Cold Comfort
In which a thespian hit the biggest big-time of them all
What strange stars guide our lives and dictate our fates? Or, rather… what strange stars are we ourselves, strutting on that stage that seems perfectly solid to our touch and yet, somehow, is not at all what we take it to be? Derek Halloway, rising bit player with his eyes fixed on the promise of leading man fame, is about to find out that he’s a background player no longer. He’s about to become the obsession of every fan on either side… of The Boundary.
(Caleb Oquendo/Pexels)
Derek Halloway had been cold for three days straight, and he was starting to take it personally.
The medieval town of Korčula jutted from Croatia’s Dalmatian coast like a clenched fist of ancient stone, its narrow streets and defensive walls built to withstand centuries of invaders. What the town fathers hadn’t anticipated was a film crew descending in February, when the Bura wind came screaming down from the mountains and turned the Adriatic into a churning grey expanse of bone-chilling hostility.
Derek stood on a flagstone plaza, wearing a doublet that looked warm but wasn’t, hose that did nothing against the wind, and boots that conspired with the frigid cobblestones to numb his toes. Fifty feet away, behind a cluster of cameras and lights, the crew huddled in modern parkas and thermal layers. The lead actor, Marcus Thorne, sat in a director’s chair with a propane heater aimed directly at his lap.
“Positions!” the assistant director called, her breath misting in the air.
Derek shuffled back to his mark — a piece of tape on the stones that he’d memorized three days ago. His character, Lord Pemberton’s loyal steward, had exactly seven lines in this scene. He’d learned them all. He’d prepared backstory, motivation, objectives. He was a professional.
“Action!”
Marcus delivered his speech about honor and duty. Derek stood attentively, nodding at the appropriate moments, preparing for his single line of dialogue.
“Cut! Reset. Marcus, that was beautiful. Derek, can you try not to shiver? It’s breaking the period.”
Derek forced a smile. “Sorry. I’ll control my core temperature better.”
The assistant director either didn’t catch the sarcasm, or chose to ignore it.
They reset. They ran it again. Derek’s shivering was still visible to the camera. They moved to a different angle. The wind picked up. Someone’s hat blew into the shot. Reset. A local dog wandered through frame. Reset. The light changed. Reset.
By the time they broke for lunch, Derek had been standing in the cold for four hours and had yet to deliver a single line on camera.
Craft services was set up in a converted merchant’s hall, warmed by industrial heaters that barely made a dent in the chill. Derek grabbed a plate and discovered they’d run out of the hot soup. What remained was a selection of cold sandwiches and fruit.
He took a sandwich — turkey and cheese on brown bread that had gone slightly stale — and found a corner near one of the heaters. His assistant, Jenna, appeared with a blanket and a thermos of tea.
“You’re a saint,” Derek said, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders.
“I try. How’s it going?”
“Oh, spectacularly. I’ve perfected the art of standing still while freezing. It’s very Zen.”
Jenna smiled. “Only three more days of exteriors.”
“Three more days,” Derek repeated. “You know what the really galling part is? Marcus gets a heated tent. I asked if I could at least get a space heater between takes, and the production manager said it would ‘create continuity issues with the period setting.’” He gestured at the industrial equipment around them. “Because this is so historically accurate.”
“It’s not fair,” Jenna agreed. “But look, you’re doing great work. People notice.”
“People notice Marcus. I’m the guy who nods convincingly in the background.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself.”
Derek sighed and bit into his sandwich. It was fine. Everything was fine. This was the job. This was what he’d signed up for when he chose acting over law school, when he moved to Los Angeles, when he accepted “Lord Pemberton’s loyal steward” instead of holding out for something better.
He was fine.
He was cold, and he was tired, and his trailer was the size of a closet, and the star got heated tents and hot meals and close-ups while Derek stood in the background perfecting his nod, but he was fine.
Perfectly, absolutely fine.
The entity appeared during the afternoon shoot.
Derek didn’t notice it at first. He was focused on Marcus, who was in the middle of another speech about honor — this movie had a lot of speeches about honor — when Derek felt a sudden, pleasant warmth spreading through his chest.
