For this exercise, I revisited the first page of my sequence assignment. A single panel serves as my first page, meant to be viewed as a photograph. As the establishing shot of my main characters’ home (the entire setting of the story) which will set the stage for comparing the idiosyncrasies of Harry and Bambi, I felt it wasn’t necessary for the overall plot of the sequence to include a perspective of Harry and Bambi’s home within a neighbourhood setting. Since the story occupies this limited space, it helps me direct the implications of ”walking contradictions’ towards only being between Harry and Bambi, rather than Harry and Bambi versus their entire neighbourhood.

That being said, since I can picture Bambi’s overzealous Halloween decorating overtaking every inch of their space, even when it’s not Halloween, and Harry sort of, letting her run free with her passions, it would still serve another layer of ‘contradiction’ to show more of their neighbourhood to reveal how different Harry and Bambi are from their neighbours.

In this recreation, I was most mindful of the depth-of-field used for various elements. Just strictly speaking for my original framing of the shot (which I framed for identification), I found that while using the technique of fading to stimulate depth, it inspired meaning for the distance between the stone walls in the foreground, where the Jack-o-lantern sits beneath the mailbox and their house in the background– a picturesque vision of cottagecore aesthetic. I’m already relying on a theme of mystery to make the image work; a Jack-o-lantern is not your typical summer lawn decor, but it guards this house that’s completely hidden by mother nature taking back its gritty 19th-century brick exterior– now pull back, and this mysterious looking house is next to some relatively normal-looking houses? A contradiction, indeed.

Story 1: Daydream, Vol. 7

Fiona joined her boyfriend Michael in the living room at around 11:45 p.m. She’d finally finished and submitted her final paper for her gothic literature class online, just barely meeting the deadline. She was exhausted by then, wanting nothing more but to cuddle with Michael and play on the switch to de-stress.

Her and Michael played ten rounds of Mario Kart on their switch (should have been five but Michael threw a tantrum after losing three games in a row). Still, Fiona came out as the definitive winner having won six rounds against Michael.

While Michael washed the dishes she went ahead and got ready for bed. She downloaded the Mario Kart game on her phone while doing her skin care and got herself started in between steps. The game didn’t seem too bad so far but she could see where Michael’s complaints about the dodgy controls were coming from. She wondered if there was any way to fix the steering and drifting in the settings to give her more control. Luckily there was and she quickly did that.

“This map is so hard,” Fiona mutters. She’s been lying in bed, sitting upright against the pillows having played a few maps now. Michael eventually enters the room appearing tired but relatively content. She’s stuck on a map and was tilting her phone and trying to drift to pull ahead of her opponents.

Michael, understandingly, looked confused.

“That doesn’t actually help, you know,” Michael says pointedly. He begins to get ready for bed while watching Fiona flail around. It amuses him to the point of laughing while planting half of himself on her to see what place she’s in.

“I changed the settings so you steer by tilting your phone and you tap to drift. It’s loads easier for me now,” she tells him as she tilts her phone on a hard left turn. She accidentally elbows Michael’s cheek in the process. “Oh- shit– sorry,” she apologizes over each abrupt motion she makes.

Michael chuckles and pays no more mind to her jerking motions and continues to lay his head in her lap to watch her play. The tower fan is on, pointed directly on Fiona the way she likes it, and truthfully feels quite nice on his face. He never liked the white noise of the fan running in his sleep and his exposed feet tended to get the butt-end of their deal, but he let her have this one thing figuring it’s gotten her to stay around for this long.

Story 2: Walking Contradictions

Harry thinks he knows his wife Bambi well, after being together for nearly a decade. So, when she came into their living room one summer morning, her eyes suspiciously aglow for someone who had to go to the pharmacy to pick up his antidepressants, Harry knew that she was up to something. He could see the cog wheels in her mind turning as he met her eyes from across the room, and his questions were answered upon spotting the small skeleton doll she was holding. It appeared to be made mostly of tiny (he hopes are fake) bones and a barbie-size head. Only the head is missing a face, and had a head full of matted black hair. ..

“That’s creepy,” Harry makes a pinched expression as he looks at it up close, “isn’t it a bit too early for shops to be selling Halloween decorations?”

“It’s never too early for Halloween,” Bambi disagrees as she takes the doll from him, taking it to the fireplace to place it on the mantle.

-:-

The house begins to look like a haunted house well before October 31st.

Harry didn’t really bat an eye when Bambi continued bringing home small Halloween related pieces like ceramic jack-o-lantern models and a practical witch’s spell book, but he felt he needed to step in once he saw her carrying a familiar bust into their living room.

“You are not putting that in here,” Harry immediately takes the bust from her, maneuvering it away from her grabby hands as they reach for it.

The bust was from a shoot he did for his first year, special effects makeup class in university. He had to create a prosthetic of his face; a mask, essentially. It turned out a little wonky since Harry didn’t have the experience he has now, and he might have been high while working on it. He would have thrown it away if Bambi hadn’t wanted to have it, and now he’s strongly reconsidering his decision to keep it.

“Come on, you know how much I adore that thing. It’s art!” Bambi huffs as she tries for the bust with Harry’s face again, but he only holds it above his head where he knows she won’t be able to reach it. “Hey, careful with him!” She gasps, making the jump to grab the bust from Harry which she quickly runs and places on the coffee table.

“But, it clashes with my Michaelmas Daisies,” Harry huffs motioning to how the fleshy bust dampened the soft nature of his purple flowers.

-:-

On Halloween morning, Harry wakes up alone with his face pressed into Bambi’s pillow having rolled onto his right side at some point overnight. He can tell because he can smell her Cloud perfume on the pillow covers.

Harry wanders through the hallway, his socked feet sliding over the recently installed floor boards just for the sake of it, while he takes in the lingering scent of their new walls as well. He mindlessly admires his handiwork. He’s wrapped up in his lavender dressing gown as he makes his way downstairs where the temperature drops, and he wonders if the thermostat is being faulty again.

What he finds in the hallway leading towards the rest of the house is worse than a faulty air con. Among the corny Halloween decor, is the words ‘YOUR NEXT’ painted on the walls in thick fake blood (he hopes).  

“Babe?” Harry calls for his wife as he blinks at the mess on the wall.

“Yeah! I’m in the living room!”

“Come here a minute!” Harry says as he stares at the wall.

The pitter patter of her feet follows his request and soon Bambi meets Harry in the hallway, her hands still covered in the fake blood she’d smeared on their newly painted walls. She’s still carrying a plastic Tupperware container of the fake blood with her.

“Morning baby,” She greets him nonchalantly as she looks at him for his reaction to her work on the walls. “What do you think?”

“You used the wrong ‘you’re’,” Harry sighs as he takes the Tupperware container from her and dips three of his fingers in it. He begins to fix her mistake, adding the apostrophe between the ‘U’ and ‘R’ and an ‘E’ at the end.

“Sorry, I didn’t realize. I was honestly half asleep when I started in the hall,” She admits with a giggle as she takes the Tupperware container back from Harry. “Come see the living room.”