Staged Home Movies

Staged Home Movies
A BRIEF WORK OF FICTION BY MICHAELA CATALANO

There are grey shapes all around, rectangular and crumbling. Everything is lit by a reflection. Sunlight ricocheting off the moon and down to here. Blasting through particles in the atmosphere and coming apart, filtering down into the damp earth and the cracks in the headstones and our bodies. There is no such thing as darkness. Sight is one of the many abstractions that make up a human being. That bounding light is dim here but I can feel its force. I close my eyes and I can see it gathering strength out there in the emptiness. It cracks the moon and falls to earth, infinite invisible meteors. I can hear the headstones shattering and a sound like lead rain. When you look up at the stars you're looking at the past. Nothing you see is real. Your eyes are projecting illusions that are already over. Everything is staged home movies you dug out of a moldy box in the garage and put in an old VCR. The video is halting. There are scratches across the sky. There's a storm, but not here. It never really stops raining and I wish I could hop in the car with you and follow the clouds across the world. See the whole world with dark skies and the sound of water, ripples and waves flowing murky over the windows. It's warm tonight and I don't know if I love it or hate it. Darkness is cold and summer nights feel like a dream. Every morning I want to go back to sleep, but when I look back on the day I realize I never woke up in the first place. I've been asleep my whole life and it's only when I'm with you that I wake up. It's only when I'm with you that I can dream. There's a flash of lightning and the ground splits open at our feet. I begin to fall and you reach out. I grab your hand and you jump in with me and we fall together. It's black for a long time and then there is a red glow rising far below. You tell me that it's creepier here than you expected, and I open my eyes. You are sitting down now, six or seven feet above a dead man. It isn't strange. We spend our lives walking on the dust of the worlds that came before us. A strange wind blows through my hair, devoid of temperature. There are planets and revolving balls of gas out there, lighting the way through nothing, all around us. If I look up there will be nothing but black felt. The stars here line the streets. It's not creepy at all. There's a serenity here that is unique. I don't think it's morbid. Death simply is, and is nothing more. This is a place of life and I feel comfortable here. We're lying together on grass that is beginning to glisten with dew. It's colder now as the slightest hint of orange is on the horizon. I can see our clothes scattered across the grave dirt. It's finally cold but I'm warm for the first time in my life. I touch your face and you smile. There is no gravity here. I am adrift in nothing. There is a school in front of us. Everything is gray. The cement is gray. The signs are gray. The grass is gray. The sky is gray. The bodies are gray. Scattered across the ground. There is no blood. I can't see you but I know you're here. We're digging a hole, and my muscles ache pleasantly. Hey, this one wanted to be an architect, you tell me as we drop him in. Did he fear death? Did he want to create something that would live on when he died? Did he want to be remembered even in some small fashion? He never got the chance. My back is wet and I feel a sting as something bites me. You're still there beside me. Hey, you say. Welcome back. The sky is purple and red and blue and the world is burning in the distance. We put each other's clothes on and run back to the car. Someone must have seen us by now and it's only a matter of time before the cops show up.