# John Reid — opening film **Draft for Michael. 2026-10-01. Not shot. Not stamped.** **Pass 2:** he tells the life. The frames come up under the sentences. S03 stays close to the first pass. **Pass 3:** S16 is Patrick, on Michael's lean. S17 names his father. The speakable file is `VOICE_PASTE.txt`. One piece. Twenty-six locked frames, in story order. Spelling on the card is **REID**. The airplane still has no airline written on it, so the line does not name Lucky Day. The lane man stays his dad, as Michael read it. Zip 04 stays out. No address. No phone. The friend who named the room stays unnamed. Darragh is why he came to the city. S01 on the board is the walk past the empty chair. The sit he asked for is a motion that still does not exist on that plate. The seated plate is S25. Marked below as OPEN SIT, for a yes before anyone generates it. A cut can land in the middle of a thought. The next picture takes the next sentence. --- ## OPEN **S01** · walk past the empty chair Sound: footsteps on a hard floor. Room tone. No music. Picture: he comes in. The chair is empty. He walks past it. Line: none. **OPEN SIT** · needs a yes Picture: he turns, and he sits. The walk plate does not show this. Either the walk is animated into a sit, or the seated plate is borrowed here and used again at S25. Line: none. Then cut. **CARD** · black Sound: a typewriter. One strike for each letter. Nothing else. JOHN then REID R, E, I, D. The second word waits a beat, then types. --- ## HE STARTS **S02** · studio smile, eyes to camera Hi. I'm John, from Ireland. Well. Ennis, Ireland. I'm new to San Antonio. I'm looking for a place to stay a little longer. I thought it would be easier if you knew who I was. Well. Let's see. --- ## THE LIFE, IN PICTURE ORDER **S03** · Tom and Anne, wedding, church door My parents were Tom and Anne. They married in Ennis on the twenty-first of June, 1958. He was twenty-two. She was twenty. **S04** · Anne expecting, cottage door A couple of years on, she was carrying me. That was late in 1960. I arrived on the ninth of January. **S05** · doorway, Tom, Anne, Patrick, and John Patrick had come first, in August of 1959. He was the older brother, and he stayed in Clare. The house was the four of us. My father, my mother, Patrick, and me. **S06** · John alone, black and white, Burren track We lived on the edge of Ennis. Past the house, the ground goes pale. That's the Burren. We walked it a lot as kids, Patrick and me. **S07** · two boys at the wall We liked being outside. A wall was enough. We'd stay out till someone called us, and we knew every lane we were let onto. **S08** · cottages, striped play clothes, barefoot Summers, I lived in a short set of clothes and no shoes. The cottages, the church over the roofs. I was happy out there. **S09** · river and the town There was the river as well, and the town beyond it. I liked a wide quiet place even then. I never really grew out of that. **S10** · Tom working the engine My father spent his days at Shannon. He fitted aircraft, and he came home with the ramp still on him. Evenings in that house smelled like his work. **S11** · young John, Ennis terrace I grew up there, and I left the secondary school in Ennis at eighteen. That was 1979. I didn't go on. The town was enough, for then. **S12** · barracks yard, green uniform In 1984 I took three years at Sarsfield Barracks, in Limerick, with the Twelfth Infantry. I finished a three-star private. There was no war in it, and I was never posted overseas. **S13** · Egypt, pyramids behind him There was one stop, though. Egypt. It wasn't a posting. I already liked old ground, and Egypt got into me there. I said I'd go back one day and look properly. **S14** · toolbox, hangar The working days, before the army and after it, were beside my father. Tools, fittings, the ordinary hardness of a hangar. I never took the full licence. He was the fitter. I did what I knew, and I left the rest. **S15** · fire yard, helmet in hand The other half of those years was the brigade. I joined the retained roll at Ennis in 1980, and I kept it. The alerter went, and you turned out. I don't keep a bad call for the table. **S16** · lane. Lean, 2026-10-01: the other man is Patrick. Nearer John's age. Not stamped over the earlier dad read. Years later I went back, and I wore the same shirt the whole day. I walked the lane with Patrick. **S17** · John between his father and Anne. The older man is the father on this lean. Then it was my father with us. And my mother. Same day. Same clothes. **S18** · John and Anne, rose garden And then my mother, in the garden. She was older by then. Once I was at school she had taken hours in a garden shop. When I think of that day, I end it with her. **S19** · Burren, 10 09 2011 I had a small house of my own on that side of town. I lived in it alone. I never married. On the tenth of September, 2011, I was still out walking that ground. **S20** · airplane behind him I had taken up flying on my own time, light aircraft out of Shannon. I'd grown up under the flight path, and I wanted the air for myself. One year I flew freight. I loved it. I didn't look for another year, and nothing happened up there that belongs in this telling. **S21** · fire-station doors, older I stayed on the Ennis roll a long time. Standing at those doors, I'm older. I don't wear a fire badge anywhere else. **S22** · kitchen table, Egypt book Egypt never left me. I still sit down with it. I still mean to go back and look. By the time I left Ireland, both of my parents were gone. I don't keep a year for either, and I don't tell an illness. My father had wanted me to come away and see other places. That wish is what moved me. **S23** · San Antonio, bag at his feet So I did. A friend from the battalion, Darragh Keane, was already in San Antonio. I came in 2025, stayed with him a few months, and fell in love with the city. I sold the house in Ennis. There was a good buyer. I arrived with a bag, and I don't know when I'll see Ireland again. --- ## BACK IN THE ROOM **S24** · studio grin That's the road that got me to this chair. **S25** · seated in the wooden chair A friend told me there was a room. Someone who wanted a hand with the technology, and with a bit of research, and that we might get on. I can learn a thing beside a person and still be of use. The house would stay hers. If a longer stay sounds right, I'd like the room. **S26** · eyes up, to his left I'll leave it with you. Sound: the room tone holds one second after he stops. Then out. --- ## Still off this soundtrack - Lucky Day Freight. True in the life. Not written on the airplane still. - Her name, the street, the phone, the email. - The name of the friend who told him about the room. - Which parent died first, or why. - Any child but the boy he was. Patrick is his brother.