Tarkovsky would surely protest this bastard child, sprung forth from the loins of "his masterpiece interpreted", inseminated by "Mylacking BBC English", brutally compounded, packaged, and tied with a bow by LC. Watch Solaris before continuing...

"That's an interesting question, there was much talk today about what they were doing... the magnitude of the problem across England and Wales..."
The man on the radio relays issues deemed important enough; in the interest of the public, and speaks without tune but with enough intonation that is very much in the interest of the public. The words are neither hard nor soft. The words are, as far as words can be, unbent in their position yet not unemotional. Talking computers could never deliver the news. Moods of combined bodies, empathy or even sympathy for certain individuals, the opposition, actual and in devilish form, corporate boot polish, must be somehow addressed.

Facts had been pouring from the DAB radio all morning. Elsie's eyes grew dim between the spreadsheet on the screen and the perpetual noise, so, being in a shared office, she found the Cliff Martinez soundtrack to that film (remakes are in vogue) and put her headphones on. The determination to unclose her mind into the otherworldly melody made it harder to shut her ears to this one; the overlapping sounds too different to blend; through the soothing notes, she could still hear the man behind his desk, stony suit clad, sitting upright in his attentiveness, not good-looking but by no means unattractive; for a messenger of worldly truths is erudite and wholesome, an able commentator on matters larger than real, and in the rarer moments when a story has goodness at the core, he can relax his serious disposition, lean back in his seat and smile (he is doing it now). Through frivolous exchanges with the female traffic reporter, he has become a real boy.

And all at once, the well-travelled vibrations reach their destination! The severity of man's hand ricochets across her brain in these moments; the barrier of flippancy that keeps us sane highlights the atrocities, and pulls, and binds, people to each other. At some point did a dictator fall down and laugh? Did a butcher ever hear a lovers' tiff? Sometimes thoughts are disgusting, especially when combined. When does a noun become a name? Have they ever heard the news? Sometimes said words are disgusting, especially when combined.

She was no longer listening to the broadcast, but hearing stresses that go with monologue; on Solaris my visitor is this man, like the one Mum wanted me to marry all those years ago. In his stony suit and polished shoes he comes and visits me, with his radio face, all my pride, all my heart. We were friends for so long, years, before he finally popped the question. Then, one rainy day in August my worst nightmares became real. He is the news and I am left in pieces.

Love gushed upon the ground relentlessly, seeped into it and congealed, and then over much time, the leaky pipes were managed. The physical ghost holds a mirror to this time past, its presence reburst the system at the seams. Her whole being pours out of its skin. Against the grain of life he is fully revived. When the shock wears off, Tarkovsky's tank beacons. The director sits in the director's chair, his finger pointing Elsie to reason.

Living on Memory Island until the end could be a happy existence. The weather is the news here and she was sure he would rise to the occasion: Of these things my dedicated anchor would tell, a straight talker on the great prevailing currents of the mercurial oceans, that swirl up to meet and greet personal lack of individuals without asking; perhaps out of curiosity rather than reason. He would describe the deeper veins of grey bleeding into the silvery melt, and the way one would slide over another, superimposed rivers, meandering like thoughts in the cerebral pool. Everything remembered is in its waves. The news here is poetry.

On the ship, the director sits in a bath-like well in the floor, fully clothed for summer. The liquid is steaming warm. He has a glass of wine. He has a cigar. Tarkovsky clicks his fingers. Are you getting in or not? His glasses are steamed up. The real characters had been eaten up by this question. What do you say?

Her love has told her this, eternal life is no secret.
Two hours have flown by. Elsie breaths deeply, parts of her thoughts replay until the phone rings.