Radiance

From the Personal Reels of Percival Alfred Unck

[PERCIVAL UNCK films his daughter playing on the slopes of Mount Ampère. Blue alpine cassias twist up all around her, gnarled and stumped and prickly with translucent needles. They prefer the relative warmth of the valleys. The heights turn the endless forests of the Moon to hunched, baleful, contorted creatures. A thin scrim of snow crunches under SEVERIN UNCK’S small feet. She is dressed in her father’s idea of a mountain climber’s costume: lederhosen, stockings, buckled shoes, a ruffled shirt. Her long hair is ribboned into thick pigtails. Severin tries to entice her father into playing hide and seek, but though he is happy to seek her, he will not perform his part by hiding. He might miss something. Finally, the child gives up.]

SEVERIN

Daddy, you have to chase me! Don’t you know anything?

PERCIVAL

Oh, I’ll chase you, Rinny. I’ll chase you anywhere you run! And when I find you I will chomp you to bits like a bad old wolf!

[Shrieks and giggles. SEVERIN runs behind a malevolently torsioned cassia. She peeks out again, brushing needles out of her hair.]

SEVERIN

But when you catch me and chomp me, after that you have to hide and I’ll chase you! That’s how you play, silly! And when I find you I’ll roar like a TIGER and scare you to DEATH.

PERCIVAL

[Laughing.] Shan’t! I have the camera, and whoever has the camera is King and gets to make the rules.

SEVERIN

[Leaps up, grasping at air. The image shakes as he yanks Clara up and out of reach.] Gimme! Give it to me! I want it!