Video
Audio
MS Alexis standing away from tree. Her hair and back is covered in paint, imprints of blue and yellow alarms. Permanent shadow on tree.
AMBIENT SOUND
MS Alexis walking toward camera. She dismounts camera from tripod.
TRACKING SHOT Alexis walking toward Dino.
CU Dino’s face.
FX: Crunching of leaves
ALEXIS
Let’s go back to your house. I want to make your ghost jealous.
DINO
I don’t like it when you’re there.
ALEXIS
You mean she doesn’t like it when I’m there. How does she make you feel when I’m there?
DINO
When you’re there, it feels like the world is ending. When you’re gone, it feels like the world is beginning.
ALEXIS
I don’t like that. We need to change that. Take me to your house.
This was a reverse documentary. It didn’t always stick to the cause. Dino couldn’t tell who it was he didn’t want seen, Alexis or the ghost. He didn’t know what he was hiding, if he was hiding anything. He didn’t want his house to feel like Jennifer was still in it.
* * *
Wade helped Dino edit the footage. Together, they sequenced the clips and made notes. Wade contended that the goal of the film was becoming unclear. Initially, it was about the survival of the woods. The history of the forest, its slow destruction, the efforts to preserve it. But now the damage in the woods was beginning to look less like vandalism, more like architecture or a theme park. Dino and Alexis had favorites.
“This film is getting to me,” Wade said. “Those kids aren’t hiding anymore. I see them at all hours of the day, ruining our woods. The police don’t do anything. We need someone on this side to take action.” He pulled his hands toward his chest as though gesturing for someone to come over.
Dino made no attempt to hide the clip of them having sex. He wasn’t indifferent to Wade’s reaction; he was just too caught up in studying his own expression. Like the oven in the animated film, there was something perfect about his eyes and his mouth, but he didn’t know what it was. He wasn’t in love with Alexis. Something nostalgic about his face, and now that he saw it on screen, he remembered having felt it as he pushed against her, as he kissed her. Nostalgia.
“You can’t put this in the film,” Wade said as he watched them.
“It was her idea,” Dino said. “You introduced me to her. Nice girl, like you said. You don’t have to watch.” He fast-forwarded through the scene.
“She’s been acting a little strange lately,” Wade said.
Dino sensed Wade was waiting for him to ask about it, so he did. He didn’t like the tension that was creeping in between them. Wade said he’d met Alexis for lunch at Thai Villa. They were talking, the waiter came over to ask them if they needed anything else, and then out of nowhere she chucked a handful of noodles at the waiter’s face. They got kicked out of the restaurant.
Dino laughed and stopped on a frame of Alexis scrubbing the face of a deer painted art deco style. Its soapy eye gleamed like a punctured light bulb.
“She was upset,” Wade continued. “She said something moved her arm, that it wasn’t her. It was, but it wasn’t.”
“Do you believe her?” Anxiety rose from Dino’s voice. The ghost had stayed in the yard for the most part. Only recently had the shine moved indoors. He didn’t think the ghost was dangerous, but he still didn’t want her going near Alexis.
“Let me show you something,” he continued. He fast-forwarded to a clip set inside his kitchen. The camera was focused on the sink. The water was running, steam rising from the basin. The screen had a strange layer of light, like the room had its own visible ozone.
“Why did you film your kitchen sink?” Wade said.
“You don’t see the shine?”
“Yes, it looks a little shiny. What is that?” Wade sat back in his chair and folded his arms.
“It’s Jennifer. Ask Alexis about it.”
Video
Audio
MS Wade loading split wood from a pile into the bed of his truck.
FX: Thump of wood on contact
DINO
How many trees have you saved from destruction?
WADE
It’s too soon to tell. It takes years for trees to die from this kind of damage.
DINO
What you’re saying is, some might survive, despite the graffiti?
WADE
Yes, that’s true. The vandals are interested in results. The naturalists are interested in effort.
DINO
There are many who would disagree with you, including me.
WADE
That’s because of the way you lost Jennifer. You’ll always care about the aftermath.
Alexis was locked out of the house. Dino tried to let her in, but the lock wouldn’t turn. The windows wouldn’t open. The rain began to fall horizontally, like an alternate sky existed to the left. They had to wait it out.
Ingredients for soup were arranged on the kitchen counter. Extra-virgin olive oil, cilantro, lemons. Chopped tomatoes, carrots, a whole chicken defeathered and sheared. Dino cooked into the afternoon, following the crinkled recipe taped to the cabinet by the stove. The shine changed directions and spun near the ceiling like a mobile. The house felt warm and moist like spring.
