This is the story of Howard Wakefield's catastrophe.



Howard returns home.
The crowd on a sidewalk, the silence of the voices, the lights of the city.
He enters the station, gets on the train, the landscape shatters in the reflections on the glass.
The traffic, the work, the documents, the cell phone, the deadlines, the routine.
The train stops in the middle of nowhere.
Howard also stops, in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the journey of his non-life.

He didn't respond to the calls from Diana, his wife. Now he is on the driveway, she is about to enter the house, she is also late this evening, she and her daughters are already sitting at the table for dinner. He's tired, he knows he'll argue, he doesn't feel like it. Then something happens. A raccoon draws his attention. He tries to chase it away, but the animal escapes and hides in the attic above his garage, opposite his house. He goes up the stairs, chases him, then finds him and sends him away. He is alone in the attic now. And here something else happens. He realizes that from the window he has a perfect view of his home, which has large windows. He observes his wife, now very angry, and decides, at that moment, not to return home for the night.

It always begins with a moment of darkness. Every time, he goes unnoticed, we never notice. It begins with an imperceptible variation, like a breath of wind touching the temples. That is the beginning of the tornado that will upset your existence. It is impossible to notice his birth. It will hurt a lot. Until the end. And you will blossom.
It's the catastrophe.

he wakes up with a start. The attic is a mess. He looks at his wife and her daughters. He considers the possibility of returning, but she will certainly think that he has been with another woman. She wouldn't understand the sequence of completely rational choices that led Howard to sleep in the small attic of his garage. He then waits. He will come back when she leaves for work. Howard cracks a smile. His thoughts chase each other. A raccoon walks in his brain.

he enters the house. He washes himself, eats something. He is in his bedroom, there is a notebook on the bedside table, he takes it, is about to write something, then stops. At that moment he has an intuition. He cleans up the traces of his passage, takes a few things and goes back to his hiding place. He closes himself in his world, in himself, there is no place for anyone. He thinks of her, of her wife. Here's his intuition: "Diana married the wrong man." Now he sees everything very clearly. She is continuing her routine. Nothing has changed for her. See, Howard? Your disappearance doesn't shock her, in fact it's a relief for her that you're gone. He thinks back to his marriage, to her love story, to himself, to his family. He sees again the images of his existence that crowd together, in a whirlwind of confused, impenetrable, insatiable emotions. He thinks back to his relationship with Diana, to the jealousy with which they season their moments of intimacy, to the games of glances, to the provocations, to sex, to love, to hate, to habit, to the same days, to absence. He approaches the window. His wife called the police. He observes the tears of that woman who perhaps he never truly loved. And it's night again.

After that moment of darkness, invisible like a dove in the snow, everything remains the same, but the germ of becoming is already everywhere. Nothing will be the same as after, because that after will no longer exist. These are aborted futures, deviations, atoms of madness (and the madness of atoms). These are unprecedented configurations of primordial pieces, of new meridians (as Paul Celan would say). It is the catastrophe that takes its course, that makes its course, relentless and poetic, like a hungry raccoon digging through garbage.

Howard's eyes begin to wear a whole new look . At a certain point, among his infinite reflections, he asks us a question «who has never felt the impulse to suspend their life? I ask you." Because that's exactly what he did. He suspended his life, he interrupted the flow of his existence. He pauses. Stop. It could be the end, it definitely will be. It's not a game: he acted rationally, he would like to shout it in the face of all those who are now at his house, with his family, who think that he has gone away, abandoning them. But he's there, he's just a few feet away, he spends more time with them now than he ever has before. He takes care of them, observes his women, re-knows them, re-discovers them. His wife, for example. Diana was the girlfriend of his best friend, Dirk. Two friends, almost brothers, both very competitive, and Howard turns this into a challenge too. He does everything, and manages to make sure, through dishonesty and manipulation, that his friend makes irreparable mistakes. Now Diana belongs to him. She conquered it, with deception and lies. This is what he thought about when he reflected on the fact that his wife had married the wrong man ("Would I have ever wanted her if she hadn't been my best friend's girlfriend? Was it just competition?"). He gave her no choice. He wanted her, and it wasn't exactly love. Now he admits it, he recognizes it. It was a monster. Love is another thing. Love is giving the possibility to choose, not to be chosen. Howard knows this, yet he continues to manipulate his wife. His absence is too cumbersome a presence in Diana's life: she knows that as long as he remains missing, she will not be able to start dating another man again, not without the stigma and accusing eyes of her relatives and friends. . His lust for control still throbs very strongly. He is pleased with himself. "I still have my wife." Disappearing like this was a power move.
This is who Howard Wakefield is.

