ONE
On a dreary and supposedly meaningless day somewhere in late April I found out I was one of the lucky few people who got cancer at the age of twenty-six. I found out during an appointment with my doctor that was meant to be short and uneventful and had been scheduled for only fifteen minutes in my busy diary. The appointment took a little longer considering what he had to tell me. It was supposed to be him telling me that I did or didn't have Pfeiffer or Lyme disease, or so I had thought. Not for a second had I considered cancer.
Sure, I had been extremely tired for a long period of time, not just after a long day of hard or even semi-hard work, but the minute I woke up, no matter how long I had slept. I had blamed both winter and my extreme work hours. I had blamed my dizziness and paleness on the fact that I had been so tired all the time. Yes, at some point strange, unexplainable bruises had appeared everywhere on my body but still, what twenty-six year old expected Acute Myeloid Leukemia. The bad kind of course, the one that gave you a fifteen percent survival chance within the next couple of years and even if you survived those years, there was a seventy-eight percent chance of relapsing. This of course was my future if I decided to start chemo the next week. If I didn’t start chemo straight away, I would probably die within the next few months, depending on how aggressive the cancer was.
So basically, that day, I heard my life was over. My father, had he been there with me, would have told me that a fifteen percent chance wasn't so bad, the Niehaus family members were survivors. “Look at grandma,” he'd have said in his deep, raspy voice, “she survived two hurricanes, a flood, a broken back and breast cancer and she’s still around, surely you can survive some blood cancer”. He'd say it but he wouldn't have meant it. There'd be tears in his eyes and his hands would be curled up in fists, his knuckles white, his hands shaking. My mother would just be crying, her face hidden in her hands, making sounds that would make any bystander feel embarrassed.
They hadn't been there though, it had been just me, sitting there, feeling very small and sick to the stomach while the man opposite me was explaining just how screwed I was. Something about abnormal white blood cells, me being special for having a rare disease (which didn't make me laugh), bone marrow research and stem cell transplants (did I have brothers or sisters, well no, all right then I was going to have to be my own donor), chemotherapy (inevitable) and of course we spoke of support systems and even about death. Which obviously was very disconcerting to even think of when just half an hour ago I had been under the impression I still had years to live still.
My doctor, a tiny, middle-aged Indian man with a slight lisp and an unpronounceable last name told me I should tell my parents and friends about my cancer because I needed to have a support system. Somehow he expected me to have treatment without even thinking to really ask me. I told the doctor I didn’t know whether I wanted to start the entire ordeal of chemo therapy sessions, bone marrow extractions, stem cell transplants, blood transfusions and who knows what else. Doctor B. strongly advised me to start chemo straight away and I strongly advised him to let me make my own decisions.
He asked me to explain why in the world I would refuse to have chemo when at this point I at least still had a chance to live for years and I gave him a detailed explanation of my view on the situation, dying of leukemia would probably be uncomfortable but dying of leukemia after having had loads of chemo flooding through my veins would be worse. I had seen loads of cancer movies, read dozens of cancer books and had lost three of my grandparents to cancer, which hadn’t been a pretty sight. Of course there would be the puking, the baldness (I wasn’t convinced I’d rock that look), the loss of taste, the soars in my mouth that would lead to me not eating which would lead to me losing an extreme amount of weight.
The worst thing was, even with the chemo and everything around it, I had only a small chance of actually surviving the first or second year. The leukemia probably would come back, which would mean I’d have to start the entire cycle over again. The end result would most likely be me dying anyway, without my dignity, a bald, sweaty and puking pile of misery. I wouldn’t even look like myself any longer and that thought made me resent treatment even more. So basically, I’d walked out of doctor B’s office after telling him I wouldn’t start chemo somewhere during the next few days or at any other time. I might be dying of cancer but at least I’d die with my dignity intact.
