Between Then & Now || Currently Editing for Wattys 2022

14.

Light, so much light. My eyes slowly crack open, the sunlight flooding into the van bleeding through them. To my left, Thelma stirs a bit and when I turn to look at her, I find the book just strewn onto the bed.

I blink.

Somehow, I had managed to read through the entire thing the night before. I'm not even sure what time I had gone to sleep. Definitely sometime after midnight. I rub my eyes, groaning again, and Thelma rolls over, slowly opening her own.

"Hey, buddy." She looks up at me and blinks a bit. Then, she looks around, standing up suddenly. Her white fur shines in the sunlight as her whole body shakes. Thank god I had cleaned her. She turns to me and cocks her head, stepping forward to paw my hand as she finally realizes where she's at.

Laughing, I lift it to pet her. Then, I look back down at the book.

For masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.

My eyes flitter to the cabinet hanging along the ceiling above my bed. The light brown, cabin-like wood is glossy. I had made sure to bring everything I had with me because I definitely wasn't going to be moving back to Sarah's anytime soon.

Oh, God, Sarah. I can't believe that was only yesterday.

My eyes flutter back to the cabinet. I had made sure to designate one full cabinet for all my film gear. It feels weird not constantly watching movies and analyzing the angles and the lighting and the props. Or working on my own project. It doesn't help that Dr. Walker's voice has also been ringing in the back of my head since our last meeting.

Entirely up to you. Feminist manifesto.

I look back down at the book on my bed, Thelma stretching in the background.

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.

Or make a documentary.

I glance back up, the way I had set my filming equipment still imprinted in my mind. For a moment, I consider standing up, letting the bed sink underneath my feet. I imagine the cold of the handle on the cupboard as I take it and pull the cupboard door upward. My cameras are all organized inside, buckets of wires and microphones lining the right side. I begin to pull down everything I need, setting everything up on the kitchen counter a foot away from my bed.

Wires connected. Camera rolling. Microphone intact.

I sit back on the bed, facing the camera, Thelma plopping down behind me. My reflection stares back at me in the camera lens, and, after taking a breath,

I have absolutely no idea what I would say.

I look back down at the book and then at Thelma. She peers up at me, almost smiling with her two-colored eyes, I smile back at her and scratch behind her ears. I don't know where I would start or what the documentary would be about. I don't have a story to tell or some inspiring message to give or a lecture about feminism that I feel anyone, including the people who actually need it, would listen to.

So, when I stand up, letting my comforter stay where it lands, feet on the cold wood of the van's floor, I glance back up at the cabinet. Because, even though I have an entire van of my own and enough money to last me through the summer, I have no story to tell–and what's the point of a documentary without a story?