Chapter 5: Asad
It's Wednesday afternoon, last period of the day, and I'm preparing storyboards in the library for my movie. Tanveer, a.k.a Halloween, is helping me since it seems this is a free period for her, too. Plus, it doesn't hurt that she seems to know the hospital like the back of her spider-tattooed hand.
Normally I take off during the freebies, but I need to get this done, and I've already told my parents that I'm gonna be late for my shift-that I need to stay after school today for extra help with math. My mother could see right through my BS. She even threatened to call my teacher to see if I was telling the truth. But I doubt she will.
"Do you know how many tunnels there are?" I ask, glancing at the Danvers State map.
"Lots," Tanveer says, sketching out a long dark one. "All the building connects underground through tunnels."
I nod, remembering that I read that somewhere-how the workers used the tunnels to transport the patients between building, but sometimes patients snuck into them on their own, looking for a way out, only to get lost underground. I heard about this one whack off who got lost down there for over a week. When they finally found him, the dude was buck naked, huddled on the ground, and rocking back and forth, whispering shit. Something about his dead sister Suzy and how she wanted him to play hide and seek with her.
"What else do you want me to sketch?" Tanveer asks, snapping me back to reality.
I point toward the front of the main building. "I was thinking that one of the interior should could be of all of us sitting in the reception room, just shooting the stuff, getting to know each other, getting to know all of our characters right from the get go."
"But we're not going to be characters, right?" she asks, tugging at her black Halloween hair. "Isn't the whole idea of reality TV that we are supposed to be ourselves?"
"Well, yeah."
"So what's with all the planning? Don't you want your film to look natural?"
"Definitely, but I also wanna go in prepared-do the research, check out maps, make sure I get all the shots I want."
"I guess that makes sense," she admits.
"Planning it out ahead of time can help you think about stuff like mood," I continue. "Like what kind of mood you want a particular scene to have. I mean, if I don't think about this stuff now, it's gonna look like a bunch of kids playing around. Even reality shows plan stuff out. At least we're not going in with scripts."
Tanveer nods, taking it in, making me feel like I actually know what I am talking about. And maybe I do for once. Maybe I have got a good chunk of the movie already planned out in my head. What I want to happen, how I want to cast to look, and how I am banking on everybody's fear. At first I actually considered staging some scary stuff, like pretending to have some of my equipment go shitty on me, or rigging a door to shut when no one's really expecting it. But then I decided that those things would be lame. They might even screw up my chances of winning. Plus, we're talking about Danvers State here. I mean, how can anyone not get scared?
Together, Tanveer and me make up a slew of storyboards-for footage in the basement, the A and J wings, and in the art therapy room. But then she gets all weird on me, scooting back in her chair and shoving the storyboards in my direction.
"What's up with you?" I ask, pushing the storyboards back.
Tanveer shakes her head and looks away, her face all saggy like she's totally freaked.
I try to hide my smile, but I can't help it. I mean if someone like Tanveer's scared, I can imagine how creeped out everybody else is going to get.
"I thought you were into this stuff," I say.
Tanveer continues to avoid eye contact, picking at what's left of her black nail polish.
"You're not backing out on me, are you?" I ask.
She shrugs and continues to pick.
"Come on," I say. "You're all I've got so far. You can't bail on my now."
"I'm not bailing," she says, finally meeting my eyes. "I have to go there. Before they tear it down. I have to see what it's like."
"Are you honestly saying you've never been there before?" I mean, Halloween, of all people?
She shakes her head. "Not yet."
"So how come you know so much about it?"
"What do you care?"
"Just asking," I say, sensing that I've hit a nerve.
"Well, I got to go." She stands from the table and pushes the storyboards even closer to me-like she wants nothing to do with them.
"You're still coming to the meeting tomorrow night, aren't you?" I ask.
"Don't worry," she says. "I'll be there. With gloves on" She grabs a pair of those fingerless mittens from her back and puts them on over her lame-o spider tattoo. Then she takes her stuff and leaves, making me wonder why she is being all weird and mysterious. Making me realize that there's a lot more to Halloween than I thought.
Buddy request me for pm. 😃
Edited by Nandini0910 - 12 years ago
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