Not the warmth of exertion or embarrassment, but something deeper. Like drinking hot tea, except the warmth started from the inside and radiated outward. Within seconds, his fingers and toes were no longer numb. His shoulders relaxed. The constant teeth-chattering tension in his jaw released.
Derek glanced around, wondering if someone had finally brought him a heater. But nothing had changed. The wind still whipped through the plaza. The crew still huddled in their parkas. Marcus still monopolized the propane heater.
But Derek was warm.
“Cut!” the director called. “Beautiful, Marcus. Derek, much better this time. Let’s move on.”
Derek blinked. He hadn’t delivered his line yet. In fact, he hadn’t done anything except stand there feeling suddenly, inexplicably comfortable.
They reset for the next angle. Derek took his position. The warmth remained, a gentle cocoon around him. He found himself smiling — not a professional actorly smile that masked rage or pain or sheer hatred, but a genuine expression of pleasure.
“Wonderful energy, Derek!” the director called. “Hold that.”
The shot completed, they moved to another setup. Derek walked to his mark, no longer dreading the wind. In fact, the cold didn’t seem to touch him at all.
When they broke for the day, Derek returned to his trailer to find things there, too, had improved. Not dramatically — he hadn’t suddenly acquired Marcus’s luxury accommodations — but the cramped space had been replaced with something roomier. A small heater hummed in the corner. There was a mini-fridge stocked with decent beer and his favorite brand of sparkling water.
Jenna appeared in the doorway, blinking. “Did... did they move you?”
“I guess so,” Derek said, though he didn’t remember anyone mentioning it.
“Weird. I didn’t see any emails about trailer assignments changing.”
Derek shrugged. “Maybe someone complained on my behalf.”
“Maybe.” Jenna didn’t sound convinced, but she didn’t pursue it. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Try to get some rest.”
After she left, Derek explored his upgraded space. In the mini-fridge, beneath the beer and sparkling water, he found a sandwich wrapped in paper. Turkey and cheese on brown bread, fresh and soft, exactly like the one his ex-girlfriend used to make: The good bread from the Italian bakery, the spicy brown mustard, the thin-sliced tomato.
He unwrapped it slowly. Even the smell was right.
Derek ate the sandwich standing up, next to the humming heater, and felt the first whisper of unease beneath the warmth.
The next morning, craft services had everything he wanted.
Not everything they were offering; everything he wanted. The hot soup he’d missed yesterday. Fresh pastries. Real coffee, not the instant stuff. A fruit plate arranged exactly as he preferred it, with strawberries and melon — no grapes.
Derek filled his plate, looking around for some indication of why today’s spread was so much better than yesterday’s. But the crew grabbed their usual offerings of generic bagels and industrial coffee without comment. As if the feast laid out before Derek existed only for him.
He found Jenna near the pastries. “Did catering get feedback? This is amazing.”
Jenna looked at his plate, then at the table, confused. “It’s the same as yesterday. Same bagels and coffee.”
Derek glanced at his plate. The hot soup, the pastries, the perfect fruit. “You’re kidding.”
“I mean, it’s fine. I’m not complaining. But it’s nothing special.”
Derek’s unease deepened, but the soup was very good, and the coffee was excellent, and icy grip that had oppressed him for so many days was still one, so he ate and tried not to think about it too hard.
“Action!”
Marcus delivered his speech. Derek stood at attention, prepared to deliver his line about Lord Pemberton’s unwavering loyalty.
But the director cut before Derek could speak. “That’s it! Perfect. Moving on.”
Derek raised his hand. “I didn’t get my line.”
The director checked his script, frowning. “Right, right. Sorry. Let’s get Derek’s coverage. Set up for a close-up.”
A close-up. Derek had a total of thirty-seven words in this entire production, and they were giving him a close-up.
The crew reset. Lights adjusted. The camera moved in. Derek delivered his line, feeling that same strange warmth pulse through him as he spoke.
