The End

The movie is over.

Words cannot describe how much time, energy and work we put into this movie. By 'we', I mean Slim and I.

In fact, I will merely list the tasks I accomplished in the past four days alone, along with the total approximate number of hours spent on each, to give you an idea (please note that you can generally add a good two to five hours in each work-related activity for Slim―he's had it worse than me):

IN 4 DAYS (OR 96 HOURS)...

Film-making:
-Total: 26hrs (additional time graciously provided by Slim in my absence: 10hrs, making his total 36hrs)
or, subdivided,
-Music composing & recording: 12hrs
-Last minute scriptwriting & recordings: 1hr
-Editing: 8hrs
-Random tomfoolery to relieve fatigue and make it a pleasant experience: 5hrs

Other:
-Travel: 7 hours
-Job: 20 hours
-School: 8 hours
-Homework: 6hrs
-Writing: 5hrs

Basic needs:
-Nourishment: 2 hours
-Sleep: ~5hrs per night, or 20hrs total
-Ablutions: 3 hours

I was so relieved when we finished. It was two in the morning and Slim and I were sitting, zombie-like, in front of his computer, trying to stay sane. Slim had taken over when I started to go pale and sickly (my body was rebelling; I dry-vomited in his toilet), and when I stumbled back into his room, feeling like the T-virus had invaded my brain, he leaned back in his chair, not even glancing my way, and said, "Hey, I think that's it."

"What's it?"

He gives me a once-over. "You look like shit."

It's hard to be sarcastic when you're half-dead (or at least feeling like it). "Gee. Thanks. What's it?"

He looks back at the computer and says, ticking list elements off on his fingers, "Well, we finished adding the voice clips, the sound of the rain, the windshield wipers sound, the tones... I think that's it." He looks up at me.

He also looks like shit, thank you. He has huge bags under his eyes and his eyelids are drooping pitifully, not to mention he'd been removing his clothes gradually during the evening and now his unbuttoned dress-shirt collar is popped only on one side, his work tie is loose and crooked, his jeans are falling off and showing me that he wears Disney-themed boxers (with the Genie from Aladdin, this time around, in case you were wondering) and his stomach is grumbling. And he has a small beard now because he hasn't had time to shower and shave properly in the past few days. He looks terrible.

Of course, when a guy looks like that, my instinct is to go all motherly on him, but whatever. That's my prerogative.

"We're done?" I ask, with no further excitement.

"Yeah, I guess."

We sit in silence, thinking of nothing, for two minutes. Suddenly, Slim says, "Hey, let's watch it from the beginning."

I don't think I can properly describe the pride and satisfaction we felt when we reached the last, most powerful scene. Our movie, as it had been last week, was so bad. And suddenly we'd turned it, carefully and with a lot a perseverance and determination, into something that was not only good, but also worth a bright smile. This scene was so powerful I actually felt it in my gut. Slim lip was shaking, shared between a pout and a smile.

And we smiled, my friends. We started laughing hysterically, in that semi-conscious state where everything is a thousand times stronger.

Slim turned the lights back on. We turned, facing each other, and found nothing to say. Our smiles were just so broad, our happiness, pride and relief just so immense that no words could do them justice.

Suddenly, Slim looks down at himself and asks, "Why am I still wearing my work-clothes?"

Guys at Sears have to wear a dress-shirt and tie. He'd unbuttoned his shirt so I saw his white undershirt, but he was still wearing his dress-code clothes.

I laughed.

"Excuse me," he said, standing, and he removed both shirts, then started unzipping his pants.

I stopped laughing.

Averting my eyes, I squeaked, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

I couldn't see him, but I know he was laughing at me. "Oh, come on. Don't tell me you're such a prude. Like you never saw a guy get changed."

Um. No. I haven't.

"Couldn't you, I don't know, warn me when you're about to get naked?" I ask, turning my head and freaking out when it encountered a mirror. Oh my god, I realise, the mirror in which I kept checking that my shirt didn't bunch at random places is now betraying me. I could see myself and, behind me, Slim getting changed.

