Tongue in lips, they are waiting for the movie to start playing. Their eyes meet the shiny black of the screen just coming alive when someone presses the spacebar.
Which moment will spin itself before everyone’s gaze and then awkwardly, or worse- boringly, settle down upon the spacebar’s command again?
Maybe it will be Harrison Ford placing a hand on Sabrina’s waist inside that conservatory, or Seth Rogen’s eyes resting upon Michelle Pfeiffer’s expectation inside a bomb shelter in Manila, or maybe Christina Ricci dancing inside a frozen moment in a bowling alley that is just for her. Someone else paused and skipped over a three-course meal where most couples were very tense and trying to drag the script of social commentary around a bit.
Either way this pans out, it will still be the same voice playing over your phone’s speaker. A crackling, and then the sonorous lure of the impalpable digital.
The couple before us had had to reenact the makeout scene from “Celeste and Jesse Forever”. It felt like a sad foreboding to the newer “Scenes from a Marriage”. No, I don’t want them to be together. No, I do.
Now, if the “2441139 Bela Bose” song was a scene from a movie, it would be perfect for us. It is sad sad sad but it makes my breath stop. I want to use it for everything left behind in this little life of mine.
“Finally Bhalobasha” was different from “Aami Ashbo Phirey”- not better, but a different kind of organic characterization. That is why you want to be like the men in his films (men very much like him.) “Eita Tumar Gaan” in Chandrabindoo’s picturization enters you now.
Where did we leave them behind? Yes, waiting for them to come back on the screen. Tense, worried if the scene will threaten the constancy of their effortless interactions. Effortless not in the sense of giving up on the anxiety of being misconstrued, but one that could be maintained with the semblance of maturity intact. It does not mean that it is crumpled away in the palm of my hand, waiting to be hurled as a wish from a shut diary.
Bend your head this way, so that her fingers rest comfortably across your ear and cheek- the ears have already burned red. Turn up your mouth to the right. Make her sigh a little, without having to discard your blanket aside. The kind that will have you rewinding the head and the parting lips of their hesitation- it is the one that you will perfectly piece together for this very moment.
In there I see his hands, there her downy cheek, the fuzz of his chin tucked away inside his shirt collar, the crumpled blue checkers pressed against the tan-coloured outer shirt, or maybe a stonewashed grey denim. Now, hold on to her wrist in a firm but resting way. Let her feel your pulsating self and your restraint upon your bones. The curly hair glows in the light like a cloud of carrot smoke and the spectacles are pulled across the screen and kept on the insignificant table- that just happened to be there.
In this moment now we look away from the screen and rest them upon the table near us. I look up hopefully at your glasses, and you reach your face and tuck away your thoughts behind your left ear. Then you bend down to the height of my spacebar and speak:
Would you like to do it instead?
