Movieland

Chapter 33

The guitar riff struck light lightning.

Duh-duh.

It struck again: Duh-duh.

Duh-duh. Duh-duh. Duh-duh duh-duh duh-duh duh-duh duh-duh.

A raspy voice screamed: "Yeahhhhhhhhhhh!!!"

The ballad blew out the speakers of our minds.

We appeared in the back of the loading dock, with the lights of Pelee Island glaring in the background. Qwin wore a stained tank top to showcase sweat-glistened muscles. He slapped himself in the face.

I made a copy of the scene but removed Qwin. I set the scent right next to it, like two TV screens airing the same Saturday afternoon rerun. I didn't know how I was doing it, just that I could. I put Standard in the second frame. He and Qwin were side by side, nearly identical. Standard's muscles didn't exactly gleam under the Hollywood lights anymore.

Applewhite and Mr. Stowe stayed behind the scenes in Standard's screen.

It scared me how easy I made it happen.

The music swelled. A verse approached.

"Now!" I directed.

Standard froze.

"Act!" I screamed.

He didn't move. His face crumpled into a lifetime of memories.

"Dammit, Standard! Do it! Do it now!"

Applewhite sprinted out to him. She gently touched his face. "Love hurts, Standard." She reached back, cracked him across the face with an open palm, and retreated. He reeled and blinked.

Qwin slapped himself in the face.

Standard slapped himself in the face at the same time.

Qwin slapped the right cheek and left cheek and then both cheeks rapidly with both hands.

Standard mimicked him.

Qwin gleamed and Standard gleamed. I focused on syncing them up before the cut and the music jammed and it began:

Do what's right and the going gets tough

Will never stop you from being enough

Reach for the top and reach for the stars

It's the only way you'll ever get far

I lifted Applewhite and Stowe from Standard's scene and strained to hold them with me as spectators outside of the scene. We floated in the black in between. Puppets, all of us. I held Standard at the docks to stay in the next clip.

The dock workers wore their mortician suits with metal padding on the arms and chest. Qwin paced in front of them, eyeing each soldier-in-training. His bandaged hand swung at his side.

I created another alternate version of the scene and set it aside Qwin's scene. Standard paced in front of the same workers. He was a step slow and favored his bandaged hand. He muttered to himself, which came off as bad lip syncing to the lyrics. He had no mirror to compare himself. He was going off a 20-year-old memory and five minutes of refresher.

He depixilated. We floated in darkness. A great power surged through my body. I saw the scenes as they would appear, in a roll of film unwound and magnified. I clenched my fist to hold him with me. He wasn't all there, a haze of himself, in between scenes. I imagined a couch and plopped Applewhite and Mr. Stowe on it.

Lazlo paced slowly in front of a row of corpses wearing red gowns like lab patients. A strobe light flashed.

A fire flared through my mind. I burned from the inside out. The next scene faded into the back of the loading dock behind a stack of crates. The island lights glowed like ghosts in the background. I placed Standard and watched him pixelate into a push up stance.