ken

nork looked up, shifting his attention away from the screen. he saw a spectral beam of projected light pulled taut over his head--the same ghostly line of light he'd seen a thousand times before. it seemed miraculous to him: that a bundle of airy cords like muted rays of sunshine filtered through a primitive black and white camera lens could carry so much information--that this light was responsible for the images he saw moving in rapid succession on the screen. actors mimicking emotions, talking like people, acting like people--the semblance of real-life pieced together frame-by-frame. the process seemed godly to nork, as if god himself had parted the darkness in the small auditorium like parting clouds in cartoons depicting god parting clouds and made all this manifest--divine darts of light updated to moving image projections--a ballet of dust particles and chiaroscuro spaces--light and dark, black and white, twirling in synchronicity--orchestrated to the rhythm of celluloid feeding into a projector.