The Face You Make: Nathan and The Dying Sun.
CREATIVE
Written by: Yaana Arcot
Photo by: Maria Sarfraz for The Fraser Post
Edited by: Shai Khan
Designed and Formatted by : Maimona
Trigger warnings: implied/abstract depictions of drug, physical, verbal and sexual abuse.
Present
Xiao looking up and into the sun with bruised eye Zach is somewhere nearby.
15 years old:
Now we see things from Nathan's perspective which flickers between a highly colourful and bleak version of the dirty alleyway Zach found him in. Quickly the camera moves to the sky where a cartoon vibrantly yellow orange sun with red eyes speaks
“Hello, hello… Do you read me? I have a message—a message from the stars! (audio from “Messages from the Stars” the rest of the song is highly distorted).
The stars fall down.
Past:
12 years old:
Nathan looks up at Zach looking out of the window of a house with a black eye.
11 to 12 years old:
He calls for his mom, only to find maggots coming out of her eyes and pills beside her arm. He’s at a foster care center. He sits away from his mom who stares blankly forward. He’s in his first placement ,carefully stashing his backpack under the bunk bed. There are three other foster kids living in the house; Another older boy talks to him and Nathan watches him carefully. Late at night, the door creaks open. They go to church and the older boy is still talking to him. The older boy smiles brightly with dimples. There is something wrong in that house: loud noises and mess. They’re both a bit older and have the same sort of relationship. The thought arrives and overwhelms. Who was it? Back to the bedroom viewing form the top bunk can’t fully see a figure crawling across the floor. He’s back at the foster care center and sits next to Zach.
13 years old:
He’s back at his moms house and she is breaking things. He walks slowly out and the floor tilts he claws at the floor trying to get out of the house. He looks frantically in his bag as his mom enters the frame waving around a ripped up book repeatedly saying, “What about me?” He eats the ripped pages and there is blood on them. He’s vomiting into a dirty toilet and staggers out of the stall. He sees library books. He sees Xiao's face smiling (with dimples) at him. Then Xiao's face as he realized what Nathan was doing to him (in the library). There is writing (the writing reads: Is that the face I made?) on the wall that is moving and there is a marker in his hand.
2 years old:
His mom gently drags her fingers through his hair. He is very young and her voice is soft. There is a man's voice, probably his fathers.
15 years old:
Back to the scene where he is looking up at the sun. He closes his eyes and tears fall down his cheek.
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