The Soundtrack
I can’t get this vision out of my head.
It’s like a film that keeps rolling the same scenes, over and over again, perfecting them. I’m stuck in my bus seat with my headphones stuck in me, staring out the window at the same street corners passing by, and I am thinking of these characters I’ve drawn up in my head. Dreaming up their story without a story, thinking about how it never changes, but its tone does when one song trips over into the next.
A split screen of two bedrooms, identical setups with subtle nuances and personal touches. Hers on the left, corals and oranges. Flowers alive and dying, clothes on the floor, sunlight shining in, cat perched in the window. His on the right, blues and grays. One solitary lamp on a nightstand, a pile of books on the floor — sometimes stacked, sometimes tumbled, curtains down. They are moving in time-lapse through the years, in and out of these bedrooms. She is lying in the afternoon sunlight, cat on her belly reading. He is absent. He is tumbling with a faceless woman while she sleeps with all the covers. She is wide-awake back-to-back with a stranger. He is studying with his lamp on. They tumble together in his room, then hers. He studies in her room with the cat, she cleans her clothes off the floor. She is sleeps in his bed alone. She sleeps in her bed alone. He tumbles with a faceless woman. They tumble with a faceless woman. They lay awake back to back in her room. They embrace in his. The split screen opens. They read books in a larger bed, two nightstands, two lamps, the cat between them. They jump on the bed and fall in laughter. She sleeps alone again. He sleeps alone again. They tumble. They are screaming at each other and stop and stare. The cat jumps off the bed. She sleeps alone. The screen splits into two new bedrooms. Hers on the left, greens and blues. His on the right, blues and grays. She sleeps alone. He tumbles with a faceless woman. She sleeps alone. He tumbles with a faceless woman. They tumble in his bed. She sleeps alone. They sleep alone. He sleeps next to his cat. She walks out of the frame. His room is empty. The rooms disappear and the scene cuts to her walking down a busy street, maybe in New York City or Chicago. Her hair, messy and blonde and styled up, falls in her face. Her bomber jacket with the sheepskin collar barely fits her hands in its pockets. Her earbuds barely stay in. She stops. She blinks and opens her mouth to say something, but the music stops and the scene cuts to black.
