Cottonwood, An On-line Novel: Chapter 2 - Light and Shadow Play (fiction, regionalism, the west, writing process, cinematography, "Curtains" by Elton John)

Chapter 2:  Shadow and Light Play

Photo by Rio Brown

Shadows of vine move across four slanted squares of moonlight on a worn wood floor.  A bug crawls the last patch of moon-glow, heading towards a pair of slippers and a chrome walker by the foot of a bed.  Rick Carter lays on his back, part of the lump of shadow before a four-paned window and stares up at the ceiling where a softer, more forgiving play of light and shadow mirrors that stark shadow dance across the floor.  If one moved closely, one would see that even in this light his eyes are a soft-gray, the color of cottonwood reflected in shallow water—a story almost there, but not quite, pebbles of reality breaking through the narrative like a bony knuckle or elbow pressing against paper-thin skin.

But, if one were to view the movie projected by his mind’s eye onto the ceiling, one would see something quite different—vibrant tufts of green standing high above a creek bed, reflected in a deep warm golden water textured with river-rock showing through, intense sunlight sparking and dashing as two inner-tubes carried two bare-backed boys downstream towards a spiraling metal culvert.

“Hey, hey, here we go!” would cry the first.

“Be sure to duck low, low,” would cry the second.

Here the camera would be mounted on the front of the second tube.  There would be a dip, a bit of water would splash on the lens as the first tube disappeared into the shadows.  Then there would be brief blackness and tinny watery echoes as the boys yelled “Hello, Hello” and echoes bounces all around the spiraling metal tunnel.

Then the screen would snap to blinding white before slowly coming into soft focus.

There would be flowers along the banks.  Not wild, but garden flowers, irises, gladiolas, petunias and the viewer would slowly realize the boys were now floating through a back yard.

  

But this is perhaps the limits of cinematography.  It gets clunky when it comes to conveying inner thoughts.  Perhaps a close-up on young Rick’s face could convey the mixture of anxiety and excitement he felt, but probably not.  Maybe, if one cut to a new scene—

Low camera angle.  Two girls in their early teens jump on a trampoline.  One is slightly chubby with shoulder length black hair and wears the nondescript clothing—shorts perhaps, and a t-shirt.   The other has long, blond hair, big round sunglasses, glossy pink lips and wears bright yellow overalls.  As she jumps, you see her confidence, her style, in the way she arches her back and kicks her legs up behind her until her feet touch her butt.  In the final jump, the girls rise towards the sun isolated in a deep blue sky, stop in a freeze-frame, hair extended heavenward, as the intense sunlight bleaches out the edges of Kristi’s blond hair before the scene dissolves into white and refocuses on diamond reflection sparking off a ripple in the creek before Rick’s eyes.

Now, perhaps, the right expression on Rick’s face might convey the dread and joy Rick felt on this river journey through such sacred land.

Moonlight spreads across Rick’s wrinkled face, a thin, closed smile on his dry, papery lips.  That, he thinks, is the beauty of young love—totally unconditional.  As we get older, we expect more.  This is not bad.  If it were not so, even more of us would find ourselves in abusive relationships, but there is nothing grander to the heart then loving purely, unconditionally, expecting nothing in return beyond the pure unadulterated joy of worship.  We experience this once, only once, if we’re lucky, for it comes from a place of innocence and cannot be sustained by experience.

That is what I could never convey to you, Marie.  Oh, how you hated my telling that story to little Ethan and Conner. You’ll make them sexist, make them shallow, you’d say.  But I knew you were jealous.  You shouldn’t have been though.  What makes a once-upon-a-time sacred is just that.   It was once upon a time.   Why in the hell am I just figuring this out?  I never meant to hurt you, not even a little.  You just weren’t my once-upon-a-time.  How could you be?  We had bills, boys, hours and hours of work, dirty dishes, church.   Real love and once-upon-a-time love aren’t the same thing.  And they shouldn’t be.  That is the part I left out, the most vital part.  No wonder Ethan is so damn screwed up!  He’s chasing once-upon-a-time.

Rick throws off his bedcovers, agitated, swings his feet down to the floor.  As he moves his feet along the scuffed hardwood surface, the viewer can’t help but notice his long, dirty, chipped toenails and veiny foot, such a contrast to the peaches and cream complexion of Kristi’s heart-shaped face in the trampoline scene.  Finally, one foot finds a slipper.  The camera zooms in and juxtaposes the plush padded fabric against the frail, thin skin.  The other foot finds the other slipper.  There is a shot of his hand reaching for his walker.  Vine shadows play the wall as the scene dissolves.

© Steve Brown, 2013

Working Days:  Journaling Cottonwood.

Perhaps we all experience life quite differently.  Some through dialogue, some through narrative, some through smell or touch.  I have always lived life through scenes, through vignettes, snippets of a larger, untold story, and most of these are pretty much silent.  As Marci can testify, I’m not much of a listener.  I had a creative writing teacher who encouraged us to go to diners like Denny’s and take out a notebook and record conversation.  I probably needed that.

But instead, I would notice the reflection of the waitress across the room on the coffee cream canister and think now that’s a story.  Just describe the light, her movements, the expression on her face.  Who cares what she has to say?  Her body language says it all.

I’m not necessarily good at getting that down.  But if I can pull this novel off, that is how it will have to be, in short vignettes with limited audio, for that is the only world I know.  I love sound, am a huge fan of music, but it’s the patterns, the light and shadow textures of words, not the meaning, that matters.   It would be amazing to pull off an entire story of random noises.  Dishes clanking, chunks of conversation here and there, a random thought, all distorted like the reflection in a cream canister or Lennon’s Revolution 9.  Probably not doable, of course, especially on the printed page—all the more reason to try.