:: Omnia Mutantur ::

:: Friday, August 23, 2002 ::

Images

Just a little something I wrote. I plan to turn it into a short script and photograph the scenes.

---

"I don't know why you insist on looking at the world through a small hole." - she says before finding a better way to put it. "You can't relate to anything other than by looking at it through a lens. What kind of sick perception of reality is that?"

There's a twinge of sadness in her voice that I had not felt before as she sits lightly by the window talking to me. For once, I wish she was gone. That she left me, went away and took away her sweet-smelling hair, her small breasts and round hips. It aches to want her gone, because I'm more used to miss her.

"You don't have to be here, you know" - I reply with studied absentmindedness as I return to my camera.

She looks out the window, but not before a shroud falls over her face. After some seconds she replies.

"You know that's not true"

I ignore her, concentrating instead on the shots for the next panels of my story. I light them, I focus, I click; but the puppets have become dead things, not the lively creatures I need them to be.

Damn her. My work will have to wait, I decide, and so I pour myself a glass of scotch and walk to the window.

"It is you who keep me here. You are well aware of that" - she whispers as I stop beside her to stare at the people below, the ants and rats running around the city.

I just sip at my scotch, stirring the glass mechanically as she stares down with me. I can't get used to her lack of substance, the way even the feeblest light passes through her. Suddenly it is all too much to bear and I step away, convincing myself that I'll be able to return to my work.

"Why won't you let me go, Adam?" - she asks to my back as I walk away. "Why should I stay here while you pretend to work? It doesn't do either of us any good - I would rather just move on, and it would be better for you as well"

I don't answer right away. The question hangs between us dangerously, hissing at me and baring its fangs, and if I make a sudden move it might strike me down. For a moment, she turns back to the window and seems willing to let it go, but then her head first slumps, then sinks and she hides it in her hands. She's going to sob, the manipulative little bitch. She knows I can't stand that, she knows it's the best way to cajole me into doing something. What she wants I don't know - I didn't call her here, whatever she claims - but to use emotional blackmail is stooping too low.

"Sobbing didn't work before when we were going out", I slur - lies, it did, and often - "What makes you think it will work now?"

And she explodes. "Bastard! You fucking inconsiderate asshole! You think I'm fucking faking it?" - she spits at me amidst her tears - "What did I ever see in you, you soulless little prick? Why... " - she starts breaking down again and I have to consider the possibility that it's for real - "Why... " - she sobs - "Why the hell can't I just go to somebody I love more? Fuck you, you shit. Somebody that loves me at least, not someone who needs to analyze and dissect and balance every little thing I say or do, as if I were doing the same thing you are and calculating everything for maximum fucking effect." - She finally breaks down and weeps, while I look in horror at what is probably a honest reaction. "You piece of... you damned... you..." and she pauses for a moment, a train frozen in time just before it hits a wall at full blast - "You don't even realize I loved you", she says turning away, crystal tears leaking through her fingers and vanishing.

Silence rushes into the room to fill the vacuum her words create. She's sobbing soundlessly now, or perhaps faking it to help her drive the point home, and I wonder at everything that happened since her accident. The way I felt, or more exactly my inability to feel anything specific at the closed, most likely empty coffin I walked by, or the way her family reacted to me like I was part of them. Most likely she hadn't told them we - I - had called it quits.

The crocodile puppet comes to my attention just then, and I reposition it quickly and return to my camera to snap what I'm sure will be one of the best photos of the set.

I had almost forgotten her when she asks, her wispy form waving with the curtains, "Aren't you going to say anything?".

I release the camera and turn slowly to look at her. By the look on her face, she already knows what I have to say.

"I also loved you, before, once." - I tell her, gazing intently at my own two feet - "When I broke our up thing I was devastated, destroyed. I tried to call you before your trip, but then you had left the country and wouldn't come back for three more months. And while I waited and missed you, I realized that I could live without love, that love actually never meant much to me; but that I couldn't go on without your company. And then you went and got yourself killed in that stupid little plane, and I had no way to get you back, and I was alone and..."

"How can you not love me and still need me this badly?" - she half sobs, half whispers and hovers to the window, a white trail almost remaining behind her - "Stop needing me, find someone else. Let me leave here and rest... Please."

I shouldn't have answered. I didn't have to, because had the truth been different she would have been able to leave already.

"I can't. I need you. Without your torment nothing moves inside me, and I can't create."

And she goes back to her pain, and I to my photos.

:: Ricardo J. Méndez 7:05 PM [+] ::
...

More on the Promise Fasttrak 100 Lite and Linux

Quick bit of news: Promise released support for Red Hat Linux for the Fasttrack 100 Lite controller. There's still no Mandrake version of the drivers, though.

:: Ricardo J. Méndez 9:57 AM [+] ::
...

Oh, and some photos

I forgot: I added some new photos from our trip to San Francisco, Reno, Lake Tahoe and Virginia City to my Photo.net folders. Most of them are located here (I actually had them moved to Shutterfly, and Photo.net has only my favorites).

:: Ricardo J. Méndez 11:19 AM [+] ::
...

More Ginger Snaps

I ran into this excellent commentary of Ginger Snaps sometime after I wrote my own - just be advised, it gives the whole plot away.

It does make for an interesting analysis, though.

:: Ricardo J. Méndez 3:24 PM [+] ::
...