The Theater

 

Ryan jerked back to reality at the sound.

In a world, taken over by aliens…

He knew this all. He had seen it hundreds, thousands, millions of times. But how could he have? He had only just sat down in his seat. He bought a ticket to the newest summer blockbuster, and anxiously waited for it to begin. But he had seen this trailer before. He knew he had.

As it went on, he could guess what would happen next; and then it would happen. He knew what the voiceover would say; and then he said it. Ryan thought he was going crazy, until the next preview started—

A loose cannon cop, pushed to the edge. He’s out for revenge on the people who killed his family—

And someone behind Ryan shouted out, “And he won’t stop until he finds them!”

And he won’t stop until he finds them! came the voice from the trailer.

Everyone else in the theater clapped and applauded. Ryan tried to turn his head, to look at the man that had said this, but found he couldn’t. He couldn’t move any part of his body. He could only look straight ahead at the screen.

A boy and his dog, brought together by chance, but forming the best of friendships, came the voiceover of the next trailer, much more light-hearted than the first two.

“Until one day, the boy had to grow up in a way he never expected!” shouted a lady sitting in front of Ryan. He strained his eyes to try to see who had said it, but found that nothing was visible, save for the screen in front of him.

Until one day, the boy had to grow up in a way he never expected, said the voiceover.

Again, people applauded. There were whoops and whistles.

Ryan sat there, immobile and confused. He was sure he had just sat down, and yet was sure he had seen these trailers more times than he could remember. And people in the theater with him seemed to have seen it enough times to have them memorized. Not only that, they were cheered for their ability to guess what was happening next. Ryan tried to shake his head. He couldn’t.

The next trailer started. Ryan started to sweat.

A man from the wrong side of the tracks. A woman from high society. They were both sure they could never find love…

“Until one day, they found each other,” Ryan said, almost robotically.

Until one day, they found each other, said the ethereal voice.

The crowd hooped and hollered. There were whistles and whoops. Ryan felt like he should be happy with himself, but he was just further confused.

The thought occurred to Ryan that there was one of two explanations: previews had become far too predictable, or he had, in fact, seen these trailers numerous times; and so had everyone else in the theater.

Ryan’s head started to hurt. He tried to move his neck again. He couldn’t. He tried to move his legs again. He couldn’t. He tried to move his arms again….

Suddenly, as if his ears had just been thoroughly cleaned, Ryan heard a cacophony of noise. Rustling, rattling, screaming, shrieking, scraping, grating. A symphony of dissonant sounds grating against his ear drums. Ryan struggled with all his might against his invisible restraints. He struggled and reeled, twisted and writhed. But try as he might, the restraints held. They locked him into place. All he could do was to shut his eyes to the screen in front of him and try to pretend that nothing existed. But of, course it was impossible.

“But this partner may be the one to set him right!” came the voice of a teenage girl, seated in the back of the theater.

But this partner may be the one to set him right, came the booming voice from the speakers.

Again, clapping and applause.

Ryan began to sink into a depression. Is this really all there is? he thought. Is everything just these four film trailers? They’re not even that good. The films look bland, and the trailers are formulaic and seem to be in a bullet-point format.

The trailers were just as Ryan described them. They repeated hackneyed phrases from eras past, revealed pretty much everything about the storyline – thus rendering actually seeing the movie pointless –, and seemed to be in a format derived of the narrator setting up a major plot point, then seeing an example of it from the film. It felt to Ryan almost like an academic paper: make a claim, quote a source. They weren’t original, they weren’t captivating, and they didn’t make Ryan want to see the movie. How had he just now noticed this? How had nobody else noticed this?

Ryan couldn’t stand it anymore. He hung his head (as much as he could) in defeat. He accepted that this was his life now. He took a deep, stalwart breath and looked back up at the screen… when suddenly, his head kept going up. He tilted it all the way back, as far as his neck would allow, and stared up at (what would be, if he could see it) the ceiling. The he moved his head from side to side, front and back, and circular. He lifted his arms up, swung them in circles, and bent his elbows. He did a little seated jig, wiggling his legs around frenetically. He smiled, the biggest smile he ever remembered smiling (granted, he was just now realizing he’d been watching the same four movie trailers on repeat for… an eternity?). But as he celebrated his new mobility, he noticed that no one else noticed. In fact, he noticed that he couldn’t distinguish anyone else. It was dark in the theater, pitch black. He couldn’t see the people sitting in front of, or next to him. But suddenly, blazing as bright as the projector up in the booth through a small window at the back of the theater, Ryan saw an EXIT sign, glowing red. He quietly got up, finding himself on the end of the row and not encumbered, and headed towards the sign. He reached it, using it for his guidance, and felt the hard, metal door that would lead him out of the theater. He pushed the bar, feeling it depress under his pressure, the latch unlocking, the door sliding from its frame.

