Moving Pictures

Flames poured into the sky. Because this was Holy Wood, everything burned, because the only difference between the stone buildings and the wooden buildings was what was painted on the canvas. The two-dimensional Unseen University burned. The Patrician’s backless palace burned. Even the scale-model Tower of Art gushed flames like a roman candle.

Dibbler watched it with concern.

After a while Soll, behind him, said, ‘Waiting for something, Uncle?’

‘Hmm? Oh, no. I hope Gaffer’s concentrating on the tower, that’s all,’ said Dibbler. ‘Very important symbolic landmark.’

‘It certainly is,’ said Soll. ‘Very important. So important, in fact, that I sent some lads up it at lunchtime just to make sure it was all OK.’

‘You did?’ said Dibbler, guiltily.

‘Yes. And do you know what they found? They found someone had nailed some fireworks to the outside. Lots and lots of fireworks, on fuses. It’s a good thing they found them because if the things had gone off it would have ruined the shot and we’d never be able to do it again. And, do you know, they said it looked as though the fireworks would spell out words?’ Soll added.

‘What words?’

‘Never crossed my mind to ask them,’ said Soll. ‘Never crossed my mind.’

He stuck his hands in his pockets and began to whistle under his breath. After a while he glanced sidelong at his uncle.

‘“Hottest ribs in town”,’ he muttered. ‘Really!’

Dibbler looked sulky. ‘It would have got a laugh, anyway,’ he said.

‘Look, Uncle, this can’t go on,’ said Soll. ‘No more of this commercial messing about, right?’

‘Oh, all right.’

‘Sure?’

Dibbler nodded. ‘I’ve said all right, haven’t I?’

‘I want a bit more than that, Uncle.’

‘I solemnly promise not to do any more meddling in the click,’ said Dibbler gravely. ‘I’m your uncle. I’m family. Is that good enough for you?’

‘Well. All right.’

When the fire had died down they raked some of the ashes together for a barbecue at the end-of-shooting party, under the stars.

The velvet sheet of the night drapes itself over the parrot cage that is Holy Wood, and on warm nights like this there are many people with private business to pursue.

A young couple, strolling hand in hand across the dunes, were frightened to near insensibility when an enormous troll jumped out at them from behind a rock waving its arms and shouting ‘Aaaargh!’

‘Scared you, did I?’ said Detritus, hopefully.

They nodded, white-faced.

‘Well, that’s a relief,’ said the troll. He patted them on the heads, forcing their feet a little way into the sand. ‘Thanks very much. Much obliged. Have a nice night,’ he added mournfully.

He watched them walk off hand in hand, and then burst into tears.

In the handlemen’s shed, C.M.O.T. Dibbler stood watching thoughtfully as Gaffer pasted together the day’s footage. The handleman was feeling very gratified; Mr Dibbler had never shown the slightest interest in the actual techniques of film handling before now. This may have explained why he was a little freer than usual with Guild secrets that had been handed down sideways from one generation to the same generation.

‘Why are all the little pictures alike?’ said Dibbler, as the handleman wound the film on to its spool. ‘Seems to me that’s wasting money.’

‘They’re not really alike,’ said Gaffer. ‘Each one’s a bit different, see? And so people’s eyes see a lot of little slightly different pictures very fast and their eyes think they’re watching something move.’

Dibbler took his cigar out of his mouth. ‘You mean it’s all a trick?’ he said, astonished.

‘Yeah, that’s right.’ The handleman chuckled and reached for the paste pot.

Dibbler watched in fascination.

‘I thought it was all a special kind of magic,’ he said, a shade disappointed. ‘Now you tell me it’s just a big Find-the-Lady game?’

‘Sort of. You see, people don’t actually see any one picture. They see a lot of them at once, see what I mean?’

‘Hey, I got lost at see there.’

‘Every picture adds to the general effect. People don’t see, sorry, any one picture, they just see the effect caused by a lot of them moving past very quickly.’

‘Do they? That’s very interesting,’ said Dibbler. ‘Very interesting indeed.’ He flicked the ash from his cigar towards the demons. One of them caught it and ate it.

‘So what would happen,’ he said slowly, ‘if, say, just one picture in the whole click was different.’

‘Funny you should ask,’ said Gaffer. ‘It happened the other day when we were patching up Beyond the Valley of the Trolls. One of the apprentices had stuck in just one picture from The Golde Rush and we all went around all morning thinking about gold and not knowing why. It was as if it’d gone straight into our heads without our eyes seeing it. Of course, I took my belt to the lad when we spotted it, but we’d never have found out if I hadn’t happened to look at the click slowly.’

He picked up the paste brush again, squared up a couple of strips of film, and fixed them together. After a while he became aware that it had gone very quiet behind him.