The Smell of Burning Celluloid

The Majestic Cinema has been dark since November, but tonight is the New Year's Eve revival screening — if you can find the fault before the audience arrives in forty minutes. You are Petra, the relief projectionist, and the moment you push open the projection room door a warm, chemical sweetness drifts past you into the cold corridor. The reels are loaded, the lamps are cold, and somewhere in this small timber room something is quietly, gently overheating. Follow the smell.