War Buds

From the journals…

It’s the year 2000, and I am making a war movie with thirty-nine high school classmates. We are filming in Video8.  The closest thing we have to digital are the crappy ten-second clips our phones can swallow before choking.  The boys are making a movie about killing each other, and I’ve got a camera.Directing is a funny thing.  The designated literati have gifted me and my cut crew with a face full of script while we manually record gunfire exchange from Saving Private Ryan.  Someone presents the idea of ripping the sound off of Counter-Strike games, someone sees through it and reminds everyone how tight of a deadline we have.

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We caravan to the woods up a mountain, as well as down south to film in a beach.  Ralph has a lame battle cry.  Andy throws a molotov cocktail.  Raymond stabs Julius in his styrofoam chest.  Alfred serves us water when we create the UN.  I kill George.  Forty people.  Forty credits.

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Filming ends with urban battles shot at the campus on a lonely Saturday afternoon.  The light is yellow.  It is quiet today, and my skeleton crew is smiling for the approaching end to the project and a good day’s work, equally.  We made something today.  For all our bickering and bullshit, we finished something with all our names on the best-before seal.  School is out in a couple of months and we’re all off to college.  Different colleges.

Someone nameless kicks the knob off our classroom door.

I keep it.