The Passenger (The Passenger, #1)(60)

Nope. Just you.

I’m the only one.

Yup.

But you cant say what it is that I’m the only one of.

Well, you could say the only one of a kind, I suppose. But of course you’re right. There’s no kind. Which leads us to the paradox that where there’s no kind there cant be one.

One as a number or one as a being?

Either. You cant have anything till another thing shows up. That’s the problem. If there’s just one thing you cant say where it is or what it is. You cant say how big it is or how small or what color it is or how much it weighs. You cant say if it is. Nothing is anything unless there’s another thing. So we have you. Well. Do we?

No one is that unique.

Yeah?

You cant compare me to some entity floating alone in the void.

Why not? Look. Let’s show some movies. Okay? Picture worth a thousand words. That sort of thing. Twenty-four per second. Or are these eighteen? We actually found an old keywind Kodak in one of the boxes.

Movies.

Yeah.

Of what?

Remains to be seen. As the sign said down at the undertakers. Why dont we just roll it?

I thought the projector wasnt working.

What, you got no faith in Walter?

Why is he dressed like that?

I dont know. He hangs with an older crowd. You can ask him if you like but he’s not real chatty. Hold it. We got action. Douse the lights, will you?

She turned off the lamp. On the wall the frame of grainy yellow light flickered and numbers appeared each in a circle. Eight, seven, six. A clock hand turned in the circle and swept them away.

Why is the six written out?

Shh. Jesus.

If the projector was upside down you’d know it.

Quiet.

And besides there’s no nine anyway.

Will you cork it for Christ’s sake?

The numbers ran to two. A shadow loomed on the screen. Down in front, hissed the Kid. The projector ratcheted on. Pale figures began to jerk forward. Homemade clothes. They smiled thinly. A few made mows at the camera. Or waved across the years.

Who are they? she said.

Can we have quiet in the house? Jesus.

Why are they waving?

What do you want them to do? Send a postcard? Just pipe down, will you?

The film clattered on. Burns and blisters appeared and vanished. Men and women in summer clothing. Straw hats and bonnets. A child’s funeral. A small coffin carried from the bed of a wagon by men in bib overalls. She saw a man dropped to his death through the floor of a raw wood scaffold while a minister held his book to his chest and stood with one hand aloft and a sheriff in a rumpled suit took his watch from his vest pocket. She saw a gathering of men in their shirtsleeves with their coats across their forearms, their hats in their hands. Their heads looked like they had strings tied around them.

Who are they? she whispered.

Just hang on, okay?

Two women standing and smiling on the lawn of her grandmother’s house in Akron. I think I know them, she said. The car in the driveway. She’d seen it in old photographs. It was tall and black. Classic that, said the Kid. Desmodromic valves.

Can you stop it? Can you rewind it?

You cant rewind it. Jesus. Maybe you should pay more attention the first time around.

Can you slow it down?

How are you going to slow it down?

She didnt answer. She tried to think when the movie camera was invented. She saw people standing in a lake with their arms outstretched. Their ancient black wool bathing costumes. She saw a child who may have been her father. Walking toward the camera. Shadowed by the sun. Creature of light. Her mother in front of their house at Los Alamos. There was snow on the ground and furrows of mud curving away in the road and snow on the mountains beyond. Frozen clothes hanging stiff as corpses from the washline in the yard. Her mother turned from the camera and waved it away. Pulling her coat about her to hide her condition.

That’s me inside her.

Yeah. Nameless as yet I would suppose.

If Bobby was Bobby I was Alice.

That sounds really dumb.

It was really dumb.

Finally she herself. Turning on pointe in her costume at a ballet recital in a church basement in Clinton Tennessee in October of 1961.

Just stop it, she said. Can you stop it?

Well, sure, said the Kid. You can always stop it. You sure that’s what you want to do?

Yes. Please.

Okay. Fuck it. Shut it down. That’s it. Jesus. The thanks I get.

The projector flapped to a halt, the light flickered out. She turned on the lamp. The Kid swiveled in his chair and shook his head. You really break me up, he said.

I’m glad I amuse you.

Yeah. I dont need amusing. It’s all a murky business anyway. Take a bunch of stills and run them tandem at a certain speed and what is this that looks like life? Well, it’s an illusion. Oh? What is that? Well who cares if you can bring back the dead. Of course they dont have much to say. What can I tell you? Call before digging. You might think the trick is to pick the track of some collateral reality. If you fail to see the fallacy. The relevant malevolence. You can dial in some fresh vectors but that’s no sign they’ll commute. Is that a good idea? What if folks want to come back?

They cant.

Good girl. The point is that you’re never going to have a blank screen. And of course it’s not what’s on the screen but who put it there. If you do look up and there’s nothing on the screen you’ll put something there yourself why not.