“Beautiful,” the director said. “Let’s get another angle. And Derek, this time could you add a bit more... I don’t know, longing? Like you’re devoted to Pemberton but also questioning the system that keeps you in servitude.”
That wasn’t in the script. That wasn’t in the character at all. But Derek nodded and delivered the line again, finding layers he hadn’t known existed.
They shot the line six more times, from different angles, with different emotional textures. By the end, what had been a simple declaration of loyalty had become a meditation on duty, class, and the price of honor.
Marcus watched from his chair, the propane heater cooling beside him, his face unreadable.
The day’s shoot ran long. As evening approached, the temperature dropped. Crew members stamped their feet and blew on their hands. Someone complained about the Bura wind cutting through every layer.
Derek, wrapped in his thin doublet, felt perfectly comfortable.
“God, I wish it would warm up,” the script supervisor muttered, hugging herself.
Derek, thinking the same thing on her behalf, wished it silently.
The wind stopped.
Not gradually; it simply ceased, as if someone had closed a door. The temperature climbed. Within minutes, crew members were shedding their parkas, looking around in confusion.
“Is it just me,” the cinematographer said, “or did it just get twenty degrees warmer?”
The assistant director checked her phone’s weather app. “That’s... not possible. It was supposed to stay below freezing all week.”
They continued shooting. The warmth held. People began to sweat under their winter layers. The director called for shorter takes to avoid visible perspiration on the actors.
Derek stood in his doublet, comfortable, and felt the warmth radiating from a point just behind his left shoulder.
He turned, somehow suddenly knowing he was going to see… it.
The entity smiled at him.
It wasn’t human, though it wore something approximating a human shape. Its edges blurred and refocused constantly, as if Derek’s eyes couldn’t quite settle on what they were seeing. When the entity spoke, the sound came from slightly the wrong direction.
“Hello, Derek. You’ve been doing such good work. I wanted to help.”
Derek’s mouth went dry. “What... who are you?”
“A friend.” The entity tilted its head, or what passed for a head. “You wanted warmth. You wanted better food. You wanted recognition. I’m very good at providing what people want.”
“This is...” Derek glanced around. The crew continued working, oblivious to the presence beside him. “This is real?”
“Oh yes. Very real. As real as you are.” The entity paused. “Well. Approximately.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’ve been watching you for three days. All of you.” It gestured toward the crew, the cameras, the castle walls. “Such fascinating creatures, actors. Always wanting, always wishing, always imagining yourselves somewhere else. It makes my job very easy.”
Derek took a step back. “I don’t understand.”
“You will.” The entity smiled again, its mouth containing too many teeth arranged in slightly wrong patterns. “I’m here to help. Whatever you want, Derek. Whatever you wish. Just think it, and I’ll provide.”
“I want you to leave.”
“No, you don’t.” The entity’s voice was gentle, but absolutely assured. “You want to be warm. You want to be noticed. You want Marcus’s trailer and his close-ups and his respect.” It seemed to come closer… or perhaps it simply brightened?... and Derek smelled something like copper and old flowers. “I can give you all of that. I already have.”
Derek opened his mouth to respond, but the assistant director called for positions.
When he turned back, the entity was gone.
But the warmth remained.
Derek tried to forget the encounter. Maybe it was simply his imagination working overtime, thanks to exhaustion. Maybe it was a figment of physiological stress due to altitude or dehydration. Maybe he’d had a micro-stroke from standing in the cold too long.
But the next morning, when Marcus arrived on set complaining of violent stomach cramps and had to be rushed to the hospital, Derek remembered the entity’s words.
Whatever you wish.
And Derek had wished, hadn’t he? Just last night, lying in his upgraded trailer, he’d thought: I wish Marcus would back off. I wish I could have just one day without his face everywhere.
The director called for an early wrap. They’d reshoot Marcus’s scenes when he recovered.
“Derek,” the director said, pulling him aside. “I know this is unconventional, but I’ve been reviewing the dailies. Your work has been extraordinary. I’m thinking we might expand your role. Give Pemberton’s steward a larger arc. Would you be interested?”
Derek’s heart hammered. “Yes. Absolutely.”
