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The theatre
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After a while, I don’t know how long, Ryan came, sat down and started talking like always.“I can’t do it…I tried so many times but something always gets in the way, maybe this is a sign…”
I couldn’t listen to him any longer so I shouted “A sign of your weakness”
He stopped talking. I didn’t know whether he heard me or not. I didn’t get up or look at him.
“You’re a coward…you don’t want to take the risk because you’re afraid of the pain of rejection. Trust me the alternative is much more agonizing. If you really love her, then fight, damn it…
Fight for love and love will fight for you. Don’t do the same mistake I did. It cost me everything…life wasn’t worth living without being with her. I should’ve…” I stopped as I heard the door of the theatre close.
I sat there for so long staring at the blood on the floor, my blood.
When Ryan came back he didn’t sit down. He also didn’t see mea although I was in his sight range.
“Sorry, I was late. I took your advice…”
I was confused. Was he really talking to me?
“I took the advice of a ghost. How crazy is that? But it was the right one…I told her about how I feel, and…she just smiled and said “Finally” apparently she felt the same. If I had waited, I don’t……thank you Josh”
He knew me. How?
He paused for a few seconds then said “You’re here, right? Just give me a sign. Say something”
I didn’t know what to do, what to say. I was timid.
“Ok…you know how I heard about this place. My grandma told me about it. But she didn’t tell me that it was a scary haunted place. She told me about a boy she once knew, a very shy and handsome boy, she said, A boy who thought love was the most precious thing in life that he ended it when he thought he couldn’t have it” he shook her head and I pictured her in my head.
He said one last thing “I’m sorry for what…” he couldn’t say it and just walked towards the door. As he opened it, I rushed trying to follow him.
“Ryan wait” I yelled but he couldn’t hear me that time.
But he left and closed the door. In a few seconds it was opened again. An old lady came in. The grey hair, the cane and wrinkles couldn’t cover it. I knew those green eyes. I froze like I always did around her. And I saw a rose in her hand.
She was quiet for a few seconds. Then she sighed and said “You’ll be in my heart forevermore” and dropped the rose.
I fell to my knees as the rose touched the floor. My dead heart was fluttering. She walked back to the door after taking one more look around. But before she left the theatre for the last time, I whispered “I love you”
Then I yelled “I LOVE YOU”
But it was too late for us. She closed that door once and for all.
I was glad I helped Ryan and wanted to thank him for giving me the chance I thought can never come again. I felt it was more about her than me. She needed closure as much as I did. But hers was more important. She was still alive.
I felt no more pain or remorse. I was at peace. The blood disappeared and the place around me was shifting. The broken chandeliers were whole again, the peeled off painting came back, the curtains were pulled up, all the dust and spider webs disappeared, lights were on, decorations filled the place, seats were fixed. Music started playing, the same music I heard when I first came here. I walked up to the stage and looked at the chairs. I saw us, young us sitting in the third row, talking and laughing.
And it was always the moment I wanted to last forevermore.
Mod
Mod
Josh heart is my name and this is my story with the theatre.
I opened the rusty doors of the theatre and let some rays of light enter with me. That first time I walked through this door I was depressed and my heart was over whelmed with sorrow and pain.
I needed a place far from everyone I knew, everyone who caused me pain, away from her.
She was the reason of my joy and suffering in life. I felt joy as I saw her smile because of something silly I said or did. And I suffered as no one on Earth when I realized how hard it was to be around her without being able to tell how I much I love her.
The theatre was a wide place with high roof that was filled with broken golden chandeliers. The rows of chairs were red velvet like the torn curtains hanging over the wooden empty stage. There was a second floor looking over the first like a large balcony.
I sat on one of the chairs staring at the stage trying to remember the one play I came to see when I was young. She was with me. It was then when I first realized I loved her. Because in that crowded place I could only see her, and among the dozens of laughs, whispers and music I could only hear her laughs.
