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The House Is Occupied

a forecast fire at 21:17, a boarding house of four, and the observer who goes in

FIFTEEN LINES

  1. WaldemarSixteen past, the order. Seventeen past, the fire.
  2. SkillerIndependent means you don't go in. Leave the house as you find it.
  3. The replayObserver. Cannot be entered.
  4. Belindo KidThat's Ogiva's.
  5. Widow RoesslerThat's his. Up one flight. I only insure the people.
  6. OgivaThat's the only one with my name in it.
  7. InigoThey measured the rooms with me in them. They kept asking me to step outside.
  8. AdaStay out once you're out.
  9. WaldemarInigo. Pull it at the wall.
  10. InigoInigo. I'm in the stockroom.
  11. NarratorIt is the same picture.
  12. Widow RoesslerFive. Count me.
  13. Fire captainIt's eleven minutes early.
  14. SkillerYou've just signed as a participant.
  15. WaldemarAda. Case zero one three.

HOW IT IS MADE

This film continues from The Burning of the Abominable House. Waldemar, the programmer, now works for himself, and Skiller, the insurance agent, now sends him forecasts to check. At 21:06 his machine prints a second sheet for the Roessler boarding house across the rail yard: at 21:16 the system will order the stockroom shutter closed, and at 21:17 the stockroom will burn. Skiller wants an independent observer who does not go in. Waldemar runs the forecast again with himself in it, and the machine refuses him as a party. He crosses the yard anyway.

Inside are four people who live there: the widow Roessler, who owns the house; Ogiva, who makes wigs; Inigo, who lives on the stair; and Belindo Kid, who boxes and carries the forecast picture folded in his glove. Waldemar reports the forecast to Ada at the fire desk, and the slip gets a time stamp. At 21:16 the order rings through on the house phone, the freight train covers the warning, and the shutter comes down with Inigo behind it. The fire happens at 21:17 as forecast. The picture the machine printed at 21:06 turns out to be the frame of the rescue itself. Afterwards the captain notes that the slip came in eleven minutes early, and Skiller notes that Waldemar has signed as a participant. At dawn the printer starts on case 013.

Every person is a jointed puppet drawn in the same engraved line as the earlier films, with a costume for each: Waldemar’s cardigan and glasses, Skiller’s coat, hat and camera, the widow’s shawl and bun, Ogiva’s bare head, Inigo’s long hair and bare feet, Belindo’s singlet and gloves with a white stitch on the left thumb, Ada’s headset, the captain’s striped helmet. The clock in the corner is the story’s own clock. The forecast picture is not a separate drawing: the film draws its own rescue frame once when it loads, samples it into a grid of dots, and prints that grid on the title sheet and in the inserts, so the forecast and the event are the same picture.

The sound follows the house: rain, a dot-matrix printer, two telephones, a call-record box with two lamps, a spoon on a cup, a fan on the bottom step, a spark at a socket, the 21:16 freight, a shutter chain, a fire, a camera flash, a siren, an engine at idle, and the train again at dawn.

FOR THE BENCH

Make the forecast picture the way the film does. Draw a scene on a hidden <canvas>, shrink it with drawImage(big, 0, 0, 160, 90), and read the pixels back with getImageData. For each pixel compute darkness, 1 - (0.3*r + 0.59*g + 0.11*b) / 255, and draw a dot whose radius grows with the square root of that number. Print the rows one at a time to get the printer. Then change one thing in the hidden scene, such as moving a person a few pixels, and compare the two dot grids: count how many dots changed. That count is how far the forecast is from the event.

From Watson Hartsoe’s screenplay The House Is Occupied, after Italo Calvino, The Burning of the Abominable House, in Numbers in the Dark, translated by Tim Parks. Nothing is quoted from Calvino. Download the film (mp4).

THE SCRIPT

THE FORECAST · 21:06

Narrator. Six minutes past nine. A room above a rail yard.

Narrator. Across the yard, a boarding house with four lit windows. In the doorway, a man in a singlet, smoking, with his boxing gloves on.

Narrator. The printer feeds a second sheet.

Waldemar. Sixteen past, the order. Seventeen past, the fire.

Narrator. His invoice has come back from Reserve Mutual, with a cheque that nobody has signed. Payment on independent certification.

THE AGENT · 21:07

Skiller. Which one have you got?

Waldemar. Roessler. The forecast has a fire at seventeen past. Your schedule has an order at sixteen past.

Skiller. That's how a forecast reads. One thing, then the next.

Waldemar. Your order is the first thing. Take the call off the schedule.

Skiller. The call is the study. Take it off, and the forecast has nothing to be compared with.

Waldemar. There are four people in that house.

Skiller. Then you have four people to watch. That is what the cheque is for.

Skiller. Independent means you don't go in. Leave the house as you find it.

THE REPLAY · 21:08

Narrator. Eight minutes past. On his own copy of the case, he withholds the order.

The replay. Projected loss, none. Local copy only. Live schedule unchanged.

Narrator. He adds a fifth name to the parties. Skiller.