Alexis withstood the rain. Dino watched her through the front window. She hauled soaked logs into the fire pit to pass the time. He tried the door again, but it wouldn’t budge. Not knowing what else to do, he cleaned up the kitchen. He rinsed the cutting board and wiped down the counter. As he washed the dishes, he felt his chest expand. Not the sensation of a flying kite, but something warm and windy and light by itself. Dino grabbed the camera and filmed himself.
He filmed Alexis, too, through the window as she threw her wet shirt on the ground. Her hair spilled down in ropes. She added mud to the softened bear and elephant, keeping herself busy until, after three hours, the lock finally turned. Dino guided her inside and dried her clothes. He fed her soup, then sat her down and replayed the video of himself. He pointed to the screen and tried to explain what was happening, like a lesson.
“I don’t see anything,” she said. “You’re just standing there.”
He made her look more closely. She insisted there was nothing. But he could see his organs were being lit up. He was warm and windy and lit inside.
“Alexis, go home,” he said.
She protested, saying this was just what the ghost wanted, that she hadn’t spent hours in the rain for the fun of it, it wasn’t even about him anymore, she didn’t even want to stay in the creepy house or be in his film, she was just trying to win the game. She wasn’t born on this earth to have some supernatural girl take over everything.
She stayed that night, slept curled up on the couch. In his bedroom alone, Dino hoped the shine would light up. But he slept in darkness all night. He dreamt of a white dim glow, like bulb-light, but when he woke it was morning. The dream was just the sun.
Video
Audio
MS Wade sitting in armchair on rooftop. Purple bruise over right eye.
CAMERA STAYS ON WADE
DINO
Did the vandals give you that?
WADE
Alexis told me you’re scared of her. She said you try not to show it, but whenever she visits your house you become nervous and constantly look out the window. You shut yourself in your room and won’t come out until she leaves. When she leaves you call her and immediately ask her to return.
DINO
What happened to your eye?
WADE
It’s none of your business.
DINO
It’s everyone’s business. That’s the point of this.
WADE
I don’t trust you. I don’t trust this film. I don’t want you seeing Alexis anymore.
Alexis told Din
o she was pregnant. She said, “I don’t feel ready to be a mother. Are you ready to be a father?” Dino found himself wanting the baby more than anything he’d ever wanted in his whole life. He thought that when she was born (he was sure it was a girl), he would do all sorts of things that had never been done with babies before. He wanted to synchronize his breathing with her for all time, take her sailing around the world, learn French together. He wanted to grow all her favorites in little ceramic pots—her favorite color, fruit, song, book—they’d all be grown from scratch in the soil, alive in the house. He would choose the baby’s name from the paintings on the trees. He would film the baby’s second everything—her first word or first step would not be momentous; he’d commemorate her seconds instead. She’d grow up knowing first times are not the most special, so she would always look toward the future.
“You want to keep the baby, don’t you?” Dino said.
“That’s not up for debate. I’m keeping it.”
Dino ran his hand down the side of Alexis’s head. “That’s not what I meant. We’re keeping the baby. I want her too.”
* * *
In eight months Alexis will move to Denver alone. The three of them are at Dino’s house the day she leaves. Alexis is rocking the baby in her arms. She hears a knock on the front door. Dino is in the shower, unable to answer. She walks to the door, stepping around boxes piled on the floor. She looks through the peephole and sees nothing. She returns to the couch and talks to the baby. She feels moisture on her lips as she kisses the baby’s forehead. Dino walks out of the hallway dressed in jeans and a ragged T-shirt. His hair is wet and he begins to seal a cardboard box with tape. He asks why the front door is open. Alexis looks back at the door and says she doesn’t know. She gets up intending to close it, but something else happens. She hands the baby to Dino. She walks to the door. She feels the warmth of sunlight on her skin. Something urges her to walk outside. Her fingers are on the doorframe. She steps into the shining sun. The lock will turn. Dino will be unable to prevent it. Alexis will be unable to stop herself from doing things she does not want to do.
* * *
Alexis, seven months pregnant, was on her hands and knees scrubbing Dino’s kitchen floor, the tip of her braid dangling and brushing against some telekinetic tomato splatter. The walls of the kitchen were spotted with small circles of heat. They could press their palms in particular areas and feel warmth coiled and dense like studs. The appliances were slick with humidity. New water stains appeared on the ceiling overnight.
Dino was pacing the living room.
“The ghost has got to go,” Alexis said. She threw the rag in the sink and joined Dino. She paced alongside him, then picked up speed.
“How do we get rid of her?” he said.
“Maybe you’ve got to go. Move out of this house. Move in with us.” She stopped and placed her hands on the crest of her stomach. He knelt down and placed his ear against it.
