Excerpt from Issue 303 (Spring 2025)
"A Life in Moving Pictures" by Kirsti Mikoda
On boreal nights of only semi-darkness, Elaine Shadbolt liked to sit at the kitchen table and entertain grave images of her impending widowhood. Even though her husband’s body had not yet begun to reject his dialysis, his health was visibly deteriorating. Representatives of the Norwegian Film Commission were starting to enquire with a growing sense of urgency. They wanted more updates, more meetings, more on-set visits with Morris. They wanted to know, without actually conjuring the alternative possibility into words, if Morris would be able to finish the film. He was beginning to give off an irksome impression of human frailty.
Elaine knew how her husband dealt with anyone’s interest in his condition. He used it as a reason to drive himself harder, shut her out more completely, and he, of course, did both.
*
By unspoken agreement, the couple banished the subject of Morris’s death from their discourse altogether, unless the situation absolutely called for it. Outside of doctors’ appointments, legal paperwork, and the occasional update to relatives, silence took on a tangible force in their marriage. A force they both tacitly shut their eyes to, like the knowledge of a crime, jointly ignored.
The company, however, was not willing to ignore Morris. Phone calls bombarded the couple in their temporary home in the suburbs of Oslo. Check-ins, well-wishes, invitations to revitalizing retreats, all rained down on Elaine, whom Morris had put in the position of screening his calls. Elaine handled it all, while Morris travelled with the main film unit around the countryside, rushing through wet days and cold twilights of filming. Until, finally, came one summons they could simply not ignore.
It arrived on a Saturday in a crisp beige envelope, the return address handstamped in the corner. Elaine sat with it at the kitchen table and stared in horror, pressing the sharp corners almost painfully into the pads of her index fingers and thumbs. When she did finally tear into it, she did it with the foreboding one might have at the summons to an execution. The Executive Producer, Baldur Mikkelsen, and his wife, Astrid, requested the honour of their company at a celebration of Mr. Mikkelsen’s life, to be held the next weekend, at their home in Livslang. Both Mikkelsens would be in attendance.
*
“You must be joking,” Morris said.
“I’m afraid not,” Elaine answered.
“If he’s not dead, then why the hell is he having a funeral?!” Morris thundered two days later, when Elaine got around to telling him about the invitation.
“Perhaps he’s ill,” Elaine said hopefully, as she watched Morris crumple the stiff card into a loose ball and drop it to the table.
“Well, why can’t he just get on with it like the rest of us, and not burden everyone with it?” Morris continued to boom gruffly.
“It does seem a little last minute.” Elaine made it sound like an agreement.
“His wife has added a post-script,” she continued, trying to ignore the fact that she was purposely laying the groundwork for another fruitless argument. At least this way, Morris was talking to her. “She thinks it would be an empowering experience for us.”
Morris looked ready to choke. “She means it’ll give them a chance to spy on me without looking like the bloody vultures they are,” he spat.
“But think of it. He’s inviting you to his funeral. We can’t decline. If nothing else, it would be a chance for you to show them you are able to keep working.”
“Nobody ever said I wasn’t,” he snapped.
Elaine reclaimed the crumpled card, unfolded it, and began to iron it out with the heel of her hand. “But they’re thinking it, Morris. This is a perfect opportunity to buy yourself a little peace and quiet. In a few more weeks, the film will be done, and we can both get back home for a proper rest.”
“They were the ones who came to me about the project,” he said, not for the first time.
“I know,” Elaine said, as she retrieved her computer from her knitting basket and began to compose their acceptance email. “You’re really the only one who could do the story justice.”
He watched her type for a moment, the screen of her computer mirrored in her glasses, and then stood up from the table.
“Fine,” he said. “I suppose it will be good practice.” He shuffled to the bedroom and loudly closed the door.
— Kirsti Mikoda is from Vancouver, BC. Her story “Pam Sunday” was a winner in the Senior Short Fiction Section of the 2024 NL Arts and Letters Awards. She has another upcoming publication in Bewildering Stories, and two screenplays that finaled at the Austin Film Festival and Final Draft Screenplay Competition.
You can read the rest of "A Life in Moving Pictures" in Issue 303 (Spring 2025). Order the issue now:
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