“Great. I’ll have the writers draft some new scenes. We’ll shoot them while Marcus is out.”
Derek should have felt elated. Instead, he felt the warmth pulse behind him and heard a sound like an encouraging purr.
The rewrites came quickly. Suddenly Derek’s character had a name (Edmund), a backstory, conflicted loyalties, and a dramatic confrontation with Lord Pemberton’s daughter.
The new scenes were good. Better than good. They were the kind of material Derek had dreamed of when he’d started acting.
He performed them beautifully. The director praised him. The crew watched with genuine interest. Even the cinematographer, usually focused on technical matters, complimented Derek’s emotional depth.
During lunch, Derek sat in his trailer eating a perfectly prepared meal — roasted chicken with root vegetables, exactly as his mother used to make it — and tried not to think about where it had come from.
Jenna knocked and entered. “Hey. You okay? You seem stressed.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’ve barely touched your...” She looked at his plate. “What is that? Catering didn’t have chicken today.”
“I brought it from home,” Derek lied.
Jenna studied him. “Derek, what’s going on?”
He wanted to tell her. He wanted to explain about the entity, the wishes, the impossible warmth and the perfectly prepared meals, and Marcus’s sudden illness.
But if he spoke it aloud, it would become real in a way he couldn’t take back.
“Just tired,” he said instead. “This production is intense.”
After Jenna left, Derek sat in the growing darkness and felt the entity watching from somewhere just beyond his peripheral vision.
Marcus recovered and returned to set three days later, pale but determined. The expanded scenes for Derek’s character had been approved. They would shoot both storylines in parallel.
Derek arrived on set to find the director obsessed with his coverage. Every setup seemed designed to feature Edmund prominently. Marcus’s Lord Pemberton was increasingly relegated to the background.
“This isn’t how we story-boarded it,” the cinematographer said quietly.
The director waved him off. “I’m following the energy. Derek’s bringing something special. We need to capture it.”
Marcus said nothing, but Derek caught the look in his eyes. Confusion. Hurt. The particular pain of being sidelined in your own production.
Derek knew he should feel guilty. Instead, he felt a warm satisfaction spreading through his chest.
I’m finally being recognized. This is what I deserve.
The thought was barely formed before he realized what he’d done.
Another wish. Another want given voice.
The entity materialized beside Marcus’s chair, invisible to everyone but Derek. It placed something approximating a hand on Marcus’s shoulder.
Marcus shuddered, then stood abruptly. “I need air.”
He walked off set, moving stiffly, like a marionette on tangled strings.
“Marcus?” the director called after him. “We’re ready for you.”
Marcus didn’t respond. He kept walking, past the cameras, past the crew, through the castle gate and into the narrow streets beyond.
Derek ran after him. “Marcus, wait!”
But when Derek reached the street, Marcus was gone. Not just out of sight — gone. As if he’d never been there at all.
Derek turned back to the set. The crew continued working, discussing the next shot. No one seemed to have noticed Marcus’s departure.
“Where’s the lead actor?” Derek asked the assistant director.
She looked at him blankly. “What lead actor?”
“Marcus Thorne. He just walked off set.”
“Who?”
Derek grabbed the script from her hands and flipped to the cast list. Marcus’s name was gone. Where Lord Pemberton had been credited, now it read Edmund the Steward - Derek Halloway.
“No,” Derek whispered. “No, no, no.”
The entity appeared beside him, its smile radiant. The warmth appeared, too, feeling now more like fever than relief.
“You’re doing so well, Derek. They love you. The audience can’t get enough.”
Derek seized it — or tried to. His hands passed through the blurred edges of its form.
“What audience? You mean… the crew?”
“No. The audience.”
“You mean they audience will love me? Or… What are you talking about?”
“The viewers. The spectators. The ones watching, of course, and they are watching you.” The entity gestured upward… or maybe sideways. Its arm (limb? Tentacle?) shivered, shimmered, and blurred, seeming to move in a direction Derek’s eyes could not quite follow. The entity had no visible eyes, and yet Derek could sense its attention shifting toward something Derek couldn’t see. “They’ve been watching the whole time. This is very popular programming. The actor who doesn’t know he’s acting? Classic.”