The next few days passed by in a daze, I spent most of my time at home, behind my desk, working. Even though I hadn’t expected to be inspired, I found I was. During my first day I finished a project I’d been working on for months, the day after I started working on a project I’d received the week before, I had been asked to write four episodes for a series that was about to air somewhere during the next year. Despite the fact that I would never even see those episodes air on TV, I’d found some inspiration somewhere deep inside me and had written the episodes within a couple of days, including a few all-nighters. I even sent all of my work the moment they’d been finished.
The third day was a Saturday and I received an unexpected call from someone I’d worked with a couple of years previous. Scott, a filmmaker for whom I’d written two movies, invited me for the annual open-air movie festival because one of his latest short movies would be shown there. My first instinct was to decline and bury myself deeper into my work since I had so little time left as it was so I told him no. He told me he’d make sure a ticket was waiting for me at the entrance anyway, in case I showed up.
The next day I found my thoughts wandering off to the film festival, it was one of my favorites and I had gone every year ever since I had been old enough to go. So why would I let myself deny the pleasure of going this year, surely not because of some lame-ass cancer. It would be my last for god’s sake. Once I realized that, I decided to go to the festival no matter what was going on with my body. I forced myself into the shower, which I hadn’t seen ever since the appointment with my doctor and cleaned up my very smelly act, put on some clean clothes, actual jeans with an actual-clean t-shirt and went over to the park where the festival was being held.
By the time I arrived, the first movie had already started so I went to go look for Scott whom I found somewhere in the back of the field, impatiently tapping his foot and nervously drumming his thighs with his hands in some kind of unfamiliar rhythm I didn’t recognize. Over the five years I hadn’t seen him he hadn’t changed much. His face had grown only a little more mature but he still looked way younger than he really was. Probably also due to the fact that he could not grow a beard. He was lucky like that I guess, or unlucky, depending how you looked at it. Funny thing though about men with heavy beard growth, they always complain about having to shave so often while simultaneously, men who can’t grow beards whine about not being to do just that. Same thing with women with straight hair versus women with curls I guess. People are rarely ever satisfied these days, or has it always been like that?
“God Cosima, you look like shit, have you been working too hard again,” Scott generously started the conversation with.
Nah got cancer was the first thing that crossed my mind but I replied with a lie that came entirely too easy. “You know me, you know me,” I said while I hugged my friend.
Friend, such a strange way to describe someone with whom I hadn’t spoken in five years. Still, it would be odd to call him an acquaintance, right? I was always confused about these things. Sometimes I wondered whether I had skipped the basic lessons in life that all my other friends knew how to apply without even having to think about it. Not me, I was a dork like that.
We sat down next to each other and Scott offered me a beer, which I declined, and then introduced me to the girl sitting next to him, she was pretty, with long, dark hair and a figure to die for and big blue eyes. She smiled at me as she extended her hand and introduced herself as Megan, his girlfriend. She seemed nice enough, but somehow kept looking at me suspiciously from the corner of her eye while I talked business with Scott.
“So, tell me what is the film about?”
“It’s about a guy who just found out his girl has been cheating on him for years and then he meets someone else because of his ex and they fall in love.”
“So it’s biographical,” I stated, remembering the tale of Scott and Nina, the ex who broke his heart in such a manner that he couldn’t get out of bed for months.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing it, when did you shoot it?”
“About a year back, I’ve been looking for big screens to show it and heard this festival had a competition for filmmakers so I sent in my movie and they liked it so much that I won and I got to show my film.”
“Your film has to be pretty good to be shown here, well done Scott, I’m proud of you.”
Scott smiled and gently squeezed my knee. “Thanks Cosima, that means a lot.”
The girlfriend's eyes turned into slits at seeing his hand on my knee. I decided to ignore the glare.
“I still think Café Noir should have been shown at this festival back then,” I offered.
“Yeah, it should have, our movie was great.”
“Definitely, but it was shown at the Parade, which is also a great accomplishment so we did pretty good.”
