FIN // CAPITOL // LELAND MADISON STANFORD

I.
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Name: Mr. Leland Madison Stanford
Gender: Male
Age: Thirty eight
Orientation: Heterosexual
Occupation: Studio Head at Temple Pictures

II.
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My dearest Minna,

Forgive the delay of my reply. I miss you desperately, and finding myself again so far from home has proved-

WHRRR. CHCKCHCKCHCKCHCK. TNNNUNUNUN.

The words split apart, curling and falling to the already heaped pile of paper streamers as the wall-mounted shredder does its job. Stanford looks on with dark eyes gleaming, his neat, thick-lipped mouth cocked in the half-smile that's the only indication that this process gives him any sort of pleasure. In the light from the row of dim bulbs on the ceiling of his burgundy-walled office, his face looks even more demonic than usual, with his cheekbones jutting in a perfect V towards the cropped moustache that rests below his bent nose.

He's been shredding letters for almost twenty minutes now, but from the way he stands he could have been at it for days. There's a slight sense of discomfort in his posture, the way one shoulder is slightly higher than the other in the clean, black suit jacket he wears; the way the top of his spine curves slightly so his neck slants forwards, pushing his square, bearded chin out; the way his large forehead is covered in a sheen of sweat, glistening from beneath the shadow of his short, course locks. And yet, despite all these apparent weaknesses, Leland Madison Stanford is still the sort of man that can command a room just by standing in it.

George Buchanan says it best, as Stanford skims over the letter from his predecessor's boxes of files:

Minna,

This Stanford character is unlike any man I've ever met, although that could be to do with the fact he appears to be from a place altogether different from our own city. It's in the way he looks at you - like he knows so much more about the world. Leland Stanford has the eyes of a man who has seen generations-worth of wonders.

It's the smile which hit me first. Straight teeth, white, so white, but the gums of someone acquainted with hard substances (something sweeter than sugar but sharper than salt, Minna), a raw, bloody frame for the masterpiece of his grin. When he reached for my hand, his fingers were so elegant. Surprisingly uncalloused, for a man who has spent so much of his time signing contracts and writing letters to take these Godforsaken Studios from me. He stands a good head taller than me, probably taller than everyone who graces the world of the Studios, and didn't stoop when he talked to me. Instead, he kept his shoulders tensed, his neck straight. He tried to have the posture of the man who understands the power behind a good stance.

CHNCHNCHNCHNCHN whirrs the shredder again and the rest of Buchanan's testimonial to his beloved is rendered unreadable. Under the noise, Stanford laughs softly, a deep, thick laugh that throbs in his throat, rather than from behind his teeth. Anyone who hears his voice doesn't so much listen to but drift on it, letting the soft, slow cadences sweep them along in the conversation. The slight accent, a long, sigh-like i sound and a sea-foam t, is spellbinding - it's the sort of voice you would want to fall asleep to, and yet, if you were so lucky as to get the chance, you'd try to cling to the last strands of consciousness, just to hear one more sweet syllable drift from between his light, arched lips.

Stanford is not an indulgent man, but he never denies himself a pleasure he feels he's truly earnt. And, after finally securing the contract for the latest production at his beloved Temple Pictures, the famous, albeit notoriously secretive Capitol film studios, he thought it was time to do a little spring cleaning. Out with the old, that's his motto, along with all good things must come to an end. All bad things, too, he has come to realise, never giving up on the rare occurences when his motion pictures were a flop on their release.

Stanford loves youth, and prides himself on his ability to find the potential for success in the young hopefuls that flock to his studio gates on casting days. From a leather armchair - he adores the smell of leather, how it teeters between freshness and staleness, but always so rich it makes your teeth hurt - he sits and watched them file in one after the other, his casting director, Claude, sometimes standing to his right, sometimes interfering with the audition to see what the starlets are made of. And one after the other, they get from him a handshake, a stare, and either a toneless "You'll do", or a "Thank you for coming".

His history is something he keeps closely guarded. Even he has hidden his childhood memories so deep inside himself that he cannot clearly separate and sequence the events before his mid-twenties, when he met Sienna and his life truly begun. It was a perennial Lily-of-the-valley romance - Leland was lured by the pearl-white purity of the idea of true love, but as the two became deeper entwined he realised that behind the sweet nectar glaze was a much more poisonous destination. It was the time when he first became interested in making movies, preserving the beauty of the natural world on 35mm vinyl strips. To him, Sienna was the pinnacle of that beauty - all the monuments of the world were eclipsed by her. So, it only seemed logical for him to capture it - like a butterfly pinned to a corkboard. He decided to run a screen test on her.

Stanford always recalls her as she was then, sitting on a stool in the basement of his house, several miles outside the Capitol fence, two soft yellow filament lights making her smooth skin glow and her eyes light up. He sees it through his own eyes - tinted by his adoration for her, by all the experiences they had shared, and by the thought that beneath her hands, cradling the small bump through her silk dress, she was carrying their baby boy. Never does he remind himself that there was another perspective - the camera's perspective, and it was not so pretty as his fantasy.

The camera is a fickle friend, but an honest one - and when the camera doesn't like its subject you know. Once the film was developed, it turned Leland cold. Sienna, this pillar of immaculateness, divine perfection, was not made to be pinned on a corkboard. Projected onto a dust sheet, she looked frail, small in the movie's frame. Sadness paced behind her eyes. Darkness wore at the corners of her features. The camera hated her, and Leland could do nothing except listen to what it wanted. Sienna had to go.

So he ran, abandoned her and came to the Capitol to rectify the mistake he'd made. Here, in this material city, he'd have no shortage of would-be stars, willing to put themselves in front of his cameras and see if their future held Ritz or rubble. And, a strong believer in fate, it was almost too good to be true when Stanford discovered the landlord of the emerging Temple Pictures seemed so easily persuaded to sell the land. Buchanan's letters demonstrate a similar feeling, as the current Studio Head destroys them one by one.

I don't know what will become of me without the Studios, my beloved Minna. I am too ashamed to return to you penniless. But Leland Madison Stanford must know that as he buys them, he's lifting the curse of the place from me- from us. This is a barren land, and so I hand it to him almost without hesitation-

THUMTHUMVRRrrrrr. The last letter tumbles onto the pile in coiling strips, and Mr Stanford powers down the shredder. Buchanan called the Studios cursed, but Stanford has grown accustomed to being cursed all his life. The rumours and taboos which surround his Hollywood empire never phase him - he plays his pieces wisely, keeping his mind focused and his aspirations unfaltering, and he knows that he'll stay in control of this empire for the remainder of his years.

III.
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