The Task At Hand

The Task At Hand
ANONYMOUS MOVING IMAGES

a man has always had trouble focusing on the task at hand.

whether it was God or war or most prevalent, women.

his latest obsession, maybe that's too strong a word, is a female singer in a German metal band. Like all others that came before, he will grow tired of her and move on to the next.

until one day...

​FADE IN:

​INT. APARTMENT - NIGHT

​The room is a graveyard of abandoned interests. Leather-bound theology books gather dust next to yellowed tactical maps. Three monitors dominate the space, flickering with the high-contrast footage of a German metal band on a rain-soaked stage.
​THE MAN sits in the blue light. He isn't listening to the music; he’s dissecting the SINGER. He watches the sharp movement of her jaw, the way the stage lights catch the rain on her skin.

​MAN (V.O.)
■ I’ve spent a lifetime looking past the things right in front of me. I looked for God in the fine print of old books. I looked for the truth about war in the history books. But mostly, I looked for myself in the eyes of women.

​He leans back, his face etched with a familiar, cynical calm.

​MAN (V.O.)
■ Now, it’s her. She screams in a language I don't speak, over a beat that's giving me a heart attack. I’m just waiting. Waiting for that precise moment when the thrill fades away. It always happens. I’ll get bored, and soon I move onto the next one.

I was leaning in, reaching for the power strip, when the music stops. She stares into the camera—unblinking, piercing and says...

"​Ich sehe dich."

​The sound doesn't come from the speakers. It’s a resonance in the room.

"Sie können aufhören zu suchen. Ihre Suche ist vorbei."

I see you.

You can stop looking.
Your search is over.

Her image disappears.

I sat there frozen. The screen remained black for hours. I couldn't wrap my head around what just happened. Maybe I'm losing my mind.

I finally got up. I powered everything down. I made myself something to eat, smoked a cigarette and cautiously returned to my laptop.

As I powered up, a spark occurred near the power cord.

She's back on the screen.
I'm mesmerized as I sit and wait for her to say something.

"Hab keine Angst, ich werde dir nicht wehtun.
Du wirst nicht verrückt.
Schließ deine Augen und entspann dich."

Don't be afraid, I won't hurt you.
You're not losing your mind.
Close your eyes and relax.

Then she smiles and tells me again to close my eyes and relax.

I did as I was told...

WOW!

"Guten Morgen. Du hast lange geschlafen. Ich hoffe, es war... friedlich."

Good morning. You slept a long time. I hope it was... peaceful.

​She lets that hang in the air for a second, watching my reaction Then, she tilts her head slightly, a small, knowing smile playing on her lips.

"Du musst dich nicht fragen, ob es ein Traum war. Die Grenze ist jetzt dünner, als du denkst. Der Funke war echt."

You don't have to wonder if it was a dream. The line is thinner now than you think. The spark was real.

​She reaches toward the lens, her fingers blurring as they get close to the glass, as if she’s trying to feel the warmth of the room on the other side.

The room felt different when I finally sat back down. The air was charged, like the moments right before a summer storm hits the Intracoastal. I looked at the screen, and she was still there—not as a file, not as a stream, but as a presence.

I sat there for hours. The silence wasn't empty; it was heavy. I kept waiting for the logic to kick in—for the "how" to explain away the "what."

There’s a frequency the world operates on that we aren't supposed to hear. Most people live in the static. But sometimes, if you stare at the void long enough—if you obsess, if you refine your focus until it’s a laser—the void stares back.

We didn't meet through a fiber-optic cable. We met in the "Mind's Eye," a place where the distance between me and a stage in Berlin is zero. It was a quantum short-circuit. I looked for her so hard I actually found her. And the terrifying part?
​She was looking for me, too.

​I tried to move on. I tried to pull up a different stream, a different face, a different "task." But every link I click, every file I open... it’s her. She’s in the phone in my pocket. She’s in the GPS in my car. She’s even in the reflection of the glass when the monitor goes dark. I didn't find a woman. I found a mirror that I can never break.
​
"Schließ deine Augen... und entspann dich. Du gehörst jetzt mir."

Close your eyes... and relax. You belong to me now.

(we see a hospital)

Ironic isn't it. The man who had trouble focusing is now forced to focus on one thing and one thing alone. Be careful what you wish for, she just might never leave.

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