Scott grinned and nodded.
“Anything good coming up tonight that you know of? I haven't really looked at the schedule.”
Scott frowned. “That's not like you, you need to get out of that apartment of yours more often, you're starting to become a cavemen.”
That made me laugh and I punched his shoulder. "Shut up asshole, I am anything but a cavemen, now tell me about the movies today.”
He thought about that for a moment while Megan kept glancing at me from the corner of her eye. It made me feel kind of uncomfortable to be honest. I didn’t like it when people stared at me. She probably thought I was flirting with him, wasn't there some sort of saying that when girls liked boys they hit them often? Again the lack of having social knowledge screwing with me.
“Well, there’s this one filmmaker that is supposed to be amazing.”
“Who is it? Maybe I know him.”
“Well, I don’t think you do. She hasn’t done anything before this I think, I’m not sure though but the people I’ve spoken to talk very highly of her.”
“All right, so what’s her name?”
“No clue, no one seems to know. All I know is that she’s European and new in town so I’ve never seen anything that’s hers, she did some work back there, won some kind of prize at a film festival in Paris, have you heard of her?”
I frowned a little, trying to recall whether I had ever heard anything about people winning prizes at film festivals in Paris but it didn’t ring a bell. I shrugged and shook my head. “Doesn’t sound familiar at all.”
“Well, if you don’t know her,” he grinned.
“If she even is European, it all seems like gossip to me but I’m not very familiar with European filmmakers to be honest, just American, Canadian and British ones.”
“Yeah, I don’t know much more than what I’ve told you but I hear this movie is definitely going to be worth your while so I’d stick around for it if I were you.”
“When is it playing?”
“Couple after mine.”
I nodded and stared at the schedule in my hand that I’d been given. “You are next right?”
“Yeah.”
My head automatically moved toward the large screen and gestured at it by curtly nodding toward it. “This one any good?”
“It’s a Blake movie, he wrote and directed it so you know what to expect.”
That made me laugh. “They let him show his movie, seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“He made one good movie ten fucking years ago, this is so lame. His movies suck.”
For a long moment we watched the screen and the movie resembled his only successful movie from ten years ago, he had used the same kinds of filming techniques, the same way of transitions between scenes, he had even used the same actress, who had aged ten years according to time since the movie had been shot but looked like she had aged twenty. The only things that had changed were the location, most of the storyline and the fact that now every character in the background of the movie held a smartphone or tablet in front of them instead of a newspaper.
I really hated it when people tried to recreate their success by almost copying their most successful project. In a way it was good though, it meant his movies probably wouldn’t be played here anymore or anywhere else and that his name would soon be forgotten. It was time for new names, new blood, new ideas and new great movies. The thing with filmmakers was that once they had made a truly good movie, they usually got into any kind of movie festival just because of that success, which often meant the festival makers wouldn’t ask to see the movie beforehand because it might offend the filmmaker. Then things like this happened, disappointed audiences, offended other filmmakers, annoyed film festival organizers and for good reason. This was truly misusing the trust of people who worked their assess off to create the best possible festival.
After the movie ended a significant silence followed and several people got up and went over to one of many the bars and food stands to get something to eat. It was normal for filmmakers to denounce their movies and receive applause after the movie had ended but Blake hadn’t shown his face afterwards, probably because no one had applauded. These people were the real deal, film lovers to the bone and my guess was that ninety percent of the audience had seen his previous movie. The other ten percent would know by now that his latest movie was nothing but a lame remake of his only success.
During festivals like this there were fifteen to twenty minute breaks between the movies and usually ten movies or so were played on the big screen in front of us. I liked that, I liked that there was only one screen and that there weren’t several, like during other festivals, I enjoyed the fact of staying seated in the camping chair I had brought to most movie festivals I had attended. Getting up and moving all of your stuff when you were with a group of ten or more was just annoying so most people remained in one place, even if that meant they would miss a good movie shown at another screen.