“What’s she saying?” she said.
“She says she has blue hair and brown eyes. She likes it when you eat apples. And she thinks we’re both ugly.”
“She can’t even see us.”
“She hears our voices and we sound ugly to her.”
Alexis touched Dino’s chin. “Don’t avoid my question. Will you live with us?”
Dino stood up. “Yes. I’ll leave this house when the baby’s born.”
* * *
Dino opened the cooler by the gravestone. The sandwich was nestled between bottles at the bottom. Dino rummaged through the melting ice to retrieve it. When he finished eating, he pulled out a folding toothbrush from his pants pocket. He wet the bristles in ice water and reached for Jennifer’s limestone name, then vigorously brushed the vowels and consonants. When the J was clean, he fell back in his chair and watched the field of graves till he fell asleep.
* * *
The documentary won a nomination at the film festival. Wade and Dino sat together at the award ceremony. The host was announcing the nominees for Best Short Nonfiction Film. He wore a tux with a bowtie and stressed the middle words of sentences. He clasped his hands together onstage. Wade leaned over and said, “You’ll never be a part of the family,” and patted Dino on the back as the applause detonated and their names were called. The clip shown to the audience was one of Alexis washing red letters off an oak with her brush. She was kneeling beside a soapy bucket. As she washed she explained the damage the paint could do to the layers of bark. When people recommended the documentary to their friends they said the film made them feel like “I’d crawled inside myself and filled all the crevices. Like I was weighing myself down to the ground and becoming a new and heavier adaptation.”
* * *
Vegetation covered the surfaces of the mud sculptures on the front lawn. Earth and Jupiter evolved into green unidentifiable worlds. The bear and elephant and naked woman appeared animate. The book with raised words disappeared. The neighbor’s dog stopped loitering near the edge of the property. The trees in the woods popped brighter than flowers. The vandals exposed themselves completely, now celebrities, and no one stopped them from coloring the thick trunks.
* * *
Alexis trimmed the grass on the mud animals. She gathered broken twigs from the front lawn and recycled them in the woods. She ignored the shine on the ground, how it anticipated each of her steps. She removed the water stains from Dino’s walls and ceiling with a mixture of baking soda and vinegar. The house locked and unlocked itself. The fetus grew.
* * *
Dino introduced Alexis to Jennifer’s mother. He was unsure why. Perhaps to show her how well he was moving on. She had hugged Alexis and congratulated the couple. The three of them sat in a café beaming at each other, pretending the meeting wasn’t awkward. As Dino watched Jennifer’s mother, her lips pressed together in complicated cheerfulness, her weight slightly slumped in the steel-colored chair, he was reminded of the man Jennifer had been with and the vehicle he survived in. He saw the man sitting across from him in place of the mother, smiling at Dino and Alexis and pretending to understand.
* * *
Dino had wanted Wade to ask him this on film: When you are infatuated with someone, do you know what you’re doing? Are you in autonomic love? Are you in repeat-mode indefinitely? Why are you doing things for nothing, like sitting in your house thinking of her? You do that for nothing. Doesn’t absence make it worse? How do you get rid of something that is already gone, when the ignorance it needs is the very thing that wastes you?
* * *
In one year, Dino will receive mail addressed to the baby. Tucked inside the envelope is Alexis’s ten-dollar bill, the writing undecipherable. There is a letter telling the baby to never believe what people say is the truth; to always find out for herself. The letter says how much her mother loves her. Her mother hopes the baby will one day want to find her. Dino gives the baby the letter as soon as she learns to read.
Video
Audio
FADE IN EXT HOUSE Bright green lawn. Mud sculptures in full bloom. Fire pit converted into flower garden. Iron knocker (bull’s-eye missing its concentric circles).
VOICE OVER
The baby will be named Iris. She’ll have brown hair and blue eyes. Dino will adore her. She never knows her mother.
FADE UP INT HOUSE Jars on shelves filled with spices. Ceramic pots on windowsill containing children’s books and yellow objects.
CU Warmth hanging from walls in soggy, bestial shapes.
VOICE OVER
Iris and Dino will talk to the ghost. They’ll tell it jokes and fluff the curtains when they think the ghost is hiding behind them. Occasionally after a nap, they’ll wake to find a treat by their heads—a juice box, a cold beer. The air in the house stays wet like spring.
TRACKING SHOT Kitchen to living room to bedroom.
LS EXT HOUSE Yellow, white, orange light flickering through windows.
VOICE OVER
The ceiling fans will spin the breeze whenever th
ey want to. The shine will change colors.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Begin Reading
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by Marisela Navarro
Art copyright © 2016 by Cornelia Li
Reverse Documentary Page 2