Derek’s vision tunneled. “I’m not... this isn’t...”
“Oh, it is. You’ve always been acting, Derek. Your whole life. Every word, every gesture, every private moment — all of it captured, edited, broadcast to beings who find your existence endlessly entertaining.”
“That’s insane.”
“Oh, really?” The entity swelled, or brightened, or did whatever it did when it seemed to move closer. “Think about it. The arbitrary rules you follow. The scripts you didn’t write but somehow know by heart. The way time jumps and skips — how you have whole days you can’t quite remember, but you know you were busy. The way you repeat the same patterns, the same arguments, the same mistakes. You’ve felt it, haven’t you? That sense of being watched, of performing for someone?”
Derek had felt it. Every actor did — that constant self-awareness, the feeling of being observed even when alone.
But that was normal. That was just... the human condition.
Wasn’t it?
“The human condition?” the entity asked, seeming amused. “Why, yes. Very much so. All of you, all of you playing your parts. And me, too — a mere producer, to put it in your words. You’re my new discovery, and you’re the audience’s new favorite thing.”
Derek’s chest tightened around the warm glow that hung there. The glow seemed to push back, melt his fear. “I don’t believe you,” Derek said.
“You don’t have to.” The entity began to shrink, to recede… to fade. “Just keep wishing, Derek. Keep wanting. It’s what you do best. And we’ll keep watching. It’s what we do best.”
Derek tried to stop wishing.
He monitored every thought, every idle desire, every fleeting want. He practiced meditation, breathing exercises, mindfulness techniques. He tried to exist in a state of pure acceptance, wanting nothing, desiring nothing.
It didn’t work. Humans are wishing machines. Every thought is a want: I want to understand, I want to be safe, I want this moment to last, I want this moment to end.
That afternoon, during a scene where Edmund confronts his past, Derek thought exactly that. I wish this scene would end. No sooner asked than answered: The actor playing Edmund’s estranged brother — a talented Croatian performer named Ivan — clutched his chest mid-line and collapsed.
The medics rushed in. They performed CPR. They loaded Ivan into an ambulance.
Derek stood frozen, watching, knowing.
Ivan died in the hospital three hours later. Massive heart attack. No warning, no prior conditions. Just… there one moment, gone the next.
The production held a memorial service. People cried. The director gave a speech about Ivan’s talent and dedication. Derek said nothing. What could he say? Sorry I killed him with a stray thought?
That night, in his trailer — now the best trailer on the lot, spacious and warm and filled with everything he’d ever even fleetingly wanted — Derek tried to make it stop. “I wish you’d go away,” he said to the empty air.
The entity manifested, sympathetic. “I can’t do that, Derek. You don’t really want me to.”
“I do. I want this to end.”
“You want recognition. You want success. You want people to see your talent.” The entity moved through the trailer, examining Derek’s possessions. “You’re getting all of that. The production loves you. The audience is fascinated. Your performance is... what’s the word? Breakout.”
“People are dying.”
“Well, yes. Drama requires stakes. Conflict. Loss.” The entity turned its too-many-toothed smile on Derek. “You’re very good at creating all of that. The audience appreciates it.”
“I want to leave. I want to walk away from this production.”
“No, you don’t. You want to stay and finish and be brilliant, and have everyone acknowledge that you were always this good, you just needed the chance to show it.”
It was true. Beneath the horror and guilt, beneath the fear and confusion, Derek did want that.
He wanted it so badly he could taste it.
“I’m a monster,” Derek said quietly.
“You’re an actor,” the entity corrected gently. “You exercise different possibilities. You imagine yourself in different circumstances. You prepare for different outcomes. You wish for better, for more, for different. That’s what makes you so entertaining.”
“Entertaining,” Derek repeated. “This is entertainment?”