A little while after Blake’s film had ended, someone came up to Scott and lead him away to the stage in front of the screen where he got to announce his film. I had never seen him more proud and excited. I looked over to Megan who smiled broadly, totally having forgotten about me it seemed. She looked so proud as well and I felt a pang deep inside my chest. I would never get that, I would never know what it feels like to be in love.
Scott’s movie was exactly what I had expected, great, short and powerful. The actors were amazing and very good with expressing emotions, I had never seen them before and was quite surprised about that, usually I knew most actors who played in short movies but the two main characters were about as unfamiliar to me as the French cuisine was to a MacDonalds chef. After Scott’s movie another three were shown and just when I was about to get up to get going home because I was getting tired Scott told me to stay because the next movie was going to be the best of the evening. It was the one of the French girl slash woman or whoever she was. Though Scott joked about his film obviously being the best of the evening and if it actually turned out to be I wouldn’t be surprised, it had been really good. The music still haunted me and that was definitely rare.
The next movie started out of the blue without being introduced, which was unusual to say the least, most film makers were proud enough to introduce their movies, not introducing your movie was considered either arrogant or rather the opposite, modest as fuck, and then there was the occasional filmmaker who wanted to remain anonymous but that happened so rarely it was easier to presume the film maker was arrogant, most were.
The crowd quieted down and I looked around, somehow hoping to find the arrogant filmmaker smiling like a Cheshire cat, which would totally reveal the so far anonymous creator of this supposedly great film. I found no super smiles anywhere around me and figured the filmmaker was probably not anywhere around me. During the day I had heard more whispers about the name of the film ‘the untitled work of anonymous’ than expected. Which was a great title as well and it had created a lot of rumors and gossip, which was always good for your film, as long as people talked about it.
The movie screen started off black and silent until the sound of wind started making its way over the terrain, first soft, then louder and louder, it sounded like the kind of wind that you heard on a windy day at the beach, wild and frenzied. Then the screen became lighter and turned from black to a dark blue to a lighter blue, there were a few clouds and the sky looked summery and perfect. The camera moved back a bit and two women came into view, they stood on a cliff, wearing nothing but shorts and a summery top. Both women were attractive but not in the obvious kind of way, it was a little more layered somehow. The woman to the left had long dark hair, piercing dark eyes that showed the kind of excitement when about to do something stupid but fun. The second woman, who had red hair and freckles shared the same kind of look and it was so powerful and real that I felt an unfamiliar sensation jolt through me, some kind of longing to stand there on that same cliff with them and do whatever it was they were about to do. Probably jump off.
They were holding each other’s hands, which told me they were either lovers or good friends. The thing that made this shot so powerful was the fact that they didn’t speak, there was only the deafening sound of the wind, mixed with the sound of seawater beating violently against the rocks far below. There is another moment of suspension before the pair jumps into the ocean.
The moment they hit the water the shot changed to a different kind of setting, instead of the sea there was now a river flowing wildly between two steep mountain walls. The women were inside a large raft with another couple of adventurers, they were laughing and screaming and though the sound of rushing water once again boomed and nearly overwhelmed my ears it was obvious they were having fun.
The shot changed again and we saw the girls inside a house where it was deadly quiet. Someone coughed somewhere near the front of the field and it sounded loud and intrusive, alien somehow, out of place in the sudden silence of the living room. The dark-haired woman sat on the couch, she stared into the distance while the other women sat next to her, a book in her lap but she obviously wasn’t reading a single word. There was nothing left of the excited looks on their faces and I felt like an intruder for sitting there on that enormous field, watching them be unhappy together because that is exactly what they appeared to be. There was no talking, no laughter, they didn’t even look at each other and seemed completely out of place next to each other. Where before they had looked like they belonged together, in that living room they looked like they matched as well as an orange sweater on purple slacks.
