What a great movie. The main characters are very likable, and the transition that Jim, the main character, goes through is both scary and beautiful. The lovely orchestral building of Godspeed You Bad Emperor opens this film up, which gives it another 3,435 points, roughly, in my book.

I'm also listening to the soundtrack, which is also quite poingant after seeing the movie. The scares in it are sometimes the "boo!" variety but also takes its time to transform a feeling of curiosity and dread to one of desperation and genuine fright, at times. Also, lovely cinematography in some portions. Do yourself a service and go see it.

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I could have held my breath.

I culd have held it for minutes on end; I can swim laps underwater, I know this.

I could have just put my lips together and felt the tendons along where my shoulders meet my torso and chest just stretch slightly as I took in some air and refused to let it go. Stood, stoic, standoff waiting.

I could have just closed my eyes like most people do when they first go underwater, and the bubbles that cling to your skin race in tiny, tickling steps up your body as you go further. Hair waving like coral, skin dyed a blue hue and sunlight lashing out over the top of the water and scattering reflections over your skin, in sharp, quick flares.

I could have curled my hands into fists, felt hot pressure of aggression clench the skin around my knuckles, and held them up.

Instead:

sinking, the water could move like a deep, secret plaything shifting slowly around me, feeling oxygen try to pool at the top of my body, feeling my toes stretched and still not touching the sandpaper texture of the bottom of the pool. Opening my eyes, the blue is even moreso and people are hazy collections of bright reds, oranges, and the dark hue of skin, all of this like leaves in autumn through a stained-glass window.

Finally touching the base of the pool, there is no one down here but me. I look up at the sun through feet of water, and it still radiates, but in wild, whiplash sprites of gold, shimmering with the ripples as the wind skims over the top of it all.

Everything has stopped here: this is the space between paused films. Of old home movies that flicker on the edges and the colors are saturated with the niave technology of the 70's or 80's, and perhaps you are a child looking back into your current eyes. You could know nothing of war, more of summer or the right way to roll a snowman.

This is the space between paused films. This is what an "8" on its' side looks like. This is that second of weight of everything that hovers before the first kiss. All of this means serenity, means timelessness, and as a boy in red swimming trunks rests on the bottom of the pool, watching his air shift in spheres towards the surface with each exhale, I swear for some reason I find your face so easy to see next to mine. Why is that? I may never know. I know that I feel comfort like the warm weight of water around me when around you, when talking to you.

Could I curl into a semicircle and lose myself in the ocean? I could be a collection of atoms at home in the sea. You would collect shells, look for parts of me inside their sequence. I would pool into your footprints left in the sand, me gathering in silent worship while you walk down the shore.

Would I sing you to sleep at night on the crest of every wave that swells along the sand with a sensual slide and a drawn-out "sss"?

And sometimes it feels as though I barely know you and other times it seems that I am looking at myself. I will never find out, but you can always know someone better. And I want to.

I do. I miss you and you and you. They are for different reasons and yet all fit into what I wrote tonight. Here's to the movie starting again, to life moving and gears rolling, to activness and highs and lows, to darkness, darklessness...

and yet there's something to be said for the static of a dream. I'll meet you there.

one blue synapse,

Jared