Permit to Breathe
Key art
Filed beside the screening
The picture is Permit to Breathe.
Scenario
2:57 · 16:9
Color lives in the tiles only where a wrist-band is still valid. A man walks, and blue and amber follow him in a radius the width of his arms. The color is in the glaze, not in the air. Beyond that radius the gallery is grey. His band shows a shrinking count. The digits eat themselves at a steady pace. His shoes sound on the tile and the sound does not change when the color does. Another adult sits on a bench in the grey, band dark, breathing in short careful pulls. The tiles around the bench have no color left in them. A stripe along this wall, once a sure painted line, is only a paler grey now. The seated person's hands rest on the knees and rise a little with each short breath.
The walking man's count hits zero. The last digit is a zero and then nothing. Color drains outward from his body. Blue leaves first, then amber, a retreat across the glaze. The tiles give up their blue and amber and become the same grey as the bench. Both of them breathe. The air does not stop. Only the color stops. His breath still shows. The gallery's grey is cool enough for that. He looks at his band, dark, and at the seated person's band, dark, and at the chip still clipped to his own strap, the last thing with any charge.
He unclips his extension chip, the last thing on the band with any charge, and presses it to the seated person's band. The press is simple. A small click. Color returns in a tight circle around the bench. Blue and amber stop at the circle's edge and do not spill toward his shoes. The seated person breathes easier. The pulls lengthen. Shoulders drop a fraction. The walking man stays grey. His own band does not relight. The empty clip on his strap hangs open.
He remains standing in the drained stretch of gallery. Through the color around the bench, the seated person is plain. Around the standing man, the tiles stay grey, and his breath still fogs in the cool air. He does not take the chip back. The seated person's longer breath continues inside the circle. The paler stripe on the wall stays pale outside that circle. Two bands, one lit by a gift and one empty, stay on two wrists, and the gallery does not restore the walking radius he spent.
The fog of his breath fades and returns. The circle around the bench holds its size and does not grow to include him. Color obeys the chip and not the body that carried it. He stays in the grey. The other adult stays in the color. Air continues for both, and only one of them has tiles that will admit it by shining.