Further back now, the whole body is visible: dark shirt, dark trousers, one hand still at the chest. The face remains a smudge of grey motion. The cracked ground spreads out in every direction. Behind, the trees have gone white, almost transparent. It is less a portrait than a transmission, a shape that appears on the screen without ever fully arriving.
From behind, all that shows is the back of his shaved head and his hand raised to his ear, listening. The world beyond him has dissolved into blurred trunks and a glow of late light. A car's edge hovers at the right, out of focus. Whoever is on the other end, the call has his full attention.
The light is going. Under dark trees, an old metal frame and a long grey trailer sit in silhouette, edges blurring into shadow. The sky behind is pale and empty. Something orange glows faintly at the centre of the frame. No people now, only the shapes of what they left behind, like the last image held on screen after the signal drops.
Far behind the crowd, a man in black leans over a mixing desk set on a scuffed road case, its little screen glowing. Cables run off into the dark. Beyond him, the tables stretch out under strings of bulbs, packed with people. A canopy shades his corner. Every sound the field is hearing tonight passes through his hands first.
Out front of the car, he stands in a pool of hard light, tiny against the long chrome grille. Above the road, an arched sign spans the dark, its letters too faint to read. Pink flowers crowd the bottom corner. Further down the lane, a single lamp glows. The night road feels like a set that has been lit for only one scene.