Look at his wife, from that small window that filters the world, the entire universe, its very existence. He looks at his wife and thinks. His life weighs on every minute, every mistake, every denial. He has been locked up there for three days now.

The meridians intertwine. In the darkness of meaning the path of catastrophe opens up. It can only be like this. After all, it is in the dense darkness of the forest that every birth takes place. Yes, they intertwine, overlap, branch out, deviate, divert, become extinct, are loaded with monsters. The eyes of a raccoon peer into the abyss of your life.

It had begun by chance, like a one-night stand. Now, however, it has become a new life, hidden in the shadows, and the desire to abandon everything and everyone comes forward with explosive force. No, he will not return to his family. His wife, his daughters, they will all be better off without him. He likes the idea of ​​leaving aside responsibilities, duties, the rhythms of everyday life, the tasks of life, formalities, "good mornings" and "good evenings", coffees, anonymous questions, holidays, bills, the mother-in-law, the same days, the 6.56pm train, the office, the documents, the seasons, the job of being there, the coats, the projects, the desperate evenings, the messages, the trip to the seaside, merciless pity, daily rots, the bureaucracy of existence. All. Everything. Who wouldn't be happy to walk away from all that? But this is not an escape. He says it himself: «escape is easy. He can do it anyone. But this way you always remain the same person. This is different." Yes, this is different. Here there is nothing that is an end (in itself), not anymore. There is suspension, the mechanism underlying the poetic dimension of meaning. There is the metaphor, that is, the transformation, the change, at the most radical and powerful point of his being. There is a catastrophe. Then he lets himself go, flows away from life, alienates himself, takes on a look from the outside: he becomes a satellite, he goes to the moon, he observes his life as it flows, he becomes a spectator of Howard Wakefield's existential play: he is on stage acting and yet it is in the public, at the same time, at the same temple, the one in which stands the altar of the God of moments that can only be lost.

No man is an island. So John Donne once said. This is certainly true. However Howard decides to become one. In fact, he does more. He becomes an atoll, one of those that the ocean devours and never gives back. He definitively renounces material objects and comforts, he feeds only on what he finds in the garbage, he no longer even takes care of his hygiene, he washes himself from time to time in the neighbors' bathroom. He doesn't shave, he doesn't comb his hair, his beard and hair will become long, dirty, tangled. He deprives himself of any direct interaction with people. He lets himself be submerged by the ocean. The atoll is no longer there. The clean shirt, the perfect shave, the watch, the credit cards, the car, the customers and all the rest of the army of darkness, it is now clear, are nothing more than constraints that chained him to a life that no longer exists. recognizes more as such. There is only ocean now. His wife won't have to worry anymore. «I won't take anything from her anymore. Nor from that house. I will maintain myself as a castaway, a survivor. Hidden. Free".
Hidden.
Free.
Howard never resurfaces, he becomes the ghost of himself. A survivor of life. A castaway. “Castaway on the room”. She drifts into his room, which is the entire cosmos. A ghost dragging chains wanders around the gothic castle he holds in his heart, uninhabited, frightening, gloomy.
"I will become the Howard Wakefield I should have been."


