The Prism of Perception

The camera rises up over a rise behind the man and boy walking down the road.  The shot shows a landscape of gray and brown spotted with blackened misshapen lumps.  The two figures seem insignifcantly small set against the desolated vista.

Camera snaps to a side shot of the boy standing next to his father as they take in the scene, the song playing is “Dead Reckoning” from Smokin’ Aces, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa33P9A5iHs:

Father: (tragic/beaten) Take my hand.  I don’t think you should see this.

Son: (questioning/curious) What you put in your head is there forever?

Father: (resigned) Yes.

Son: (comforting) It’s okay Papa, they’re already there.

Father: (features gray and sunken, exhausted) I don’t want you to look.

Son: (shrugging) They’ll still be there.

Camera stays steady, showing the bow from the side and his father rising above him, both looking off screen.  Now the camera slews around to show over the boy’s shoulder.  The landscape is barren and charred, boxes, bags, old plastic suitcases, all turned to black tar and ash.  There a gnarled, blackened hand reaches up from the offal as if beseeching heaven for aid.  Then the boy blinks and the screen turns black as if the camera were his eyes, and when they open again he is looking at his father.

Son: (questioning/perplexed) Why don’t we just go on Papa?

Father: (relieved) Yes, okay.

Son: They were trying to get away, weren’t they Papa?

Father: (crushed) Yes, they were.

Camera snaps to black as the boy blinks in indifference again.  When the image returns the camera is viewing through the eyes of the father.  His eyes rise from the upturned face of the boy and turn to the scene of devastation as the music crescendos.  The world is no longer black and empty, it is full of writhing, running and screaming people, all on fire, all dying.  The world is all fire and pain, with no hope of escape.

The eyes blink once more, the music fades and the camera snaps to black.  End scene.

This is from a section on p.190-191 in my edition.