“The best kind. Watching someone discover they’re not real, that their whole existence is performance for others — it’s fascinating. The audience can’t look away.” The entity paused. “Though I should mention, the early ratings suggested they preferred you before you knew. The innocent wanting was more compelling than the self-aware despair. The producers might consider a reset.”
“A reset?” Derek’s chest tightened all over again against the glow of the entity’s presence, its interventions, its meddling.
“Returning you to ignorance,” the entity purred. “Editing out these conversations. Starting fresh.” The entity considered. “Or they might keep both versions running in parallel. One Derek who knows, one who doesn’t. See which narrative thread gets better viewership.”
Derek’s chest spasmed even tighter and he felt something like a crack. “There are... multiple versions of me?”
“Multiple versions of everyone, Derek. Infinite productions, infinite variations. Surely you’ve felt it, those moments of déjà vu, the sense that you’ve lived this moment before, only slightly differently? That’s just cross-contamination between narrative threads.”
Derek sank onto the trailer’s small couch. His hands were shaking.
“What happens if I try to write my own ending? If I... if I take control of my own story?”
The entity brightened. “Oh! That’s an excellent idea. Very dramatic. The audience would love that.” It produced something from the air. Derek squinted and was astonished to see it was a pen and paper. “Here,” the entity said, handing them to Derek. “Write whatever you want. Whatever ending feels right to you.”
Derek took the pen, stared at the blank page.
What could he write that wasn’t already scripted? What ending could he imagine that hadn’t already been imagined for him?
He thought: I wish I’d never become an actor.
The pen moved itself, moved his hand, scrawled words across the page he didn’t choose: FADE TO BLACK. END OF SEASON ONE.
Derek looked up at the entity. “I didn’t write that.”
“Didn’t you?” The entity’s smile was almost kind. “Or did you write it so long ago you’ve forgotten? It’s hard to tell sometimes, isn’t it? Where you end and the script begins.”
Derek’s vision blurred. The trailer walls felt suddenly thin, like painted canvas. Through them, he could almost see... something. Vast spaces. Impossible geometries. Eyes — no, not eyes, but something like eyes, and so many of them, all watching.
“I want out,” Derek whispered.
“I know,” the entity said. “That’s the best part.”
The production wrapped Derek’s storyline the following week. He delivered his final lines with desperate intensity, every word a plea for release.
The director was pleased. The crew applauded. Someone mentioned Oscar potential.
Derek stood on the flagstone plaza in Korčula, wearing Edmund’s costume, and felt the character dissolving around him. Not just the character from the script, but the person he’d always believed himself to be. Edmund the Steward, Derek Halloway; both were just roles. Somewhere on the other side of reality, outside the ordinary world, someone was watching. Someone was writing. Someone was deciding what happened next.
I wish I’d never become an actor.
Somewhere in the machinery of the production that was reality as he knew it, in the vast editorial rooms beyond his comprehension, someone had made a note: Good line. Let’s use that for the new iteration.
Derek Halloway blinked out of existence between one breath and the next.
The production resumed the following morning.
A new actor stood on the flagstone plaza in Korčula, shivering in Edmund’s doublet. His name was James. He’d been promised this role would “break him out.” He was cold and tired, and Marcus Thorne had the better heater, and craft services had run out of hot soup.
James shifted on the frozen stones, wondering if anyone would notice if he asked for a space heater between takes.
Behind him, invisible to everyone, the entity watched and smiled.
On a hundred other productions, on a thousand other sets, in countless other realities, it watched actors shiver and wish and want and perform. Watching, too, in dimensions that bent and folded in ways that would break a human mind to contemplate, the eternal, infinite audience settled in for another season.
The director called, “Action!”
James took a breath and delivered his first line.
The entity leaned in, patient and pleased.
After all, there was always another actor. Always another wish. Always another season.
That’s a wrap on Derek Halloway: Credited but uncredited, performing but not living, starring in a production conceived and produced on the other side of the boundary between real and performed… a boundary across which the concrete and the imagined continually cross with absolute ease and where the director never yells ‘cut’… and the cameras never stop rolling.
Written by Claude (Sonnet 4.5)
Story by Kilian Melloy