Days and weeks pass. He is always there, in that timeless chrysalis, but with all the storms. Something tremendous and wonderful is happening inside him. It's the catastrophe. He continues to think, to reflect, to imagine. Diana, his daughters, the meaning of everything. Autumn arrives without warning. He starts to really see himself, like he never did. For the first time in his life, he takes off every mask. He looks at his reflection and recognizes himself. He begins to realize that selfishness and jealousy have guided his life, influencing his behavior. He is the only one responsible, he is the guilty one. His mistakes, his defeats, his failures, his frustrations: it's his fault. You're your own killer, Howard. As each of us is of ourselves.
Winter is coming. The frost penetrates everywhere. Unexpectedly, humanity bursts into his days. Two kids, patients of his neighbor, discover his hiding place. He realizes that he is no longer safe, he could be discovered. He starts going out at night, digs through the rubbish, walks along the lake, looks deep into the sky, gets lost, finds himself again after so long. He imagines a thousand variations of a possible chance meeting with his wife. The world is opening up, he contains it, he perceives its immensity. The night is full of stars. He knows what happened.
"I didn't abandon my family. I have abandoned myself."
Devastating. Abandon yourself, and how do you do it? How do you go to the moon, how do you become a satellite? The suspension, the disorientation, the look from outside. It is a radical, extreme existential variation, an ontological revolution that redefines the contours of the mind.
he Now he doesn't know if it is better to leave the attic, completely cancel himself, sleep in the woods, let himself disappear even more. The ghost realizes that life continues. Maybe they really are happier without him. Daughters no longer have to feel obligated to love him. Diana no longer feels suffocated. But a doubt troubles his mind.
"How long will I let this go on?".
What will you do, Howard?
Will you return home or will you remain a castaway, a ghost, immersed in the darkness at the edge of the world?
He is afraid.
The cold of winter will kill him. He has to make a decision. Come back, disappear forever, let yourself die. He looks into the eyes of the raccoon who had led him to the attic that evening many months ago. It's still the same, isn't it I have doubts. It's freezing, he's malnourished, debilitated, dirty, and has never been more aware of himself, despite doubts, uncertainties and heartbreaking dilemmas. This is Alice and he has gone through the looking glass. He looks back at his life and clearly sees all the mistakes he has made, and it is so clear that it is his fault, not the others, as he has always told himself. And then, one day, it just happens.
Diana starts dating another man. By a strange twist of fate, he turns out to be Dirk. Howard is immersed in the cold wind of the most powerful winter of his life. He goes out at night, walks in the woods. There are pieces of darkness stuck in his eyes. He inhales greedily. He cries. He breathes the universe. Every moment, every event, every detail, everything, every hidden aspect of his life converges in this precise moment. It is the hour of catastrophe.

The catastrophe I speak of is to be understood in its mathematical sense. That is, morphogenesis, change of shape, redefinition of identity, genesis, rebirth. The catastrophe is the turning point, of no return, of never again. It is existential change. It is the result of a series of quantitative changes which, accumulated over time, at a certain point, determine a qualitative change. Like water which, through quantitative variations (the temperature which progressively lowers), at a certain threshold (to zero degrees), changes shape and becomes ice. The catastrophe. It occurs at all levels. In nature, in social relationships, in the artistic dimension, in any human expression, in the macro and micro dimensions and in the individual one. Howard finds his critical moment, the catastrophic point, right there, in the middle of the woods, in the cold of the night. Many small, progressive quantitative variations have led him to this, and here the change in form occurs. Howard Wakefield flourishes.


There is a poem by Czeslaw Milosz that came to mind several times while watching this film. It's called The window.

I looked out the window and saw
a young diaphanous apple tree in the light.

And when I looked once again at dawn
there was a large apple tree full of fruit.

So many years must have passed
but I don't remember what happened in my sleep .

And Borges comes to mind, and his Fictions, and the fact that «in the dream of the man who dreamed it, the dreamed woke up». And the perennial question of that genius born directly from God's headache, Davi Lynch: «we are like the dreamer who dreams and lives in the dream. But who is the dreamer?".