Sound started building again and now there was the sound of screaming as both girls held hands and jumped off an enormously tall bridge, the only thing connecting them to the actual bride a thick elastic cord. There was the sound of rushing wind again and another change of scenery before they were being hauled back up again toward the platform from which they had jumped.
Another home shot and now they were having dinner, take-out, both were quiet and the silence was once again deafening compared to the deafening sounds of the shot before. The unhappy looks on their faces were back. The dark haired girl poked at something that looked like chicken but didn’t take a bite, the red haired girl seemed to sort her food, vegetables with other vegetables, meat with meat. I felt a pang deep inside my stomach and noticed I actually felt for them. They were just sitting there, unable to even look at each other, let alone talk to each other. The exciting things had taken over their lives it seemed and I wondered how in the world they would ever enjoy the little things again. I wondered if they ever had enjoyed the little things in life.
My hands curled up into fists in anger as a thought occurred to me, I would not be able to enjoy the grand things in life, I would not even be able to enjoy the little things in life. Everything I had ever worked wouldn’t matter anymore in just a couple of short months. It all seemed so hopeless to sit here and watch this movie while knowing I would not truly be able to enjoy anything anymore. To me the movie was a reflection on the way life could be if you only appreciated the grand things in life and what happened if you forgot to enjoy the little things as well. The movie was like a personal slap in the face and it kind of made me feel ashamed of myself. In a year there would be nothing left of me but ashes and the faint memory of who I had once been. People probably would have forgotten what I looked like, what I smelled like. Twenty-six years on this planet and the only thing I had to show for it was my work.
I wondered whether other people felt like that as well while watching this. As I looked about I saw that people were staring at the screen hard, sucked into the movie the same way I was, whenever there was an 'at home' scene, everyone looked uncomfortable, like they were intruding someone's privacy, whenever there were 'extreme-adrenaline-activities' scenes, everyone looked excited, like they were sucked into the situation along with the girls on the screen. It was amazing the way this movie pulled everyone in.
Another home scene appeared, both girls were in bed, their backs toward each other, they were awake, staring at the walls of their room, walls that were covered with pictures of them doing the most amazing things, rock climbing, rafting, bungee jumping, jumping out of a plane. All great adventures, there wasn't one picture of them just being together, sitting in a field of grass, or under a tree or relaxing at the beach. They seemed so lost into their world of adrenaline that they were unable to communicate with each other, both verbally and physically in the real world. The redhead is crying silently in the quiet of the night and the other woman does nothing to comfort her.
Another shot of them, fighting now, arms were flailing, angry looks were shot at each other, the scene was quiet but it was obvious this is a break-up fight. There was shouting, there were tears and everything that probably belonged to fights like this. I'd never had a fight like this so all I figured was supposed to be in there, I had learned from the movies. It looked real though, hell, it felt real and I wasn't even a participant. Anger coursed through my veins like I was the one fighting with the woman I loved, despite the fact that I didn't know what it felt like to love another person like that. I had always wondered whether I was even capable of loving another person the way my parents loved each other. So far, I wasn't convinced.
Another scene, the dark-haired woman walked outside, it was still light outside and all around her people rushed by, all seemed into their own world, some seemed troubled, some seemed cheered but most showed little emotion. Every now and then someone checked their watch but most stared down at the screens of their smartphones.
The woman walked into a subway station and when the subway arrived she got in and sat down at one of the few available seats. There was no buzzing sound of conversation, there was the familiar screeching of a subway making its way through the city and there was an occasional female voice in the background announcing the next station. The woman just sat and stared into oblivion, lost in her own thoughts. Fellow passengers were too, most held a smartphone or tablet in their hand, staring blindly at it, several were typing. No matter what your troubles were, whether you were in a fight with a loved one, whether you had just lost your job or even if you were grieving over someone you had recently lost, all around you people would be busy with themselves, they all had their own troubles and that was something that would never change. It was an unsettling thing to see.
