Pontypool Changes Everything

Its fingers are as blue as a baby sparrow’s head, and its entire body is locked in scream. Les looks out the window to make sure nobody else is nearby. The man repairing his car has gone. Repaired. The screams have caused the forest to close itself off and tuck its edges into a finer line under the sky. The painful tone sustains a frequency of such duration that it becomes soundless, and Les feels the blood leave his face. The silence packs his ears. He is afraid because he knows that the soundless car, leaning like a spike among the tick of gas pumps, is prompting him to know something — to know exactly, now, why his son is in such pain.

Withdrawal.

An opiate withdrawals crack jones intolerance of time.

I may have to kill my son.

Les hovers his hands over the baby, now little more than a knot of his own agony, and drops three fingers lightly on its face. Such a small commitment to infanticide. He curls the fingers up into his palm and withdraws the fist. Loving his son has suddenly become impossible. Les steps out of the car, and when he slams the door he again hears the little creature’s pain. He feels a terrible flood of guilt and grief. These feelings are kept from spilling by a tiny mopping sponge of self-pity.

His encroaching insanity has already converted this shadowy experience, which sits near his centre, into a delicate model. A mobile of silver half moons and flat gold slippers redistributes Les around the car. He feels the threads of suspension and the little wind that means so much now. Something is still here. Something can be done. If I Jail, I will destroy that baby and kill myself. Strong alternatives are needed. My son and I are crossing the line from sound to unsound body.

Across the highway is a mall. A drugstore. Les feels a strange smirk twist his face, and for the first time he loves his son, the little drug addict son of a bitch. He was born knowing what I know. When he reenters the car he opens the surface of his body onto the searing noise, feeling it drill deeply, and he smiles at his son through this atmosphere of pain.

19 Sound

Having never robbed a store before, Les has a nagging feeling, as he fingers the antihistamines, that the handgun tucked against his back just isn’t enough. He looks up at a camera swaying like a metal remora in the corner, and he brings his hand up to his face. Mask. He goes down the school-supplies aisle and, sure enough, finds a plastic mask tucked behind stack of lab books. It’s a cheap one. A thin elastic is hastily attached to the sides with staples. Small. He turns it over. A smiling blonde witch. A good witch. Les puts it on and reaches behind for the gun as he makes his way to the pharmacist. He waves the gun at a shape he can little more than locate through the slit windows of the dark interior of the mask. He sees a young man, a sideburn. Hand comes up. Stops. Goes down again.

“OK. Don’t shoot. Anything you want.”

Suddenly the elastic snaps and Les feels a wasp sting his ear. The mask jumps from his face directly into the open, pleading hands of the pharmacist. Les pulls the trigger of the gun and it clicks. It just clicks. No bullets. Les instinctively coughs to cover up the tiny noise, to camouflage it quickly. The pharmacist is looking down with horror at the mask in his hands. He feels the sheer panic of torn impulses and misses the click. He drops the mask on the counter.

“I won’t look. I didn’t see you. Please don’t shoot.”

Realizing he’s still in the game, Les sweeps the mask up, inadvertently dragging its code across a smudged window, setting off the piercing beep. A fuckin’ alarm. Les levels the gun at the pharmacist and fires. Click. This second click is covered up by the louder clang of the cash register opening as the pharmacist tries to illustrate the source of the beep. Les thinks, I’m doing a lot of killing. He waves the gun and instructs the pharmacist: “Dilaudid. All of your Dilaudid.”

The pharmacist races down an aisle and returns with a large plastic jar and drops it in front of Les. As he turns to leave, an elderly couple who have been watching everything take a step backward. He raises the gun and clicks it three times. Kill everybody. The couple don’t even flinch. Les barks at them and they run. Kill everybody.

20 How Many Times Have I Told You?