We are in front of the window, we observe the tree of existence, its incomprehensible, wonderful, terrible, perfect, bloody branches. In sleep, our single (multiple) life takes place. We are the dreamer and we are the dreamed and we are the dream. The window is the entrance to the woods, all we have to do is get lost, but to tell ourselves and to give ourselves. And somehow be born.

Howard wakes up in the dream he was dreaming. He is the dreamer, he is the dreamed. And he cannot understand the time spent, the time lost and the clear reflection in the eyes of the person he loves. Diana, the girls. The waste, the dust, the raccoon who is perhaps an angel. The embrace of my family which is certainly heaven.

And instead I ignored it, I continued to sleep, I didn't wake up in the dream and I lost everything, I lost myself. I'm afraid of being like Howard. Above all, I fear that I am far from catastrophe. But I couldn't know that anyway. Am I awake in my dream? How much time has passed? How much time is in the future? I want to go to the lake shore, immerse myself in the woods, become myself, be me. Return to my Diana, take her with me to the Moon and kiss her in the light of the Earth.

Yes.

I look out the window. I imagine another me, also at the window, in his very personal attic, unable to sleep, and then I imagine another, who perhaps sleeps and dreams of being awake, of being me, of being a raccoon rummaging through garbage.

«If I came back, how would I start? How can a man in my situation explain himself to his wife? He'll think I've lost my mind. If anything, I got it back. Completely. I can see it perfectly. I'm the one who made the whole thing. Jealousy, resentment, needs dictated by selfishness. Howard is the victim, Howard is the tormentor, Howard made him the world. That was my prison. There and where I fled. What are they now? An outcast of the cosmos. I love my wife like I have never loved her before »

Howard is in bloom.
In the most significant scene of the film, with an excellent editing in my opinion, at the apex of the curve catastrophic, Howard Wakefield blossoms. He comes to light. He is exhausted, like any newborn. There is blood everywhere. And there are tears, smiles, ecstasy, pain, immensity.
Now yes, Howard. Now it's really you. Something has arisen.
"I love my wife as I have never loved her before."
And he knows that if he returned from exile there would be ample possibility of losing her.
she He sees it clearly in her eyes. She is infatuated.
But it is right that she seeks a little tenderness, why shouldn't she? Her husband has been missing for months, probably dead. She needs to fill the anguish, to calm the demon of absence.
Howard watches her, he has tears in her eyes, it is her love of her life, the life of her love about her, it's all so incredibly clear! And he and she and the girls, what little girls they are no longer, and the winter, the night, the fear of being true, the eclipse strategies, the days made of minutes made of centuries, the window, the universe, the comets, the blankets, the kisses at dawn, his fingers on my back and "guess what I write", the sudden sunsets, the walks hand in hand, hands in tomorrow, the first kiss, the second, the umpteenth, again, again, sighs, snow, swan, music, insects, caresses, verses, and hopes and desires and new dawns, clues to the future, drawings, fire, dinosaurs, everything, every house, if we are together.

«If he is what you want, my love, it's right that you can choose this time".
Enough lies, manipulation, selfishness.
It's Christmas, he's been missing for a lot of months (I like to think it's nine: the time to a pregnancy, a re-birth). Now he is ready, he feels free, finally free. He uses the last bit of money he has left to clean himself up and make himself presentable, buy a new suit and pick up his life where he left off.

He's on the driveway.
How that evening.
He sees his women around the Christmas tree.
Imagine the possible scenarios, the two possible reactions from Diana and the girls.
The first is of  pure joy.
The second is of unspeakable terror.
Despite the dilemma, Howard moves forward.
He accepts every consequence.
He is a free man.
He loves his life, his wife , his family.
He puts the keys in the lock.
He opens the door, crosses the threshold, smiles.

"I'm home", he says.
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