Free White Out by Michael W Clune Page A

multiplies. When the new Mogwais get food after midnight, they turn into terrifying monsters: gremlins. The worst gremlin is Stripe. He attacks people with a chainsaw. He drives a car. He throws lots of Mogwais into a big swimming pool.
    I made the film that night before I fell asleep, and I was ready during recess at school the next day. The way this worked is that the kids who had seen the new cool movie would stand in the center of a semicircle of other kids, and trade reminiscences about it.
    “Do you remember when Stripe gets that chainsaw? That was awesome!”
    “What about when that tractor crashes through the window in the living room? Awesome!”
    I stepped into the circle, “How about the part where he spills that glass of water on Gizmo?”
    They looked at me. “ You saw Gremlins ?” I replayed the scene in my mind. The water blots out Gizmo’s dog shape, leaving the thick body dough curling on the floor. Little stalks shoot up. Some thicken into dog shapes. Some turn into trees. One becomes a book. “Sure. He spills water on Gizmo and then there are all these other Mogwais. It’s awesome!”
    My conviction and intensity were not faked, and they saw and believed. I’d lain awake all the last night playing the movie in my mind. Standing in that circle, I saw every scene in color. My movie had grown far beyond the bounds of Dan’s skimpy script, but I kept those rich scenes secret. The scene in my movie showing how Stripe actually gets the chainsaw remained secret. Other things about Stripe remained secret. The special secret of Stripe’s birth remained secret.
    You see, to me, this movie was more than just a way of increasing my status with my little friends. I really wanted to see Gremlins , but my parents wouldn’t let me see the one in the theaters, so I had to make my own. In order for my Gremlins to be real, I needed that circle of kids. I didn’t need the movie to be cool with them. I needed them in order to see the movie. That circle of kids was the projector that played the film I’d made. Focused by that semicircle, the watery images I’d made up in bed the previous night took on vivid colors, became real.
    The others’ presence was what allowed me to see something I couldn’t see in any other way. Not just Stripe holding the chainsaw, but Stripe the master of water, Stripe born inside his enemies, born of his enemies. My Gremlins was real. In this movie made in my body and projected on that school recess semicircle, everyone and me dissolved. I didn’t do it just to make friends. No one just wants that. People want something real from people. We want some thing. Relations between people are a means to an end, like ladders and cranes and movie projectors. People get together to bring new things into the world.
    Another incident illustrates this principle. (Or is it an illness?) This was even earlier, touching that region of deep memory where my way of walking, the way I tie my shoes originates. There was a children’s game called Candy Land and everyone had it, even me. Candy Land was beautiful. It was a board game, like Monopoly, and you moved your little piece around the board based on the cards you drew. I think it was one of those games without winners or losers, like life.
    The board was a triumph of Art: It showed inherently beautiful things in a realistic way. Gumdrop mountains, a molasses swamp, candy canes a thousand feet tall. Like all great artworks, it was also a map, a map that showed new things in the little town we lived in. One afternoon on the swings I announced that Candy Land was a real place six blocks away from my house.
    I continued to announce it to anyone who would listen.
    “I know where Candy Land is. It’s about six blocks away from here.” Almost nothing lasts for a week in childhood. Wait a week, and if it’s still there, it’s real. The majority of the things that actually lasted tended to be dull things like chairs and people, so a certain disillusion, a