Thursday, December 29, 2016

Vans of Film-makers

The front of the house was mostly glass, a long window that stretched completely across the front. It was obscured by fragments of cling-film in sections, in multiple layers in some places. At intervals, pieces of torn paper hung in the cling-film, parts of shopping lists or notes from phone conversations hung in the air over the view outside.

Outside the door, a van pulled up so close it almost touched the door frame. It blocked the pavement outside. An old, blue van. The driver vanished before I could tell them to move.

There was a series of knocks on the windows, and I answered the door to find a group of film makers complaining that the van was in the way of walking along the pavement. I said it was nothing to do with me, not my van, and they'd have to wait for the owner to return. They tried to engage me in conversation, but I got frustrated, and my cat tried to get out of the door, so I shut it and ignored them.

I remember the driver returning to the van, holding an old cine-camera. The van darted off, over a crossroads and was followed by the film makers in an old ford escort, filming it and giving chase.