on the set

Director: Let's try it again, Chuck. And get it right. It's twenty-five thousand dollars per take. Got it?

Charlton: Damn you!

Director: Yeah. Whatever. Here it is again. Explosion. You turn and see projectile sailing towards you. Your muscles are tense, and you're sweating. [pleading] And you're mad. It comes into focus through the haze and comes spinning to stop. Then your maddening take. Not just another day on the set.

Charlton: But it isn't Lady Liberty.

Director: I know, Chuck. Just do it, ok?....Camera?...Action!

The eardrum tearing crack of an explosion from the horizon. A massive tin can, the shape of a human face made from what appears to be a gigantic unlabeled soup can from today's crew lunch hurtles over Union Depot, sharp edges spinning and glimmering in dawn's last light, rolling and rolling, union-wage extras screaming and fleeing out of the camera's eye, finally banging to a quiet stop on a final resting place of paved brick.

Director: [a whispered yell] Now, Chuck, Damn you.

Charlton: [drops to all fours close by torn tin monument, notices for first time it resembles the human face, eyes closed as if dead. Chuck can feel the bean and cornbread high-noon special served on styrofoam plates gurgling in his midsection. He looks skyward and hesitantly shakes his fist and hauntingly screams] Damn you to hell!

Director: Cut!