Radiance

From the Personal Reels of Percival Alfred Unck

[SEVERIN UNCK walks hand in hand with CLOTILDE CHARBONNEAU down Usagi Avenue in Tithonus. Christmas lanterns glitter all around them. The Actaeon Theatre is visible behind them, searchlights swinging wildly over the night sky. CLOTILDE and SEVERIN are bundled in thick coats. Identical furs frame their faces. PERCIVAL UNCK walks backward down the street, filming them as steadily as his camera Clara will allow. SEVERIN sucks the filling from a street vendor’s blin. CLOTILDE’S face is sullen. She scratches at ruby earrings. She will leave them within a month.]

PERCIVAL

How did you like the picture, pumpkin?

SEVERIN

I’m not a pumpkin!

CLOTILDE

Are so. If we put a candle in your head you’d be a jack-o’-lantern.

SEVERIN

Ew! There’s no room in my head for a candle, Mama.

PERCIVAL

All right, you are definitely not a pumpkin, and we will definitely not put any candles in your head or make a tart out of you or turn you into a coach at midnight. Now, did you like your papa’s movie? He made it just for you, his first one for children.

SEVERIN

[long pause] No.

PERCIVAL

But you were so wonderful in it, darling! Didn’t you have fun filming your little bit? Isn’t it nice to see yourself on that big giant screen?

SEVERIN

[bursts into tears] I’m sorry, Papa! But there just aren’t such things as octopuses that talk or wear spectacles and spats in real life. It’s only Uncle Talmadge in a suit with sequins stuck on him. I shall never meet a talking octopus like Mr Bergamot, never, never! [Tears roll down SEVERIN’s cheeks and into her blin. She dries her face on one furry sleeve, sniffing in the cold.] It’s just a lot of silliness.