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Twilight: Irresistible Destiny
"If she had not had too many beers. If she had been listening to a different radio station. If he had not been on the road in the wrong place at the wrong time. The fatal crash was the sum of an infinite series of "ifs," tracing back to if life had never evolved on Earth in the first place. In our lives, we surf the wave of chance."
Chapter 6: Alterity
BPOV 6
I talk to him knowing that I am his for eternity, so I am not concerned or distracted by his aggressive obsession, his obsessive aggression. He will realize soon enough what I already intuitively know. We are here for each other in this lifetime, and for forever. It has already been decided long long ago and nothing we can do will change that. I cannot leave him and he cannot lose me. We are joined.
"I saw a movie just before I left. Another Earth written and acted and directed and edited by two people whom I suspect are in love. Shoestring production and it just won at Sundance, the jury prize and the Sloan prize with no fanfare at all when it arrived."
I continue. "A girl has just won a prestigious chance to study astrophysics at MIT and she is wildly celebrating, drinking too much.
"She drives home and on the car radio hears that Another Earth has appeared in the sky. She leans out the car window to see and glimpses it, running a red light, crashing into another car, and killing a woman and child.
"Getting out of prison four years later the man in the car, the husband, has recently come out of his long coma. He was a musician, a professor of music and now is a recluse. She is tortured by guilt and we see that no prison term or societal punishment has any effect except perhaps to give the person a long time to think, when they are not protecting themselves from the aggression in the prison.
"She feels drawn to the man, searches him out, and offers to clean for him. He is living in white trash squalor, drinking himself into an oval oblivion.
"The reviewer Ebert says this. Listen because I memorize too without knowing why":
If she had not had too many beers. If she had been listening to a different radio station. If he had not been on the road in the wrong place at the wrong time. The fatal crash was the sum of an infinite series of 'ifs,' tracing back to if life had never evolved on Earth in the first place. In our lives, we surf the wave of chance.
"And she offers to clean for him. She has a job cleaning at the local school after hours. I guess the psychologists would say she was debasing herself, punishing herself by working a menial job. I see it differently. There is no amount of cleaning that will ever clean her soul for what she did in her carelessness.
"She begins to clean for him. She orders his house. He stops boozing; she becomes lighter, and almost happy sometimes. He begins to play music again. But all the time she knows who she is and knows he does not know who she is. She enters a contest to be the first to visit this other earth.
"She tells him a story of the first cosmonaut who is on the space station. He hears a sound of dripping, but it's not liquid. It is more metallic but regular and relentless like a drop of water. The way they do it to torture you and drive you mad. Those stories. He searches all over the space capsule but he cannot find it, he cannot stop it. He knows he has 47 more days to listen to it and he knows he will go mad long before that. And then he knows how to escape madness.
"He needs to fall in love with the sound.
"He falls in love with the sound, listens to it intently, it turns to music and he listens to the music in rapture for the rest of his time up there in the capsule.
"And we see the musician later giving her a solitary concert in an auditorium where he plays a saw. A real musician really does this, by the way, and the filmmakers had the musician in the film really learn. A while ago he had seen her cleaning, saw her pick up the saw and bend it and listen to it.
"Do you know there are ants that take caterpillars into their nest?"
Edward raises one eyebrow in disbelief at me. I continue.
"They have liquor on their fur, and the ants drink it and get drunk. But why must they take the insects into their nest? And then someone thought to record with boosted intensity inside the nest. As the caterpillars were stroked for the liquor, they made music. It was the music the ants craved to keep with them.
"Isn't that beautiful. I know because once when I was high, I did something like that. It was night and summer and there were mosquitoes in my cabin near the woods. Pesky creatures that drive you crazy. But this night I felt one at my ear buzzing and instead of swatting it I waited - as I have been waiting for you – to see what it would do. It crawled down in my ear and I let it."
He is listening quietly to me.
"And then you can't imagine! A million violins were in my ear and the music was like no symphony I have ever heard!
"And I don't remember how long I listened. Or fell asleep, or whether I passed out or what.
"Back to Rhoda and the story. She has won the contest. He begs her not to go. He cannot bear to lose her. So she tells him a story about a girl. She is the girl.
"He begins to realize who she is and as she tells him she has made him happy but he has made her happy too, he leaps up and begins to strangle her. They have already violently kissed and made love before this. Not unlike us. But now he wants to kill her for ruining his life. So she runs out and escapes and he lets her.
"And this other earth is our mirror. There are Borges mirror people living there, and they are us. They are our doubles.
"Just as who I was before tonight is drifting away now and my Double has emerged with you. She wants to see her Double. The woman she would be if she hadn't killed her lover's family.
"And the last scene is: she sees herself dressed in a nice coat with high leather boots with heels looking back at her in her bunchy made for practicality coat, hat, gloves. And they just stare at each other.
"Why am I saying this to you. That's not a question. Why am I telling you this story. Destiny arranged all of it. The party, her drinking, the crash, the death of his wife and child, his coma while she is in prison, her seeking him out, his permitting her into his life, their passionate embrace, and her journey to Another Earth.
"All of it planned to the tiniest detail."
