Too Late

There was this moment in Ghost in the Shell—Scarlett Johansson at a high window in Tokyo, nothing underneath but underwear and the glittering city far below. Squarepusher’s Tommib playing, which made the whole scene feel less like cinema and more like stepping into someone else’s fever dream, the kind that sticks to you long after you wake up. All I wanted was to sit there beside her. Not say anything. Just watch. Hold her hand. That was the entire thought.

Then I found out she’s pregnant. Romain Dauriac, a French journalist, got there first—got there at exactly the right moment. Now there’s a baby coming, and I’m still thinking about that window and that song and how the light probably felt against her skin in that one scene that didn’t even happen the way I remember it anymore.

Obviously I’m happy for her. I mean it. But there’s this small, dumb sadness that settles in—the sadness of knowing I never stood a chance, which I already knew, but now it’s official. Confirmed. Done.

This is where you move on to the next one. Jennifer Lawrence, someone else. The carousel keeps turning. By now I know that watching doesn’t change anything, but I watch anyway. What else is there to do.