As Time Goes By

Monochrome scenes blanch but color is there as an underlay of my own viewing history. Black and white movies, old even when I watched them flicker still on an inner retina. A hero turns conspiratorially, staring into my future. What he said into the camera then, is meaningless now, but I see his lips move as if he were predicting this moment. A heroine hikes her skirt over her thighs; blood fills the flesh of memory, a dialogue recalled by younger nerve endings. I remember I love her, but it is too late, she is dead and she did not die young, her ancient hand seems to grasp my fingers now, seeking closure. The original King Kong lives a broken life in my hall closet. At night I hear him weeping still for Fay Wray. He is no longer tortured, angry and confused, but I still must explain to him that the sound of buzzing biplanes is only the air-conditioner kicking in. Eventually we both sleep. Sometimes I think that all that was and ever will be is an on-going fiction, a fantasy for a spliced life left on cutting room floors. Perhaps the real Casablanca has yet to be scripted? One day, maybe we all may get to say: ‘play it again Sam’.