"Why are you here in Venice?"
"If she had not had too many beers. If she had been listening to a different radio station. If he had not been on the road in the wrong place at the wrong time. The fatal crash was the sum of an infinite series of "ifs," tracing back to if life had never evolved on Earth in the first place. In our lives, we surf the wave of chance."
Chapter 6: Alterity
BPOV 6
I talk to him knowing that I am his for eternity, so I am not concerned or distracted by his aggressive obsession, his obsessive aggression. He will realize soon enough what I already intuitively know. We are here for each other in this lifetime, and for forever. It has already been decided long long ago and nothing we can do will change that. I cannot leave him and he cannot lose me. We are joined."I saw a movie just before I left. Another Earth written and acted and directed and edited by two people whom I suspect are in love. Shoestring production and it just won at Sundance, the jury prize and the Sloan prize with no fanfare at all when it arrived."
I continue. "A girl has just won a prestigious chance to study astrophysics at MIT and she is wildly celebrating, drinking too much.
"She drives home and on the car radio hears that Another Earth has appeared in the sky. She leans out the car window to see and glimpses it, running a red light, crashing into another car, and killing a woman and child.
"Getting out of prison four years later the man in the car, the husband, has recently come out of his long coma. He was a musician, a professor of music and now is a recluse. She is tortured by guilt and we see that no prison term or societal punishment has any effect except perhaps to give the person a long time to think, when they are not protecting themselves from the aggression in the prison.
"She feels drawn to the man, searches him out, and offers to clean for him. He is living in white trash squalor, drinking himself into an oval oblivion.
"The reviewer Ebert says this. Listen because I memorize too without knowing why":
If she had not had too many beers. If she had been listening to a different radio station. If he had not been on the road in the wrong place at the wrong time. The fatal crash was the sum of an infinite series of 'ifs,' tracing back to if life had never evolved on Earth in the first place. In our lives, we surf the wave of chance.
"And she offers to clean for him. She has a job cleaning at the local school after hours. I guess the psychologists would say she was debasing herself, punishing herself by working a menial job. I see it differently. There is no amount of cleaning that will ever clean her soul for what she did in her carelessness.
"She begins to clean for him. She orders his house. He stops boozing; she becomes lighter, and almost happy sometimes. He begins to play music again. But all the time she knows who she is and knows he does not know who she is. She enters a contest to be the first to visit this other earth.
"She tells him a story of the first cosmonaut who is on the space station. He hears a sound of dripping, but it's not liquid. It is more metallic but regular and relentless like a drop of water. The way they do it to torture you and drive you mad. Those stories. He searches all over the space capsule but he cannot find it, he cannot stop it. He knows he has 47 more days to listen to it and he knows he will go mad long before that. And then he knows how to escape madness.
"He needs to fall in love with the sound.
"He falls in love with the sound, listens to it intently, it turns to music and he listens to the music in rapture for the rest of his time up there in the capsule.
"And we see the musician later giving her a solitary concert in an auditorium where he plays a saw. A real musician really does this, by the way, and the filmmakers had the musician in the film really learn. A while ago he had seen her cleaning, saw her pick up the saw and bend it and listen to it.
"Do you know there are ants that take caterpillars into their nest?"
Edward raises one eyebrow in disbelief at me. I continue.
"They have liquor on their fur, and the ants drink it and get drunk. But why must they take the insects into their nest? And then someone thought to record with boosted intensity inside the nest. As the caterpillars were stroked for the liquor, they made music. It was the music the ants craved to keep with them.
"Isn't that beautiful. I know because once when I was high, I did something like that. It was night and summer and there were mosquitoes in my cabin near the woods. Pesky creatures that drive you crazy. But this night I felt one at my ear buzzing and instead of swatting it I waited - as I have been waiting for you – to see what it would do. It crawled down in my ear and I let it."
He is listening quietly to me.
"And then you can't imagine! A million violins were in my ear and the music was like no symphony I have ever heard!
"And I don't remember how long I listened. Or fell asleep, or whether I passed out or what.
"Back to Rhoda and the story. She has won the contest. He begs her not to go. He cannot bear to lose her. So she tells him a story about a girl. She is the girl.
"He begins to realize who she is and as she tells him she has made him happy but he has made her happy too, he leaps up and begins to strangle her. They have already violently kissed and made love before this. Not unlike us. But now he wants to kill her for ruining his life. So she runs out and escapes and he lets her.
"And this other earth is our mirror. There are Borges mirror people living there, and they are us. They are our doubles.
"Just as who I was before tonight is drifting away now and my Double has emerged with you. She wants to see her Double. The woman she would be if she hadn't killed her lover's family.
"And the last scene is: she sees herself dressed in a nice coat with high leather boots with heels looking back at her in her bunchy made for practicality coat, hat, gloves. And they just stare at each other.
"Why am I saying this to you. That's not a question. Why am I telling you this story. Destiny arranged all of it. The party, her drinking, the crash, the death of his wife and child, his coma while she is in prison, her seeking him out, his permitting her into his life, their passionate embrace, and her journey to Another Earth.
"All of it planned to the tiniest detail."
"Why are you here in Venice?"
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