I’d like to think that it was because of both. The seminar was indeed a very triggering event for someone with a passion for movies as much as Theo and I, and our love for that particular hobby could be said to rival even those professional directors.
It did not take much time for us to pick up a camera. No.1 Autographic Kodak Junior[4] camera, to be precise. Along with every trinket it needs to operate. We saved up together to buy it, it cost us an arm and a leg, an arm from me and a leg from him. But it was worth it. We couldn’t get any happier when we land our hands on it.
It was the standardized camera at that time which was made with a cold stiff wooden body and the linen it uses within. The particular Rochester built is more capable of capturing motion and way more durable than the first generation. It became our first canvas for capturing our journey together in picturing our passion and love for each other.
We began capturing whatever we desire. Our long walks, his smile, my body, and the way we embrace each other. That camera was our silent witness.
Theo planned to make the movie, a silent movie–like how most films in our time were–to be taken frame by frame and then stitched together to make a moving picture. This is a brilliant method in our time where not many people has the willingness to make an independent film out of a junior personal camera. We planned the take of the shots throughout the months we spent together in the summer of 1923.
Time passes us fast when we were busy enjoying each other’s company. At the end of the summer, we managed to gather many shots for the movie. I was as happy as I could be. Theo, on the other hand, was as busy as he was gathering the camera rolls and tidying them up to make a proper film.
A few weeks after that, I finished my thesis. It was the proudest moment of my life when I finally graduated as one of the scholars of SFS Summer Graduate of ’23. My parents and little sister came to see me with my graduation cap on, Theo was also there with our camera, capturing the happy moments and the smiles we all emitted.
I never knew I could be that happy, how I wished that time could stop just for us to enjoy it over and over again.
***
IT
has
been more than three months since my graduation and Theodore has been shutting
himself in his studio to finish the movie. He told me, after my graduation
ceremony, that he had gathered every beautiful moment he needed for our movie.
I suppose if he were to say that, it was only normal for him to take his time
to finally complete our story.
However, not being able to meet him for a long time has been making me lovesick. What can I say? He’s the love of my life. I met him from time to time but he was too busy with work. Since I graduated, I had been searching for work but it was not as easy as drinking water. Therefore my boredom with being alone and having nothing to do. Alas, I should, at the very least, let him finish our movie.
On November 1923, as how the proverb says, ‘Such things bring grist to his mill,’ my wish to meet Theodore come. Not long after, Theodore came to my apartment to tell me that he had finished the movie. Not only he had brought the movie roll, but he also came along with a movie projector that he had to borrow from his friends. The joy that we shared that day was beyond what we had before. We proceed to set the player to project the movie to my thin grey wall on the right side of my small apartment, in front of the sofa we used to sit and ponder.
Theo clicked the roll into place, and I pressed the button to turn it on.
Our movie played out.
I watched it carefully, trying not to blink so often. I tried to see every detail of every frame and memorize it so that I can always play it in my head. It was the most beautiful film I have ever seen.
It was not much, exceptionally simple even. However I did not mind, it was still very lovely. The frames that played out and the sublime melody that plays in the background with it were enough to keep my eyes on the screen for the ten minutes duration of the movie. I was in love with it, and my love also grew stronger for the form of art that is film.
I turned my head to Theodore as I finished watching the movie. He turned to me and smile.
“It was beautiful…” I said to him as I slowly hug him, “I don’t think I could ever love anything or anyone as much as I love you.”
I had been blessed with such wonderful company and predilection that connected me with him, and I was as grateful as I could be.
However, Theo looked at me with an awfully serious look in his eyes. I was a bit puzzled as to why he looked at me like that.
I let go of my caress, “What’s wrong, Theo?” I asked. “Is there anything on your mind?” I inquired.
Theo sat beside me in silence. The look still lies on his face, yet nothing came out of his mouth. I began to shiver a little, feeling something out of the place is going to happen. My smile has now gone and changed into a worried expression.
