48 Minutes
“Could we cut out just three minutes?” she asked, straining her voice.
“No. The film is 48 minutes. We already cut 12 minutes of credits and scenic shots and pauses between characters speaking. We cannot edit out another second. Believe me, we tried.”
Janet took a few loud, shallow breaths. She scratched her arm. She was not comfortable in her skin right now.
“What if we cut out one of the subplots?”
“There are no subplots,” came the reply. “I told you. It’s as short as it can get, and then even shorter than that.”
“Okay… well…” Janet tried again, racking her brain. “We could just not screen it with the other short films. Arrange a night for it on its own.”
“It’s not long enough to be its own night.” The response came with a shake of the head. “It needs at least one short film opener.”
“But they won’t let us add a 48-minute film to their schedule. It’s beyond their ‘short film’ category.”
Janet threw her hands in the air. “I give up!”
“‘Always leave them wanting more,’” the filmmaker muttered.
“What was that?” Janet asked.
“The only thing we could do,” the words came between shakes of the leg, “is just cut the film short. Hack off the last scene.”
Janet scrolled to the 45 minute mark. “But then it wouldn’t make sense,” she said. “Then it would end in the middle of a scene, in the middle of a sentence.”
“That’s why I said, ‘Always leave them wanting more.’”
“Would they want more, though? Or just feel frustrated?”
They both looked at Janet’s screen, and decided —
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Today is forty-eight days, which are six weeks and six days, of the Omer.
This story was written as part of a 49-day project of counting the Omer. In the merit of the Omer Count that I have counted today, may there be corrected whatever blemish I have caused in the sefirah Yesod shebeMalkhut, Bonding within Leadership. May I be cleansed and sanctified with the holiness of Above, and through this may abundant bounty flow in all the worlds. And may it correct our lives, spirits, and souls from all sediment and blemish; may it cleanse us and sanctify us with exalted holiness. Amen, Selah!
