163.
[The camera toddles back and forth, the shifting image swaying much like a drunk on a sea vessel. There’s a moment when it’s easy to think that the whole vision is going to topple over, that the carrier of this picture will fall, but it rights itself and moves forward once again, the image not much higher than a few feet above the ground. The dim gray of the church slides in and out of focus, the lines of the pews, some broken, some not, flank the aisle like tanks to war. High windows are broken, jagged edges cut in color from stained glass.
The church is quiet, silent, but there is a lone resident sitting in one of the seats, still as death. The camera settles on the back of her head, the golden fall of hair that just brushes her dark clad shoulders, the picture steadily coming into view as the carrier waddles forward slowly. There’s a pause for what sounds like footsteps, but once they fade, the waddling resumes.
Finally, in front of her, the walker finally stops. There’s a plain shot of black pants bent at the knees, white hands folded neatly in her lap, and the slow pan up to her face and green eyes that stare blankly ahead. The camera shifts low again, down to her calves as a crayon pokes her leg, only to be followed by a flashlight when nothing changes. If tonberries could look fretful or sad, it would be easy to imagine Nathan would be doing both now.
What Nathan does instead, however, is crawl under the pew, back behind her legs, and settle there to rest. There is a good five minutes of filming, nothing changing, no sound, no movement, until there is a revenant, quiet whisper of one single word:]
“Mother.”
[And the legs shift, standing, and the footsteps draw quieter as she walks away.]
The church is quiet, silent, but there is a lone resident sitting in one of the seats, still as death. The camera settles on the back of her head, the golden fall of hair that just brushes her dark clad shoulders, the picture steadily coming into view as the carrier waddles forward slowly. There’s a pause for what sounds like footsteps, but once they fade, the waddling resumes.
Finally, in front of her, the walker finally stops. There’s a plain shot of black pants bent at the knees, white hands folded neatly in her lap, and the slow pan up to her face and green eyes that stare blankly ahead. The camera shifts low again, down to her calves as a crayon pokes her leg, only to be followed by a flashlight when nothing changes. If tonberries could look fretful or sad, it would be easy to imagine Nathan would be doing both now.
What Nathan does instead, however, is crawl under the pew, back behind her legs, and settle there to rest. There is a good five minutes of filming, nothing changing, no sound, no movement, until there is a revenant, quiet whisper of one single word:]
“Mother.”
[And the legs shift, standing, and the footsteps draw quieter as she walks away.]