Jacob hated the film.

He found it oddly depressing,
like a slideshow at a funeral.

The film gave the history of the valley.

It laid out the last hundred years of the land like dominoes.

The director had obviously tried to paint
death as something

inevitable and beautiful.

You know, like a life cycle.

The video was a gravestone.

But the worst part, really, was the narrator,

the way her sad soothing voice smoothed the whole thing out,

again and again, every fifteen minutes,

as if everything, everywhere, were okay.