Theo slowly stood up. He walked to the projector and began disassembling it. I did not know what happen nor what to do, I followed him and began helping him in disassembling the machine in hope that he will talk to me after. I assumed that the movie was not to his liking but I could not believe so as it was indeed very beautiful.
“Did you not like the movie you made?” I finally asked him another question after we finished packing the device into the case. Theo shook his head while still gripping the roll of film he made.
"Then what is it?” I could no longer hold my curiosity. I had never seen him this uneasy before and I feared that something wrong had happened to him.
Without saying any words, Theo put the roll and reached into his aged brown messenger bag. He took out a white sheet of paper, and before he hand it to me he was hesitant.
He finally mustered up the courage to give the paper to me and with a swift gesture I took it from his hand. I looked him in the eyes and wondered what is written on it that made him this worried.
I switched my glance from his eyes to the paper. It was a letter. The first thing I noticed was his name and as I read it from the top to bottom, my heart began cracking in the most peculiar way.
It was a draft letter.
Theo had been enlisted as one of the men ordered to go to the war. I could not believe my eyes. Not even a bit.
I dropped the letter. I was visibly shaken by the reality whilst Theo tried to hold me. My body trembled in the midst of my own thoughts. Theo, my loved one, has been drafted and will fight for our country on the front line.
The peaceful and precious evening turned into the worst memory I could not even imagine. We were in our own world and everything was going fine until that letter came, separating us from each other.
The evening ended with me crying on his chest, sobbing away the reality that Theo will be gone without anyone knowing how his fate will unfold after. The flashes of notions in my head on how we will live together, grow old, becoming a family have been shattered. However, what made me weep as hard as I could that day was the fact that we could no longer chase our dreams together.
I was broken.
***
“REMEMBER
ME,”
I said as I tried to hold his hands as if it were the last thing I would ever
hold. I was trying to resist his farewell, like a mother to a child, like a dandelion
to its seeds, I tried to withhold yet I could not seem to prevent him and
his dream. My soul began to slowly shatter, yet I persisted.
“I will,” he said, “I will never forget to remember you,” he continued. I knew he was trying to calm me down. He was trying to say that everything is alright, that it will be fine in the end. But how could he calm the raging storm that is my heart?
“I believe you,” I lied.
He holds me in his hands. His hug was the only thing that seems to be able to soothe me. His small whiskers he maintain as much as he maintain his own mother, akin to the soft bristle of a palm-fiber broom, grazed my right chap.
He jumped to his platform, onto the train that will take him to God-knows-where. I had yet to find any intention to find out where he is going, I could not bare myself to know where my darling was taken. I chose to be silent, to stand still, and to be a fool.
From the far-off side of the station, I could hear a whistle blowing. Hard. That was the sign that the train is moving. In my heart, the ache grew stronger. I could not help myself but tremble. I was trembling from the feelings of not knowing whether I could see my love again. The pain was unbearable.
I looked up to see him waving, yet again telling me that everything is going to be okay with his gentle smile and soft gesture. I could not hold it. The feelings I held for so hard began pouring out as I try to chase the moving train. My tears were falling from my cheeks, dropping those salty and sore sentiments on the ground. I was crying as I was running.
Yet, no matter how hard I tried to grab a hold of him, he kept getting further away. Away from me. Away from our dreams. Now the only thing I could use to remember him is our creation, our movie. Now I could only remember him on the screen, fresh out of black and white.
fin.
[1] From the song Movie by Tom Misch.
[2] San Francisco State Normal
School (1899–1921) commonly referred to now as San Francisco State, SF State, and SFSU.
[3] René Clair (11 November 1898 –
15 March 1981) born René-Lucien Chomette, was a French filmmaker and writer. He
first established his reputation in the 1920s as a director of silent films in
which comedy was often mingled with fantasy.
[4] Roll film autographic camera
made by Eastman Kodak Co. Rochester from 1914 to 1924.
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