I sat there while she haunted my mind and heart for hours. When I heard a sound, I looked towards it and found a young boy standing in the second floor. He was holding a toy car, playing with it.
I was about to call out to him when he disappeared into thin air. I felt a shiver and backed away to the door.
Then I heard a laugh of a little girl who was running around and the boy was chasing her. They were no older than ten or so. The girl had a blonde curly hair and was wearing a blue dress, and the boy was wearing a red hat.
My first thoughts were they were right about the place being haunted. A place that witnessed dozens of stories got to be. I was timid but I realized that they can’t even notice me. They were lost in their own small world. They were harmless.
I kept returning to the theatre every day. And every day I saw them, just flashes of them running, playing, laughing, talking. But I never really heard their conversations. It was like watching a silent movie. Only in some occasions I could hear a laugh or a whisper.
I wanted to know their story, who were those two?
One day I saw the blonde singing on the stage. I couldn’t hear her voice but I could tell from the way red hat watched her that she was amazing. He gave her a rose when she was finished and she blushed smiling at him.
I thought of her while I watched them. I thought of her brown hair, pure snow white skin, her grass green eyes, and her voice when she talked to me. And my heart ached knowing that I can’t be with her, for lacking the power to tell her how I feel.
After a few days I heard music playing then I saw a teenager boy playing a guitar sitting on the stage and I recognized his red hat. I was witnessing an older period of their life. But he still had the same look when he looked at her, that glimmer in his eyes like there’s no one in the world but her.
It was amazing watching their love growing with them.
But a thought hit me. That their story must have ended badly, otherwise they wouldn’t be trapped in this old lifeless place.
Once they were dancing on the stage and I fell asleep watching them.
I dreamt of her. That it was us on the stage dancing. With her hands in mine, smiling. And that was it; it was all I needed, being with her.
She whispered something to me. I couldn’t hear but one word “Forevermore”.
The dream ended, and I was crushed that I could only be truly with her in a dream. That the feeling I couldn’t compare with anything in my life was only a dream. But still I didn’t have the guts to show her.
As for red hat he finally did gathered his strength and told her.
It was one day that I saw the red toy car moving next to me and hit her leg. There was a piece of paper attached to it. Blonde picked it up, read the paper. Then her face lit up in a way I never saw. She ran to him, hugged him and whispered something to him and he lit up too.
I envied them for that feeling, which I soon could tell it faded and replaced by agony, for I saw the young lovers once sitting on the stage. She was crying on his shoulder and his face was conquered with fear and pain. I could tell that every tear she let go was tearing his heart. I wanted to know what happened. I wished that I could ask them, but I wasn’t inside there realm. It was then when I heard the door open and someone walk in.
I ran to the stage and hid behind a curtain. It was a young man roughly my age. He looked sad. There was something familiar about his eyes. He walked in, looked around and sat on a chair far from us. He couldn’t see the lovers, because a torn curtain was hiding most of the scene.
The new comer said “Hello” but of course no one answered although technically there were three people.
He was then silent for a few minutes.
“I must be crazy…if I wasn’t before, she made me” he said.
“Echo” he shouted. But there was no echo in the place. I smiled.
“I don’t know how to do it…I’ve known her for 6 months now. I’m scared…a lot. If she didn’t feel the same way, things will be awkward between us. I don’t want to lose her, so I can’t risk telling her, but I’m going crazy because of not telling her”
It felt ironic that another man with the same problem came her, that my problem is that common.
“It’s getting harder to be near her, and yet it’s all I want”
His words and feeling were familiar but my case was more intense and desperate. I held the curtain with my hand watching the lovers still crying, I leaned on my arm and the curtain fell, exposing me and the ghost lovers. The new one jumped out of his chair, startled.
I fell with the curtain, and just stared at him. He was looking directly at us, but the lovers of course didn’t pay any attention to any of us. Then he just ran to the door. And disappeared into the night outside so did the lovers, and I was alone.
