The Glowing Girl

A love that wasn’t meant to be

Freddie worked the projector at the Empire. Dust, boredom, and the smell of old cigars were his life. That changed with the Lumière film, the one where Parisians kissed in a sun-drenched square.

He’d run it a hundred times. But that Tuesday, the screen shivered. He thought it was a loose lens. Then, the man in the film turned his head, looked right at Freddie, and winked. A scent of fresh bread and summer rain filled the booth. Freddie’s heart hammered against his ribs.

The next night, he focused on the girl. She was always there, a blonde in a blue dress, laughing as she was spun by her sweetheart. He felt a fool, but he whispered to the flickering light, “You’re the best part of it.”

The screen rippled, like water. A wave of warmth, of real sunlight from a Parisian afternoon, washed over him. And there she was—not flat, but full of breath and life, standing in the dusty beam before the linen. She was silent, a phantom of light and longing.

He didn’t scream. He said, “Hello.”

She smiled. She couldn’t speak, but she held out a hand. It was made of a thousand shifting grains of silver light, but it felt solid, warm. He took it.

Every night after, when the last patron left, he’d thread the reel. The screen became their doorway. She’d step through, and for an hour, the projection booth was a Parisian square. They’d dance to the silent piano score, her light form weightless in his arms. He’d tell her about grey London, and she’d listen, her bright eyes understanding. He brought her a single, real daisy. She held it, and it seemed to glow in her grasp.

It was a perfect, impossible secret. Freddie’ world was the projector’s hum and her radiant smile. He stopped noticing the dust.

He grew reckless. He started the reel during a matinee, just to see her face in the crowd. The screen pulsed. A wave of foreign laughter, too loud, too real, spilled into the theatre. A ghostly couple from the film appeared for a second between the rows, startling an old major. The manager frowned. “Glitch in the machine, Freddie. Fix it.”

Freddie knew it wasn’t the machine. It was his heart, pulling her through.

That Friday, he had a plan. A real plan. He’d found a tiny flat, sunnier. He’d saved. He threaded the film, his hands steady. “Come with me,” he whispered to the light. “For good.”

She appeared, glowing brighter than ever. But as she reached for him, the projector’s lamp sputtered, strained by a love it wasn’t built to hold. The image flickered wildly—the square, the people, her—all fragmenting.

“No!” Freddie cried, clutching her shimmering hand.

The lamp blew with a pop and a wisp of smoke.

Darkness. Silence. The scent of hot metal and dust.

She was gone. The screen was just a dirty sheet.

Freddie sat in the black for a long time. The magic was broken. The loophole, closed.

He never found another film that glowed. But sometimes, on rainy afternoons when the light slants just right through the booth’s high window, he’ll see a shimmer in the dust motes. And once, he swears he found a single, perfect daisy petal, glowing faintly on the floor by the silent machine.

Total:800 words
Prompt: write a story or poem about an early (nineteenth century) movie in which the screen somehow becomes a "portal" allowing the images to escape into the real world.

The results can be wonderful or terrible, your choice, and it's also up to you to explain (or not) what turned the screen into a portal in the first place.

Entry for: "The Writer's Cramp"  February 5, 2026