A Life, Reduced

I sometimes spend an hour on YouTube watching movie trailers before bed. They are fast, energetic, dramatic, exciting, tense. They are remarkable works of compelling triviality. They make anything look good - any melodramatic treacle, any frenetic thriller, any self-important art house sermon. Movie trailers are what directors wish their movies could be. Just the best bits, set to music, with obscure critics promising you a “dazzling,” “electrifyingly brilliant,” “heart-rending” experience. Watch a trailer, and the cares of the world melt away.

Timing is everything in a trailer. The visuals come in short staccato bursts that demand attention and drive your emotions forward. No still shot lasts more than 1 second. No meaningful look lingers for more than 1.5 seconds. No explosion lights up the screen for more than 2 seconds, and any chase scene through exotic urban streets lasts 3 seconds or less. Flash a sex scene for a microsecond, no more. We’re making art, not pornography, but a little titillation is alright.

Linger too long on one shot and it becomes the only thing that people remember. That’s not what the directors want. They don’t want you to rest or reflect. They want a nail-biting PowerPoint that propels you forward with feelings of adrenaline, sadness, warmth, well-being, fear, or lightness. Even at the end, there can be no real pause. The PowerPoint must leave off the concluding slide. Unfinished suspense, that’s what they want. Give away the ending and you give away the movie. More importantly, you give away the desire to see the movie. Rush through the visuals then come to a screeching stop, that’s the trick. “What’s next?” the viewer asks. If the last scene is too drawn out, then they’ll think that’s the end, and they’ll keep their $16 in their pocket rather than buying a ticket.

I’ve sometimes wondered what the movie trailer of my life would be. What would some brilliant director do with the mundane routine of my last 43 years? The beginning would be happy enough. Start with a smiling child hugging a parent during the holidays (2 seconds) or running the bases after a lucky home run (1.7 seconds). Brief shot of me sitting at a microscope (make it meaningful, maybe 3 seconds, with narration about my dreams of becoming a doctor) and using a toy stethoscope on my sister for some cute, comic relief (another 2 seconds). Fast forward to my graduation from medical school (15 seconds for the coming-of-age montage, including 0.7 seconds for the shot of me in a graduation gown). Now, keep the visuals coming but focus them on a smaller slice of time. Build the tension as I meet and win over my soon-to-be wife, Jenny, with my accompanying narration, “then I met her” (40 seconds in total, including our first encounter in the hospital, drawn together by the intense daily drama of saving lives, flirtatious smiles, an argument, reconciliation, and wedding). Then, the arrival of our child, Thomas (2 seconds). Thomas - undeniably adorable, playful, daring, happy - grows to age six (with plenty of heartwarming visuals of parental love, a montage of 15 seconds to drive the point home). Then, the screen fades to black and the sound of a gunshot that echoes for 1.5 seconds. A single flat, plaintive note from a piano, with an intense visual of Jenny and me sitting alone in the park, not speaking (2.5 seconds). A flashing series of visuals of Jenny staring off into space (5 seconds) with my voice-over saying something absurdly trite. Something like, “we will find a way, we must find a way” (1.5 seconds). Finally, floating captions on the screen. “Hope.” “Redemption.” “Love.” End of trailer, with spiritually uplifting violin music. Unfinished suspense. What's next? How can the grieving couple overcome this senseless tragedy?

That’s mine. My wife’s trailer is different.

The tone of the beginning is similar to mine. Divorced parents but an otherwise happy childhood, a different medical school than mine, early boyfriends that can’t compare with what’s to come, then the stories converge. Flirting, marriage, Thomas’s birth. All told until this point in the story, maybe 2.5 minutes.

Then the echo of the gunshot and the fade to black. But, in my wife’s trailer, the darkness and the sound don’t stop after 1.5 seconds. They linger. 2 seconds. 3 seconds. 7 seconds. 9 seconds. 10.

Count off 10 seconds. It's a long time. It's forever.

It’s as if Jenny has stepped into a cave. Her legs won’t move. She stands in the dark in a pool of gritty, cold water, felt but not seen, listening to the undiminishing reverberations. She has been there too long. Her eyes will never see the light again. Her ears will never hear laughter. This is all she knows and all she expects.

10 seconds.

The gunshot (1 second), the fade to black (0.5 seconds) and the echo and lingering darkness (8.5 seconds). The beginning, the middle, and the end of the story. An entire life reduced to 10 seconds. The other 2.5 minutes dissolve to nothing. There is no “what’s next?” No sense of expectation. No hope, no redemption, no love. No stirring strains of violin music.

We can’t take back those ten seconds. But Jenny needs an abrupt halt. She needs to stop. But she can’t.

As for me, I sit and watch movie trailers deep into the night. Comedy, drama, horror. It doesn't matter. I need the adrenaline, the stimulation. I need to be shoved forward. I need the constant reminder of expectation.

Jenny sleeps. She is usually asleep by 8:30 at night and wakes up at 11 in the morning. She does not go to work anymore. She does not go anywhere anymore. She never leaves the house, and I am afraid to leave her alone. I don’t know what she will do.

But tonight, she was not asleep by 8:30. I'm in bed. It's getting late, and she isn’t here. She is downstairs. I feel I should go to her. I'm still afraid to leave her alone, but I don’t know what to say anymore.

At 11:00 pm, she opens the door.

“I will never get past it, you know,” she says. "I can't move on. Never."

“Yes,” I say, “I know.”

“But, tomorrow, I think I will go to the store.”

It takes her 1 second to say.

And so we start again.