Amazing place, the theatre…people came to watch different lives, different stories from theirs. And they would sympathize with them, although they know it wasn’t real. They’d rather watch fake lives than spend that time in their real one. I guess it brings some sort of peace and comfort, slipping away into another live, one they’re sure can never hurt them.
Even after the theatre became abandoned I still watched other stories, despite the latter being similar to mine, it felt different watching it from the outside.
The new comer, who I learned his name is Ryan, came again, became attached to the theatre as I was. He would sit closer to the door and speak his heart, and with the slightest movement or sound he rushed outside. Otherwise he spoke of the one he loves.
I always hid in the second floor, listening to him, especially since the lovers seized to appear. I guessed it because of the new comer. The place was too crowded for them to show their story. Which bothered me, I wanted to know what happened and feared that it was their end.
Until that day which proved me wrong in many things. I was alone on the stage pretending that she was there and trying to find the right words to say. Rehearsing the time I’ll tell her.
“You’re a dream to me, the most wonderful and desirable. All those years I longed to be yours…every night I wished and prayed…and feared not to be right for you”
My heart was beating so hard even when I knew I was only pretending.
“Forevermore…” I remembered the way she said it in the dream and wondered what she meant.
“I love you…” I whispered and wished that she could hear me.
However I was interrupted by the sound of the door opening.
The new comer was here. I rushed and hid. But to my surprise it wasn’t him. Two old people came in, arms crossed, leaning against each other as they walked. They sat on the chairs in front of the stage.
“That place got old” the woman said.
“It’s still the same in my eyes” he replied.
I couldn’t believe it. The grey hair and wrinkles couldn’t cover it. Glasses may have replaced his red hat but I knew his face. And I knew her eyes and smile. The lovers…but they weren’t flashes; they didn’t just appear or disappear. They were alive.
I was happy, they are together, and their story didn’t have an unfortunate end as I thought. I wondered why the theatre had shown me their story.
“I always keep asking myself” red hat said “what if I had given up and didn’t stop you that day in the station…it would’ve been the biggest mistake in my life. I can’t imagine life without you, I wouldn’t want to live anymore” his words reminded me of a familiar heart freezing feeling.
“Well, you didn’t give up” she said.
“Your words kept ringing in my head, if you fight for love it’ll fight for you…those words killed the worries and fear in me…I fought for you, and I don’t regret a moment, no matter how painful it was”
I got the message. I shouldn’t give up. But it felt…too late.
Down next to the stage, I saw a pool of blood forming, the lovers as always didn’t notice. I felt paralyzing fear.
“Remember the first time we got here?” red hat asked.
“Yes, after that man killed himself and we came to see if his ghost was here”
“Silly but brave…”
“I saw him once…”
“Here we go again” he rolled his eyes up teasing her.
“He was sitting on a chair staring at us…there was something in his eyes…pain, remorse yet I felt him happy for us”
“We were kids, with wide imagination. You wanted to find a ghost, so your mind made it happen”
By then I panicked and came out of my hiding. They didn’t look at me. I waved my hands in front of them and shouted “LOOK AT ME FOR ONCE…LOOK AT ME”
“Baby, let’s go, ok…I t got cold all the sudden” she said.
Red hat held her close to him and they got up and left while I screamed.
I was in shock, confused and terrified. I couldn’t believe it. But something inside of me surrendered.
“How long have I been here…decades?
How couldn’t I feel all this time?
Think…I left here, but where did I go?
I…I don’t remember.
I was in pain; I couldn’t live anymore not without her”
Then I saw myself standing in front of the stage, shaking, crying. My face was so pale and my hands were dripping blood. But I was still alive.
I heard myself whispering “I can’t take it anymore” over and over again and we both fell on our knees. Him as life was slipping away and I for…
My old self disappeared after a while, and I went to the balcony, I sat and pressed my head against the wall. All I was thinking was that I can never see her again.