Requiem for T

The Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious lit up by firework on the Thames (courtesy Ministry of Defence)

Armistice Day. Fireworks light up the sky with golden sparkles at the banks of the Thames to celebrate that the world stopped burning an odd century ago. In that light: red buses drive on and off London Bridge in slow motion. The whole scene looks like an apocalyptic Harry Potter movie.

Zoom out, top shot.
On one side of the river lies HMS Belfast. On the shore of the other side: crowds shuffling towards even more spectacular views.
Vast parts of that crowd have poppies pinned to their chest, like little bleeding hearts.

Reverse shot.
One guy faces the blurry masses, defeated. Gutted.
Today he’s bleeding with all of them who remember. Today he too has lost a friend in Flanders Fields.
Today, the proud black river waltzes quietly while he shudders in quite a different rhythm.

Cut.
I am that man. You died.
The script wasn’t supposed to be like this. Your lines were way funnier. Your casting sucks too. You weren’t supposed to star this B movie. You were born a director. (You would always have it your way, the way you had dreamt it — big, loud, with a seventies font in all caps crediting everyone involved big time. In Technicolor.)

What about the soundtrack T?

You would have grinned by the mere thought of an Atari sound effect. Or you would’ve picked some B side of an early eighties punk band — a recording only you and half of the members of that band still remembered. You, the only living soul outside of my hometown that actually remembered the name of the single from the Dildo Warheads that made it to the charts.
You laughed tears when I told you the lead singer had confessed to me they had even performed on ‘Tien om te Zien’ once.

You laughed a lot T.

Then you ordered a cocktail you had just invented.

You said writing was the biggest art form. You were maybe going to write after you retired.

You said movies were the real deal.
You would love to make a movie one day.

Then — once — you let me hear some of your own recordings — do I remember it right, — wasn’t it Talking-Headish? You had served White Russians with sugarmilk.
I liked one song in particular. Singer-songwriter stuff, you and your guitar. It felt like you had found your own voice there.
How I’d love to hear your voice again T. I miss it. Your White Russians not so much.

You made us laugh during the service T. We laughed through the salt of our tears when we saw clips of you in the studio, directing like the generous clown you loved to play. We smiled at you on the big screen while you hid a silly grin under an even sillier Snapchat lens.

I love you T.

I will never be at peace on Armistice Day.

And this is the worst ending T.

Your friend forever,
Frédéric