“Where’s the PA with the hose?” The Assistant Director clacked the clip at the top of his clipboard. “We need to wet this area; the production car is here. Where’s the kid?”
The headlights flicked their orange hue in my direction. The kid was me. I carried the hose over my shoulder past the Akachōchin, two years of studying Japanese, and the only thing I could remember was what the damn red lantern was called, I walked up and down in front of the closed restaurants and shops, attempting to decipher the Katakana and couldn’t find a faucet.
I passed directly in front of him, carrying the hose. He didn’t see me and clacked the clip again. A bachelor’s degree in film to be the kid with the hose. Where the fuck was it?
“Hot points coming through,” a Grip sang with a C-stand over his shoulder, nearly hitting me in the head.
I sank to ground level on hands and knees. Crew members milled around and graciously avoided stepping on my fingers as I dragged the hose, scraping it against the floor, my worm’s eye view didn’t offer a better perspective and the swish of the hybrid polymer notified the AD of my presence.
He pointed at the spigot underneath the fire extinguisher and grunted. “Wet it.”
I hosed the building’s facade. The AD rushed me and took it out of my hand and watered the length of the cement. The Best Boy motioned for a Juicer to hit the lights and the dull cement came to life with the shine of headlights and practical lighting. A glimmering Little Tokyo.
Mesmerized, I stumbled back. Four years in film school for this.
Lighting doubles and extras mobbed about. The AD grabbed me by the collar and threw me off set.
Thea Pueschel is a nonbinary neurodivergent emerging writer and artist, a member of Women Who Submit, a facilitator for Shut Up & Write, a reader for Fractured Lit, and a 2021 Dorland Arts Colony Resident. Thea has been published in Short Edítion, and Perhappened, among others.
Punk Noir Press 