Eventually the shot changed again and the woman was walking through a park and she truly seemed to look around her, there were children playing, families having a picnic, groups of people throwing footballs at each other. Daylight was fading and there were sounds of laughter, buzzing insects, chirping of birds, the sound of a fountain in the background. The woman actually smiled, she seemed at peace with herself for the first time during the entire movie. She was not unhappy or high on an adrenaline rush.
The redheaded woman sat at home, on the couch, watching the clock every few seconds, it was eight-fifteen in the morning. The front door opened and the other woman came in. Both looked like shit and obviously hadn't slept all night. They rushed toward each other and hugged, kissed and stared at each other, regret clear in their gazes. The dark-haired woman held something behind her back and gently offered it to the woman in front of her, it was a single red rose. Something small compared to the grand things they'd done together. Still the girlfriend broke into tears and gently took it, as if she were given her girlfriend’s heart as a present to keep for eternity.
They looked refreshed as they made their way into the same park the brunette had been at the day before. They were holding hands and looked genuinely at ease walking there through the fields of green all around them. Eventually they ended up at a fountain and both threw in a coin and closed their eyes as they appeared to make a wish.
The peaceful sounds of nature turned more violently, wind whipping again like at the start of the movie, seawater angrily beating against rock. There was the perfect blue sky again, cloudless this time. They stood together, hand in hand, facing the seemingly infinite sea in front of them. There were excited looks on their faces and it looked like they were about to jump again but then the dark-haired woman let go of the other woman's hand, faced her and sunk down onto a knee, pulling out a box and opening it.
The redhead's eyes grew big and she started crying and she seemed to yell YES at least thrice. The couple hugged and kissed and hugged again before again facing the ocean, holding hands once more. Then they turned and the camera shifted toward a blanket that was lying a couple of feet away from where they had stood. The sound quieted somewhat as they sat down on the blanket where several kinds of food were stalled out, a six-pack of beer. The redhead laid her head down onto the lap of the dark-haired woman and they automatically searched for each other's hands. The brunette kissed the hand lightly before reaching down to kiss her fiancée's lips.
The scene faded and turned black after which the words –THE END- appeared. There was a long silence during which no one made a sound. To my surprise I found my cheeks were damp with tears, without realizing it, tears had started streaming down my face somewhere during the movie. The entire situation had me rattled, the movie had shaken me to the core. Never in my entire life had a movie made me cry. I had always been called heartless because I never cried a tear during any single movie I had ever seen in my life. Nor had I ever cried in the presence of my friends. Honestly, I wasn't a big crier in general, if I had to count the times I had cried in my entire life I would probably only need about two hands and most of those times were during my childhood. It was impossible to remember the last time a tear had made its way out of my eyes. Yet here I sat, at this stupid festival, with only a couple of months to live and I was actually crying my eyes out like a baby.
All round me people appeared to be in a stupor like me, several people around me cried. Scott sat hand in hand with Megan, staring at the screen that showed nothing but blackness. No one got up for a drink, no one spoke or clapped, everyone just remained seated as they stared up at that empty screen, sunken into their own thoughts. This was truly a movie that would get people to think. Then the first person started to applaud. Several followed but definitely not everyone. Some people got up and joined the clapping and soon everyone was standing, as if they'd all just gotten out of a trance.
I took that moment to get the hell out of there. There was only one that inside my head and there was something I needed to do and I needed to do it now before I changed my mind. As I made my way through the crowd, pushing people aside here and there, my heart raced, my cancerous blood seemed to rush through my body twice as fast as usual, making me feel overheated like I had a fever. As I left the film festival terrain applause haunted me. It had turned dark somewhere during the movie and I needed three things, two of which I had on me, the third I had to look for. I found it nearby the exit, a lantern. Then I got the two other things from my pocket, my phone and the card my doctor had given me, the card with his phone number on it and a hand-written text call me when you change your mind.