He has a flat stomach and a trail of hair that snakes into his boxers.

Oh my god. HE HAS A GIRLFRIEND. WE'RE JUST FRIENDS. WHY IS HE DOING THIS? WHY IS HE SHOWING OFF???

I looked down at the floor instead.

"Why does it bother you?" He asked, reaching for a pair of jeans. "It's nothing special."

Can a guy be a bitch? Because Slim was being a bitch. No, really. He was. A good-looking bitch, but a bitch nonetheless.

"I just don't think it's right for me to look."

He laughs at that. "Oh come on, I wouldn't blame you."

I grimace. "You're terrible. You're taken, not to mention I'm trying to show the kind of respect I'd want others to give me. I don't want people to look at me when I change, so I won't look at you."

And it's true. Though I wanted to look. Really. Who are we kidding? I'm a red-blooded woman, for heaven's sake.

But I didn't. Things might have been worse if I had looked. He'd have teased me about it forever, and I might have blushed too much and made a fool of myself (yeah, I blush a lot, okay? Scarlet and Prophet might attest to this).

Slim seems to consider my scruples. "I didn't think you were so clean," he finally says with a chuckle. "The way you talk and joke and laugh so loudly and all."

And then I say something very true but also very dumb. "I want to show respect, that's all."

He doesn't say anything about that. I desperately wish I could look at his face, then. In the past four days we've grown close. Not intimate, but honest. We've come to show a lot of trust for one another. I've slept in his room while he worked; he let me fix him stuff to eat; and the more we went, the more I got the feeling that we understood wordlessly what the other wanted. Living in close quarters can do that, I guess.

At any rate, he finally says, "Oh. Well, thank you, then. I guess." He clears his throat, I hear a rustle, and then he says, "You can look now. I'm dressed."

I turn. He's wearing a tee and jeans. He sees how hesitant I am, and jokes, "Maybe next time I'll lie about being dressed, just to bother you..."

The tension evaporates and we laugh.

I slide my chair over and he gives me his puppy face.

Every guy has a different puppy-face, which can lead to confusion and underestimation. Slim's is the most efficient, I think. He doesn't incite pity. His tactic is to grow suddenly serious and a little sad, and he says, ever so softly and seriously, "Hey, *insert name here*, could you please..." followed by whatever request he wants.

It is IMPOSSIBLE to resist, dammit!

This time he says, "Hey, CM, please, can you help me with my TV homework? Just remind me what the instructions are. I can't focus my eyes enough to read. It's all blurry." He laughs a little pathetically and shows me the instruction sheet.

I know what he means. I have some trouble to read too. Working on computers can screw up your vision, people. It's not even funny.

I glance at the clock on his bedside table. "Sure, but I have to call Mom so she can fetch me." I cringe. It's 2:30 in the morning.

"Okay," he softly says as I dial my home number and wake my mother. As soon as I hang up, he says, "I know it's unfair to ask for your help on this."

I shrug. "It's okay." It's a team project anyway. "And you know there's only one reason I'm still here at this hour."

He shoots me a wry smile. "The delightful company?"

"No," I say.

"Then what?"

I shoot him a friendly smile. "Moral support." And it's true.

His gaze softens. I know what we're both thinking. How it's so late. How there's so much work to do. How we stuck to one another for sanity during the whole filming process. How our producer Dom and his girlfriend Gen are the worst teammates in the world. How we had to re-do their work and make it better. How we had to scrap so much work to attempt to please them. How we work so well when it's just the two of us. How we vowed to stick together for next session's film project. How we have the same ideas and same views and same opinions. How we've become such good and close friends in a mere ten weeks.

He presses Ctrl+S on Adobe Premiere Pro, effectively saving the final version of the movie, and, in a murmur, with obvious sincerity, says, "Thank you."

And we smile tiredly.

The movie is over. At last.

Love,
CM