The light blinded him instantly. He merely heard the door latching behind him. All he saw was a dazzling white. His eyes watered and puckered; he could barely hold his eyelids open. In fact, try as he might, he couldn’t. Ryan groped around absently for some form of support. Eventually, he found the rough, hard exterior wall of the movie theater and steadied himself. He considered the texture. He hadn’t felt anything like it before. It didn’t feel like popcorn, or a cold cup of soda, or a theater chair armrest. These were the only feelings Ryan knew. This was something different. He quickly pulled his hand away before realizing he could not stand on his own and put it back. He blinked and leaked tears for several moments. What is going on? Why can’t I see? he wondered, perplexed and irritated. This was the world he had to have come from. People don’t just pop into existence in a movie theater, watching the same four trailers their entire life. Do they? He quickly moved to a seated position.

After a few moments of trying to come to grips with what he was experiencing, a voice from just above him broke through the blinding whiteness.

“Do you need some help?”

Ryan recognized this phrase from the loose-cannon cop preview he’d seen… before. “I don’t need anyone’s help… I’m a lone wolf,” was the phrase that was to follow. If Ryan had said it in the theater, they would’ve clapped their asses off. But something made Ryan not say it here.

“No, I’m fine. Just a little… dizzy, is all,” he replied.

The stranger looked at him (though he couldn’t tell) with a sort of sympathy. Ryan knew it was a female – he could at least distinguish that about other people –  but could decipher nothing else. Suddenly, things started to come into focus. The light stopped hurting his eyes as much and they stopped watering. Forms began to take shape. Buildings, cars, road signs, and this woman before him.

She stood there, tall and lanky. She had a very, very slender frame, and a narrow face. Her red hair fell gently over her bony shoulders, and her flowy sundress left more to the imagination that it did on a “fuller” sized woman. Knobby knees poked out under the skirt of the dress, and freckles dotted every exposed area of leg, arm, back, neck, and face. She wore a concerned expression, but once she saw the smile spread across Ryan’s face, her visage mirrored it. Ryan had never seen anything so exquisite in his life.

“You seem to be gaining your equilibrium. The color is coming back in your face,” said this total, exquisite stranger.

Ryan could say nothing. Ryan could do nothing but smile. He suddenly felt like he was back in the theater, unable to do anything but smile. But he didn’t mind this nearly as much.

The woman smiled back, awkwardly (though Ryan could not understand this subtle emotion). She wasn’t concerned about this man, she just wasn’t so used to a man beaming such a smile at her.

“I’m fine. I feel… I feel great!” Ryan exclaimed, laughing. Laughter. When was the last time Ryan had laughed? Probably during one of the innumerable times he had seen that rom-com preview. But only in the earliest of viewings, surely.

He leapt up, coming so quickly to his feet that the woman jumped. He looked around; all around. The city skyline; the cars honking in the street; airplanes flying across the sky leaving little white tails behind them; mothers pushing strollers; fathers teaching their sons life lessons; and a dazzling spectacle of a woman, a creature who knew he to be real but was wholly unfamiliar with, standing right before him.

She beamed at him, over the shock of his sudden transformation, and engrossed in the joy and glee that this stranger was experiencing.

“Well, that’s good to hear!” she said with genuine excitement. “Did you just leave a movie, then?”

Ryan turned back to look at the theater. He couldn’t remember buying a ticket, or popcorn, or soda, though he knew he had had those things, and had been in that theater. He just couldn’t remember when he had gotten there… or even what movie he was seeing.

“I guess so…” Ryan trailed off. This turned the look of elation on the unknown woman’s face to puzzlement. “I… I don’t remember, honestly.”

Puzzlement turned to concern as the captivating lady continued to look at Ryan.

“Are you well?”

Ryan didn’t understand the question. “Well” how? “Well, I didn’t get that promotion”? Or, “well, guess I’ve got some paperwork to do for this one”? Those are what the previews said after “well”.

“Well, I didn’t get that promotion,” Ryan eventually responded. Quoting something seemed the right thing to do. After all, it had usually gotten him cheers and recognition.

“I’m really not sure what that has to do with this. Are you drunk?” She asked, simply not understanding the situation. “What’s your name?”

Name? Ryan thought. “Ryan,” Ryan said.

He didn’t know where that answer came from. But he suddenly had a flood of memories.

He was Ryan, from Anderson, Indiana. He graduated from high school a few years ago and moved to Muncie to go to Ball State. He got dumped by his high school sweetheart in their sophomore year. He wanted to be an ecologist (or economist? Things were still a little hazy), but couldn’t handle it all so he moved back home. He didn’t always live in a movie theater.

He lived here.