The replay. Party must be insured at this address.

Narrator. He types his own.

The replay. Observer. Cannot be entered.

Narrator. He folds the forecast and goes out without his coat.

THE YARD · 21:10

Narrator. Ten past. He crosses the tracks.

Belindo Kid. Rent's paid.

Waldemar. Keep your gloves on.

Narrator. Belindo looks at the man in the picture for longer than Waldemar expects. Then at the hair.

Belindo Kid. That's Ogiva's.

THE HALL · 21:11

Narrator. The front hall. A steel shutter rolled up over the stockroom door, its chain in a porcelain hand. A fan on the bottom step, its cable running in under the shutter.

Waldemar. Mrs. Roessler. Your insurer is going to telephone in five minutes, about the stockroom.

Widow Roessler. Which policy?

Waldemar. The house.

Widow Roessler. That's his. Up one flight. I only insure the people.

OGIVA’S ROOM · 21:11

Belindo Kid. He's got a picture of your red one.

Narrator. She turns back the cap. Inside, a label with her name, sewn by hand.

Ogiva. That's the only one with my name in it.

Narrator. An envelope of banknotes and a snapshot of a small boy go inside her blouse. She lifts the wig stand by its iron foot, and puts it down.

Waldemar. Leave the rest.

Ogiva. The rest were never mine.

THE LANDING · 21:12

Inigo. Is that my stair?

Waldemar. They have a picture of every room.

Inigo. They measured the rooms with me in them. They kept asking me to step outside.

Waldemar. Everybody into the yard.

Narrator. The fan cable runs to a socket beside a bricked-up door. The plate is hot. The tape on a splice has gone soft.

Waldemar. One way in. One way out.

THE FIRE DESK · 21:13

Ada. Fire desk. Is there smoke?

Waldemar. A socket's hot. The room has one way out, and in three minutes somebody is going to be told to drop a steel shutter across it.

Ada. Get everybody to the road. Address.

Waldemar. And write case zero one two on it.

Ada. Stay out once you're out.

THE ORDER · 21:16

Narrator. Fifteen past. Far off, a diesel horn.

Recorded woman. This is a scheduled loss-prevention call from Reserve Mutual. Please close the stockroom shutter. When the shutter is closed, say closed. To decline the protection, say declined.

Widow Roessler. What happens if I say declined?

Narrator. On the back of the forecast, in small type: cover subject to compliance with protective orders.

Widow Roessler. Can I give you the keys to four rooms and get four rooms back?

Waldemar. Inigo. Pull it at the wall.

THE FIRE · 21:17

Inigo. Open it.

Widow Roessler. Give me your hand.

Belindo Kid. Stand up.

Recorded woman. Please confirm the shutter is closed.

Ogiva. Get it up to here.

Waldemar. Say your name into this.

Inigo. Inigo. I'm in the stockroom.

Live operator. What is the status of the shutter?

Widow Roessler. It's down. I put it down when you told me.

Live operator. I need the word closed.

Ogiva. Other shoulder first. Show me your ear.

THE PICTURE · 21:18

Narrator. Belindo stays where he is, on his knees, with the red wig in both hands.

Narrator. It is the same picture.

Skiller. This is Reserve Mutual. I can confirm the shutter is closed.

Ogiva. Out. Now.

THE COUNT · 21:24

Fire captain. Everybody out?

Widow Roessler. Five. Count me.

Skiller. I have a record of a resident closing the shutter, and a photograph of the result.

Ogiva. That's what he lifted it with. Put that in your photograph.

THE EVIDENCE · 21:26

Fire captain. Who took this one?

Waldemar. A printer. At six minutes past nine.

Skiller. It's an exercise.

Fire captain. It's eleven minutes early.

Skiller. You walked into a house you were paid to watch. You sent a man into that room. Do you want that on the record?

Waldemar. Yes.

Narrator. He writes two lines under the picture. Nine past nine, I crossed the yard. Sixteen past, I sent Inigo to the socket. He signs.

Waldemar. Now ask her who told her to drop the shutter.

Widow Roessler. The woman on the telephone. Then he came in and said closed.

Ada. Zero one two. Twenty-one thirteen. Order to drop the stockroom shutter. It's on my slip.

Widow Roessler. I wrote it in duplicate.

THE CERTIFICATE · 21:29

Skiller. You've just signed as a participant.

Fire captain. Any more calls on that schedule?

Skiller. Three.

Fire captain. Give the desk the addresses.

Narrator. To take the radio, Skiller has to put the wig down. He looks for somewhere dry. In the end he puts it on his own folder.

CASE 013 · 05:52

Narrator. Before dawn, in the lab. The widow copies a rent receipt. Ogiva picks a knot out of the wig. Inigo brings five mugs.

Narrator. Waldemar writes the fire desk's number on the back of the cheque.

Narrator. The printer strikes once. Case zero one three.

Waldemar. Ada. Case zero one three.

Narrator. The widow sets a stone from the track against the door, and it stays open.