It was late afternoon. Rick and Tammy were in their bedroom on the second floor of their home, discussing what to make for dinner, when they heard the doorbell ring.  After exchanging “I’m-not-expecting-anyone” looks, Rick headed downstairs to see who was there. As always, he had to overcome some trepidation before looking to see who was at the door. He had seen too many movie scenes of people getting shot in the eye through peepholes to approach that task lightly.

Despite the distortions of the visitor’s face by the concavity of the peephole lens, and the fact that Rick had not seen this particular face in over thirty years, He recognized the still-handsome countenance of his high school classmate, Leonard Starkwosky, known to the fans of older movies and TV shows as Leonard Stark. He was carrying a medium-sized suitcase that was too big for an airplane carry on. Leonard looked worried, and he was nervously moving from side to side. “Maybe he needs to use the bathroom,” Rick speculated. 

As soon as Leonard came inside, he started chatting casually, as if they saw each other every day, but the worried look persisted, he appeared distracted, tried to peek into the media room from the hallway, and spoke rapidly, “I’m on a road trip, driving from Los Angeles to Vancouver Canada  to appear at…I mean… attend my nephew’s wedding, and you are on my list.”

“List?”

“Yes, of good friends that I know along the way, I’m stopping at their homes to say hi, and to share some screen time.” 

“Screen time?” 

“Yes, everyone has big screen TVs and a theatre-quality sound system these days, perfect for socializing.”

“Well, let’s go upstairs to the living room, you can say hi to Tammy and we can catch up.”

“Uh, is your TV upstairs or downstairs?”

“Downstairs, why?”

“In that case, let’s stay down here. It’s been great catching up with you, but I was watching something on my car dashboard screen and I’m anxious to get back to it. It’s my hour-long career-highlights video.” 

As soon as Leonard saw Rick’s high-end home-entertainment system his worried expression evaporated, and he was able to stand still. Not wanting to disrupt this equilibrium, Rick gave in to Leonard’s plea for screen-viewing time. 

Leonard tracked Rick’s movements very closely as Rick fired up the system and inserted the DVD. “Don’t worry about running out of things to watch, Rick. I have recordings of all of my movies, TV shows, talk-show appearances—everything. We can start with my career-highlights as an appetizer.  I’ll go back to the beginning; I wouldn’t want you to miss anything. Do we have time to finish it before dinner?”

Rick tried to remember if Leonard had been this narcissistic, obtuse, and entitled in high school. Leonard had been a standout performer in the school plays, but in everyday life he had been shy and awkward, even after his nose job. 

As Leonard stared at the screen, hypnotized by his own image, Rick excused himself and went upstairs to brief Tammy on the strange drama playing out with their uninvited guest. Tammy was convinced that Leonard was playing some type of practical joke and decided to play along. “Tell him dinner is in an hour, after his highlights tape.”

When Rick went back downstairs, Leonard’s attention was laser focused on his image on the screen—a look of rapture on his face. However, within a few minutes he was fiddling with the picture controls. “Can’t we get the image any sharper?”

“Everything is perfectly adjusted, and my set up is 8K Ultra HD, but the technology of the older recordings will limit…” 

Leonard sharply cut him off, “I’ve had everything digitally remastered to 8K Ultra!” 

“Great idea.” Rick knew that this was technically impossible, but wasn’t about to challenge Leonard, who appeared about as emotionally stable as Nicholas Cage at his most unhinged. 

After a short dinner break it was back downstairs to the screen. They watched one of Leonards’ movies, and two episodes of his short-lived TV series from the 1990s, Have Stethoscope Will Travel. In that series he was a physician for hire who flew his own plane all around the world treating medical problems, while managing to solve his patients’ emotional, financial, and moral dilemmas before the end of each episode. 

“Sorry I can’t stay overnight, but I’m on a tight schedule. Next stop is Matt Margosian in Seattle. I’m pretty sure he will have an awesome entertainment system, isn’t he a sound engineer?”

“No, aeronautical engineer.”

“Close enough.”

“Is he expecting you?”

Looking puzzled and offended by the question, Leonard stated confidently, “He’ll be thrilled to see me. We used to just drop into each other’s homes when we hung out in high school. I’m sure he won’t mind. I have to stay on schedule. I have a dozen friends from high school to visit before I get to Vancouver. Think of all those screens, blending together—an ocean of them—it will be like all of us are watching together on the world’s biggest movie screen. All of my friends and I will be together…watching me.”

Rick knew that there was no bringing Leonard back to Earth, and feared any attempt at reality testing would push Leonard further over the edge. He decided that the safest approach was to be an obedient and attentive audience member and hope that Leonard would eventually tire of watching himself. As the credits rolled at the end of one of his movies, Rick was surprised when Leonard disengaged from the screen long enough to say, “Rick, you have a great home-entertainment system here, but wouldn’t it be great to see me up on the big screen? Where’s the biggest screen in Portland?”

“There is an IMAX set up at OMSI, the science museum near the river, and the Hollywood Theatre can project 70 mm on its giant screen.”

“Love it, what time are any of my movies showing, maybe one of the new ones? I’ll treat.”

An uncomfortably long period of time passed as Rick, normally quick witted, racked his brain for the best response. Leonard had never been a big enough star to have been filmed in 70 mm or IMAX and he hadn’t made a movie in over 10 years. Finally, Rick came up with a tactfully evasive response, “I haven’t been inside of a movie theatre since COVID hit. I don’t know if I’ll ever go back.” Leonard stared back blankly, “Oh yeah, COVID, it was great for my streaming residuals.”

Leonard snatched up the TV control and began searching through the streaming options. He searched under a few of his movie titles and then under his name. Coming up dry, he angrily tossed the control onto the couch and shouted, “This search feature sucks; you better get an upgrade.” 

Rick needed to keep Leonard distracted long enough for him to go upstairs and strategize with Tammy on how to handle Leonard’s rapidly deteriorating mental state. Handing the control back to Leonard, Rick instructed him to find the episode of Have Stethoscope will Travel in which Leonard performs emergency neurosurgery to save the life of Barbara, his love interest in that episode. Barbara had fallen, hit her head, and was dying from bleeding around the brain. As Leonard searched the DVD for that episode Rick escaped upstairs.

“Leonard’s having a mental meltdown in our media room,” Rick advised Tammy, trying not to panic.

“Did anyone from your high school go into psychiatry?” Tammy inquired.

Before Rick could answer, he and Tammy were shocked to see Leonard standing in the room, a hefty, no-nonsense, death-black Baretta pistol in hand. Leonard was breathing hard and perspiring heavily, eyes blazing. He raged, “Where have you been? I had to pause the episode in the middle of performing neurosurgery—that’s… fucking… rude.”

Leonard, familiar with handling weapons from various roles, motioned persuasively with the pistol for his captives to head downstairs and then to be seated on the couch. Not wanting to risk another interruption, Leonard retrieved two sets of handcuffs and leg irons from his bag and secured his audience to the couch. “Comfy?” he asked, not waiting for an answer before resuming the episode. 

After about five minutes his fury had subsided, and Leonard was again totally immersed in watching himself on the screen. Then he made a pleasing discovery. Not only was he able to watch the episode, but he could also see Rick, Tammy, and himself reflected on the screen, and if he tilted his head just right, and squinted, he could see all of his other friends watching too. 

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