 He started to look around, recognizing landmarks. His old bank; the bus stop where he first felt up a girl when he was fourteen; the park where he and his grandfather would feed the birds and talk about “the war” (Ryan never knew which); then, turning around, the movie theater that he and his family came to frequently as a child, a tradition he carried on into his adulthood.

“Ryan, I’m Natalie. Nice to meet you,” she was back to smiling.

Ryan smiled back. But his smile soon faded. Suddenly, his mind was flooded with the thoughts of the other people in the theater he had just left. Surely, if he had been trapped in there by some bizarre force, they were stuck there, too. How else would they know the trailers word-for-word like he did?

“I have to go back!” Ryan said, almost panicked.

Natalie’s face affected a look of concern once again, but this time different. If Ryan knew any better, he would see it as a sympathetic-concern rather than a concerned-concern.

“Go back where?” she asked.

“To the theater! I have to free them! I have to… I have to let them know…”

“Let them know what?”

The question hung in the air. Ryan simply looked at this marvelous beauty that was nothing like he had ever seen before. She had dimension, shape, depth. She wasn’t just a flat picture on a flat screen. She was real.

“What it’s like,” he responded, still not sure what it was he needed to let anyone know.

“What’s what like?”

Ryan looked up, and found himself instantly lost in the large, blue pools that were Natalie’s eyes.

“I… I can’t remember.”

“Are you from around here, Ryan?” Natalie asked, less concerned, more conversationally.

“Yeah, around here. I was born here. Moved to Muncie for school, but found my way back,” Ryan said, suddenly finding it easy to rattle off his life’s story.

“Very cool,” Natalie said, beaming once again. “I’m from Yorktown. Just outside of Muncie, but so small, most people miss it.”

Ryan felt a warmth growing in his chest. Having actual human connection with someone is something he hadn’t felt in… he didn’t know how long. But here was this woman, this person, willing to give her time freely to him. Ryan wasn’t sure what to do.

“Haha, yeah…” he clumsily said. Good one, he thought.

Natalie didn’t seem to notice. She just looked off into the sunshine and giggled a laugh that brought warmth into Ryan’s chest.

“You know, I’ve only actually been here a couple weeks. You said you’re from here?”

Ryan was legitimately stumped by this question for a moment. He wasn’t sure much of anything about his life. He knew he had spent a long time in a movie theater. But how long was he there? When did he get there? “Yeah, born and raised,” he finally managed.

“Wanna show me some sights?” Natalie asked, a coy smile on her face, rocking ever-so-slightly back-and-forth on the balls of her feet. 

Ryan took her on a tour. Now, you may have never been to Anderson, Indiana, but anyone who has can tell you: there’s not much to see. Sure, there a couple raceways, a historic downtown, and a nice national park, but its major money-gainers are hospitals and Nestlé; no, not a local company. In short, not much to see.

But they did it all. They saw Ryan’s high school, Ryan’s middle school, Ryan’s elementary school. They saw the raceways, they saw the, um, local attractions. And less than four hours later, they were done. So then, they wandered aimlessly.

It may have been chance, it may have been purpose. Either way, Ryan and Natalie ended up back at the “well known” Paramount Theater (one of Anderson’s short list of notable sites) where they had first met just a few hours prior. This time holding hands.

As Ryan stared at the brick façade of the cinema where he had seen every seminal film of his upbringing – and then spent and indeterminate amount of time watching the same four previews over and over –  he again felt a pang for the people he had left inside, the others in the theater.

Natalie noticed his stiffness.

“You still need to help them,” she said, not asked.

“Help who?”

“Whoever you said you needed to help when we were here a couple hours ago.”

Ryan stood motionless, simply staring at the front entrance.

“Go. Do what you need to do. I’ll be right here,” Natalie said, squeezing his arm. She gave him a reassuring smile, which he responded to with one of confidence.

“Ok,” he said before squaring his shoulders and walking into the lobby. He found his way to the theater that he had spent seemingly a lifetime in. Once he opened the door and walked in, he realized he couldn’t see a damn thing. He fumbled along the entryway, sliding his hands across the walls for support. He finally made enough in that he could just barely make out things in the glow of the projector. He saw a crowd of people. He couldn’t make out faces, details, or genders, but he could see there were more-than-a-few people there.

He suddenly noticed each and every noise being made: every scuffle of feet, every cough, every rustle of popcorn in a bag, every rattling of ice in a soda cup, every hushed whisper being hissed out while people are just trying to watch their movie, and a raucous, upset baby, burbling and crying. Who brings a baby to a movie?

Ryan faced the faceless crowd and shouted out in a brave tenor, “This isn’t real! None of this is real!”

The crowd was obviously perturbed. They were offended by this obstruction to their viewing experience.

“What do you mean it’s not real?” came a voice from the crowd.

“Shut up!” came another.

“What did the boy’s father just say about the dog?”

