This is my contribution about the cinema published in the magazine Delirio. The script about toxics and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity is entitled Rear Window and it’s a tribute to the great filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock.
By contributor Eva Caballé, Spain.
Rear Window by Eva Caballé.
Now out is number 8 of the digital culture magazine Delirio, which is dedicated to The Movies. I had the pleasure to collaborate again in this wonderful magazine and the article I wrote for this edition is titled “Rear Window,” which focuses on the toxic and multiple chemical sensitivity and as usual it is accompanied by a photo taken by David. You can find it on pages 38 and 39 of Delirio – Movies. I recommend you do not miss this issue of Delirio because it is quite impressive.
I want to congratulate everyone who made this new issue of Delirio and especially to thank Aida G. Corrales and Oscar Varona for their solidarity and for being with us despite the distance.
Translated from Spanish to English:
~~~
Rear window
By Eva Caballé
The room is almost empty; nothing but a bed and an old bedside table without any decor or curtain, all in light colors. It seems calm and quiet. The woman sits on the edge of the bed in front of the window, looking at the sunlight, which is orange because of the sunset. She has a quick look out the window and then observes more carefully stretching her neck as if she is looking for something. She turns and talks to the young woman who has just entered the room with an ironic and concerned smile.
- Woman: Don’t you see how everybody is disappearing? It is no coincidence! They started to spray the park, day after day, while children were playing and parents and grandparents sat in the sun and chatting while watching them.
The young woman puts her hand to her waist with a tired look and responds, gesturing with her other hand, while she snorts implying that she is tired of talking always about the same thing.
- Young woman: You only see conspiracies, for you all is very simple. How can you be so sure if you hardly leave home? When you live through your window! Instead of spending hours writing pamphlets that I’m sure that nobody reads, and taking pictures, shouldn’t you focus on your next book?
The woman’s expression becomes serious and she turns angry replying with some indignation.
- Woman: But it’s obvious! It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes! The dog of the first floor neighbors died a few days after the first fumigation. They say that he was intoxicated by something that he ate… A few days ago an ambulance took the old woman who lives upstairs in the middle of the night and she is still hospitalized, when in the 40 years I have lived here I had never seen her having a cold! And what about the children’s of the fourth floor? (She takes a break to breathe because she speaks so fast that she is even short of breath.) Every day I see them with the bronchodilator and every other minute in the ER! Their neighbor has cancer and since she’s having chemotherapy she can no longer tolerate perfumes and now she has to wear a mask when she walks along the street. (Now almost shouting.) They say that she has Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) and doctors don’t pay attention to her!
The woman makes faces parodying the young woman’s lecture that she already expects and knows by heart.
- Young woman: You are a bit alarmist! There are only a few people who suffer MCS, there is no need to worry. And today almost everyone has allergies or asthma and authorities warn us that one of each four people will have cancer throughout our lives. (Goes back and speaks from the doorway leaning on the door frame.) This is the modern life. We have to die of something!
The woman turns and answers indignant from the bed.
- Woman: And does it seem normal to you? Really? And when this affects you, will you still think the same?
The young woman finally leaves the room and her voice is heard from the hallway with a tone between weary and sarcastic.
- Young woman: Well, see you next week. Do not keep on spying on your neighbors because you will end up crazy. You should amuse yourself and don’t fantasize anymore.
The woman answers raising her voice while the young woman closes the front door and leaves the house.
- Woman: Don’t worry, my attitude has no solution. (And finishes angry talking to herself.) And neither does your stupidity.
The woman is still staring out the window with indignation and with a worried face and thinks aloud.
- Woman: Does anyone realize? I see everything so clearly that it scares me. Makes me want to open the window and shout it from the rooftops, but will anyone hear me? Why don’t they listen even when you alert them? (With a sarcastic tone.) Having no time and the fast pace of life sound like cheap excuses to me. (She stands up and gets closer to the window.) It’s simple. We’ve become worse than donkeys, because it is not even necessary that they put blinders on us to not look beyond the established road. We no longer have the instinct to do it! We are afraid of what we might see lest we have to react. (The sun has set and she begins to close the blind.) It must be that I have no fear of looking or I have nothing to lose. It must be that my window is different…
Rear Window by Eva Caballé as it appears in Delirio.
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Eva Caballé is the author of the book Desaparecida: Una vida rota por la sensibilidad química múltiple (Missing: A life broken by Multiple Chemical Sensitivities) published by El Viejo Topo, Barcelona, Spain, 2009. She blogs at NO FUN. Read more about Eva’s book in an interview, link here. And read more about Eva’s previous essays in Delirio, link here.
The above post was originally published at NO FUN.
