Named Shadows
Key art
Filed beside the screening
The picture is Named Shadows.
Scenario
2:57 · 16:9
Torchlight runs along hanging cloth. The cloth moves only when the flame moves. A man walks, and his shadow is larger than he is and already ahead on the stones. The shadow's head clears a height his own head does not. Between the cloths the middle of the corridor holds no one. Plaster at his shoulder softens and opens like water. A face forms there, mouth working, silent. No sound comes from the working mouth. The eyes of it, if they are eyes, do not find a direction that includes him for long.
An arch stops him. A fiery silhouette fills it, too tall for him to match. Heat comes off the arch and does not burn the nearest cloth. He speaks a name into the cloth. The cloth takes the breath and does not answer in its own voice. The wall-face gives the name back, late, in his own voice. The delay is long enough to hear. He does not speak a second name to correct it.
Two hooded figures come out of the hangings. One is little more than bone under the hood. The bones are dry. He speaks the name to them. His shadow leaves the floor, enters the arch, and stands inside the fire at the fire's own size. The stones where the shadow was are only stones. The bone-figure turns its empty hood toward the sound. The second figure lifts a hand and does not touch him. The lifted hand stops in the air beside his sleeve.
Torch smoke climbs the hanging cloth and leaves a dark tongue on the plaster. The face in the wall closes. The plaster is plaster again, mouth gone, the name not gone with it. He goes quiet. The quiet does not call the shadow back down to his feet. Hanging cloth lines an empty middle. His shadow remains in the arch, edged in fire, larger than the man who has stopped saying the name.
The bone-figure's empty hood stays turned toward the place the name was spoken. The second figure's hand lowers without having landed. Smoke thins and the dark tongue on the plaster stays. The man does not step into the arch to stand where his shadow stands. He remains short of the fire. The shadow remains inside it, the size of the silhouette, and the corridor's empty middle keeps no second body to take the name from him.
Cloth stirs once and hangs. The torch does not go out. The closed plaster does not open a new mouth. He has stopped. The name, given back late in his own voice, does not get a third speaking, and the fiery arch keeps the larger shadow that left his feet.
The torch spits and recovers. Hanging cloth takes the spit of light and gives it back dull. His shadow in the arch does not shrink to his height. The bone-figure does not step closer. The second hooded figure's lowered hand stays lowered. Plaster where the face closed is only plaster, the dark tongue of smoke still on it. He does not speak. The name remains in the corridor without a mouth currently making it, and the fiery arch keeps a shadow larger than the man who has gone quiet in front of it.