Some natural flowers had been allowed to bloom across the field. Sunflowers, the big ones, he couldn’t remember the name, Giganteus blah blah. Buttercups, he at least knew those. A pinkish type. Fine petals drawn upward like bunched fingertips. Bees bounced from one to the next. The field was bright green. Unnaturally so, as if it had been dyed, which he supposed it might have been. The rest of the flowers were fakes. Made from a light plastic able to sway in the breeze, and if there was no breeze, the breeze might also have to be reproduced, an industrial fan clattering in the background of the opening scenes.
Michael wore his costume, everything except the head, which waited upside down at his feet. He was hungover. No point in putting on the head until the director was exactly ready. His body below the neck had already entered that familiar and strange dissociation, brain struggling lightly against the sight of his hands, now enormous and blue. A stomach also enormous and blue. In the early days of the job he had found this moment fascinating. Stroking his blue stomach with his blue hands, nerve endings firing as if each were his own.
The director clapped his hands. Right, assemble! He was secretly sweet, Michael thought. The way he sucked in his paunch, still visible through those black T-shirts he preferred. The director clapped again, impatient, although everyone was already falling into place. A large and horrible lamp was used to intensify the sunlight. The other actors appeared beside Michael, heads tucked against the sides of their chests. Red, Purple, Green. Colors given the personalities of feral children. Left to live inside what looked like a metal bunker on this fake green hillside.
Here we go again. Gio, the other man, half-heartedly sexist, saving up asides for Michael. He believed the women who played Red and Purple were better built to survive the costumes, that for men it was harder, more torturous. Michael tried to respond only in disinterested smiles, though he found Gio’s bitterness attractive. His silence hadn’t yet put Gio off.
A woman from costume, her name momentarily gone from Michael’s mind, brushed down their bright fur. Tutted at Michael, picked his head up off the ground, wiped the top with a heavy hand. Try not to if you can, gets very mucky very quickly. Michael nodded, loyal. They were not stars. No one much gave a shit about the people inside the characters. The director waved his hand. A wedding ring, Michael noticed for the first time, winking in the harnessed sun. Perhaps he didn’t always wear it, perhaps he only wanted to be heterosexual on special occasions.
The heads were put on. For the first few seconds, Michael closed his eyes. Breathed in, breathed out. On
