To whoever finds this —

I have spent three years now thinking about what we made. Or what we did not make. The reels are gone. Marcus says they were never developed; Marcus says many things. What returns to me is the crew at night, standing around the lit set with nowhere left to go.

Hands in the dark hours shape the light no one will see; then we all go home. That is what I keep. We had everything. We had Vera's rooms, Tomas's lens, Asa's quiet music. We had the whole machine running, and then it stopped running, and no one could tell me why.

If you are reading this, the work is not lost. The work is the people. The film was always going to be a rumor. I think I understood that, even at the beginning, and I think they did too.

Forgive me for the parts I could not finish. They are still finishing, somewhere.

— V.H., Topanga, December 1976