“You know what he said! You’ve seen it a billion times! This is all fake!”

There was a gentle murmur throughout the crowd. They didn’t seem to be talking to each other, just to themselves.

“It’s the previews,” came a lone, even voice. There was a general hum of consent.

“For what movie? What did you all come here see?” Ryan exclaimed, growing more exasperated. “Can any of you remember?”

There was a silence, heavy and pregnant. No one seemed to even move, flinch, or blink. This emboldened Ryan, giving him the gumption to state his case.

“There is no movie! You’re all just trapped here! You’re stuck watching the same four previews, and they’re not even that good!”

This broke the silence of the crowd. Boos, jeers, and hisses echoed around the theater, all directed at Ryan.

“You have to listen–” Ryan was cut short of his statement as he tripped over a theater chair. A few people laughed.

“You have to listen,” Ryan started again after steadying himself. “You have to believe me. There’s so much more out there than what you see here! Those people you see, they’re just –” again, Ryan stumbles over something in the dark – “pretending,” he quickly corrects himself. “Those things rarely happen in real life. Guns may look cool on screen, but they’re really –” another falter “–dangerous in real life! Rifts in relationships may be overcome by grand gestures on that screen, but that usually doesn’t–” (once more, tripping in the darkness) “–work if it’s even attempted! Aliens haven’t, and will probably never overtake the Earth! These are all lies!”

With each of Ryan’s falters, more and more of the audience laugh. Finally, Ryan reaches what he can barely perceive as the center of the auditorium, and bellows out:

“There is more to the world than this!”

He then takes a dramatic step forward, catching himself on the awkward, plastic-framed carrier for the baby that had been shrieking the whole time (and who knows how long that was). He falls so far forward this time that he can’t catch himself. He falls on his face. Even though he can’t see the people, and he’s quite sure they can’t see him, they somehow know the severity of his slapstick-like fall, and all howl with laughter. They guffaw and snort, appreciating the great bit of comedy they didn’t see. Ryan pulls himself up, hearing the snide remarks from the anonymous crowd.

“You’re going to save us, huh? Can’t even stay upright!”

“Oh yeah, a drunk guy is going to rescue us!”

“You can’t even walk, let alone ‘liberate’ us from our ‘fake’ world!” With plenty of emphasis put on liberate and fake.

Ryan grew more and more frustrated. He pulled himself up and, in a rage exclaimed, “You’re all fools! Idiots! I’m trying to tell you that you’re stuck in chairs, unable to move! This is something you can easily experience yourself! And yet you choose to think that that’s normal! I’m trying to tell you that there is more to life that the same four freakin’ previews that you’ve been watching for who knows how long! And yet somehow you choose to think that that’s it! What’s worse, you laud over the people who can ‘guess’ the next line in the preview that YOU’VE ALL SEEN A BILLION TIMES!” At this point, Ryan was out of breath.

But something happened, just then. Something amazing. Ryan may have been unable to fully see what was happening, as he was still blinded to the darkness after spending so much time in the light, but he could still feel it. The crowd was able to move. They turned their heads, they moved their arms, they wiggled their legs. Slowly, one by one, Ryan could see the shrouded, shadowed figures rise from their seats. He felt euphoric! Finally, his compatriots were free like he was! He haphazardly moved towards the veiled figures, his arms outstretched. He was ready to be embraced as their savior.

Only that’s not what happened.

As Ryan moved towards the crowd, arms reached out of the darkness, grabbing him roughly and yanking him into the hoard. Unidentifiable hands grabbed at his hair, tugged at his clothes, and choked at his throat. They flung him to the ground, beating and stomping him. They shouted out ugly, hateful things. They cursed him as a plague and a charlatan. He tried to plead to them as they assaulted him, but they simply cried louder. He continued to assert that, just beyond that EXIT sign, there was so much more. So much beauty and splendor. But all this did was rile them up more and make them angrier. The beating grew more brutal. No one could see anyone else, and therefore there was no semblance of guilt or shame. They simply attacked, with barbaric rage, this man who accosted their way of life.

Eventually, Ryan stopped protesting. He stopped speaking at all. He stopped gurgling breaths with a mouth full of blood. He stopped doing anything. It wouldn’t be until several moments after the life left his body that the crowd would stop beating and stomping and kicking Ryan’s corpse. Eventually, one of them would notice that the deed was done. She would stop. Then the people next to her. Then the people next to them, until the finality of their efforts had spread around the circle, and all stopped their ferocious efforts and quietly resumed their seats.

Just when it seemed that their love could never last…

“I know I mess up a lot, but… but you make me want to be a better person!” a member of the audience shouted out from the midsection of the theater.

I know I mess up a lot, but… but you make me want to be a better person! Exclaimed the charismatic leading-man on the screen.

The crowd cheered and applauded.