Season of the Closed Eye
Key art
Filed beside the screening
The picture is Season of the Closed Eye.
Scenario
2:57 · 16:9
Yule Corvin keeps a season by what he does not look at. He is alone. A ceremony without a congregation is still the ceremony. A ritual bowl sits on a stand at the height of his hands, water clear, rim worn. Behind him a tall window holds the actual season: a tree letting go of leaves, light changing on the sill, weather doing what weather does. He faces the bowl. His eyes stay with it.
The room is otherwise plain. A table holds the stand, a dry leaf already there, and nothing he gathered by turning around. The window glass carries the day. Leaves on the tree move when the air moves. He does not give them his face. His hands rest at his sides. The water in the bowl is level. Minutes pass as the light on the sill changing its edge, and as his shoulders staying square to the stand.
A leaf strikes the glass and skitters. The sound is an invitation to turn. Yule's shoulders shift, the beginning of a look, and then settle. Revelation would end the measured season, so the look does not happen. The leaf on the glass slides to the sill and lies there, outside, where he will not pick it up. He takes the dry leaf that was already on the table, one he did not gather by watching the tree, and sets it beside the bowl as the mark of a change he refused to witness with his face. The window continues without him.
The dry leaf's stem points at the bowl. Its edge curls a little once it leaves the table for the air above the stand. The curl follows the placing and then stops. The leaf accepts the spot and does not blow toward the window. The water takes a dark copy of the leaf and lets the copy break when his breath crosses the rim. He does not turn to see whether the tree has lost another.
He counts nothing aloud. No one else enters to name the month. The bowl holds its water. His gaze stays down. The closed eye of the rite is simply his face not granting the window a turn. Another leaf hits the glass, softer than the first, and skitters off. His shoulders do not even begin the look this time. The water, disturbed by nothing but his near breath, returns to level and keeps the room's small reflection of the ceiling, not of the tree.
Light on the sill moves a finger's width and stops. He does not give it his eyes. He adjusts the dry leaf so it lies flat, a correction of the object, not of the season. The water steadies. The worn rim holds a thin bright line and keeps it. Outside, the tree lets go of one more leaf. It falls past the glass and is gone from the sill. He does not follow it with a turn of the head.
Yule's face stays lowered to the bowl. The window at his back goes unregarded. The dry leaf lies still beside the stand, curled no further, and the tree keeps letting go without his face.