Patrick Arter

For acclaimed novelist Brian Johnson, the stage of his final book reading becomes an unexpected tribunal. The ""visitors,"" who confront him are hauntingly familiar. Their question to Johnson: ""Have you truly been facing us all along?"" unlocks a flood of buried memories and regret as Johnson finally recognizes them as characters from his own novels. This unsettling encounter awakens a part of himself he had nearly forgotten, compelling him to seek answers to the questions that define an author's soul: What is creation? To whom does a story belong? And what does it truly mean to write?

When a couple attempts to depart from a fading party, their desperate friend suggests throwing one more log on the fire, summoning a charred, shirtless stranger looking for warmth.