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Gaps

The long celluloid strip unwinds from its wheel

in jerks and starts. Images flash across the screen:

mother, father, a nursemaid, some playmates skipping

with ropes; a shaggy brown mongrel called William.

 

With his other hand he shakily works the subtitles

which don’t always keep up with the main plot.

Black and white changes to color – a series of women

appear: a laughing blonde in a one-piece swimsuit who

perishes suddenly in an aircraft disaster, soon replaced

by a chic brunette in a business suit, a ballerina, then a tennis

player in a short white skirt.

 

Later, infants in cribs and strollers, school children, teenagers,

soldiers in uniform carrying kitbags and rifles. Faster spins

the wheel, images blurring one into the next.

 

And then the gaps begin: long sections of gray and poor

lighting. A few buildings perhaps libraries or hospitals

appear momentarily – more gaps – the subtitles come to an end

with a rattle of whirling film. He tries to rewind the spool

backwards – start again from the section where the gaps started

to appear but the handle of the projector slips from his hand and

falls to the floor.

 

The door opens and a large bosomed nurse pushing a wagon

walks in. She picks a notebook off the floor and puts it on a

table top next to the bed, the projector is nowhere to be seen.

 

“What would you like today?” she sings out, “chicken or fish?”

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© Johnmichael Simon

2017

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