Waiting For The Ending

Chapter One

"Middle Row, second seat from the aisle." I say to the woman on the other side of the glass of the ticketing booth. "Left or right side?" She asks. "Right" I reply. She slides the ticket through the hole in the glass and I slide two fifties and change in return. A group of boys, a few years younger than myself, roughhouse while laughing loudly behind me in the street after walking out of the old multiplex building. "Was there by any chance a girl that bought a ticket to this movie before me?" I ask the woman. "No." She replies flatly.

I almost walk away but before I do I ask, "Do you know if there will be a girl buying a ticket for the same movie at some time later on?" Her eyes squint at me through the glass. "Sir, I have no professional obligation to ask you this but out of pure concern for whoever that poor girl might be, are you a previous or potential sex offender?" "No?" I respond. "Is that hesitation in your answer?" "No." I say. "Good. If I catch wind of any trouble you might cause inside, I will call security." She says giving me a look that I am almost certain could kill me if I maintained eye contact for even a second more. "You mean Rajesh? That's him over there." I point at the pudgy man lying face down on the ground blackout drunk. Truth be told it is a rather serene sight. He is incredibly still. A little too still actually. I think he might be dead. The woman behind the glass yells out Rajesh's name loud enough to be heard from miles away. He raises his head, salutes with his eyes still closed and lets his head fall back to the ground, returning to his slumber.

"Just don't be stupid, kid." The woman then says to me, her eyes doubling down on the intensity with which she said what she said. I collect my ticket and take the sketchily lit elevator to the floor of the screen that's showing my movie. My heart pounds as I await the elevator's arrival to the third floor of the multiplex; a destination I am so unbelievably familiar with, yet whose sight and presence make me anxious beyond description. The elevator slows, halts and dings. Its doors open and I step out of the elevator onto the third floor.

Empty.

Not a soul in sight.

I've seen a good number of empty theatre waiting rooms, a few times even on this floor. But tonight is different. Tonight, might very well be the end of an era.

The screen on the third floor of the old multiplex will soon be playing what is rumored to be Richard Hexley's final film. Most directors manage to get their films played at much earlier hours of the day, so the theatre can be filled with people curious to see the film being screened. However, Richard Hexley's lack of popularity, unconventionality, and lack of faith from distributors, resulted in his films being the only films showing at hours much later than anyone would be willing to go out at, in theatres just as and more decrepit than this one.

I take in the expanse of the waiting room with its now rarely used benches, abandoned snack counters and ear-piercing silence. I can still hear the chatter and discussions and feel the excitement that permeated the atmosphere of the waiting room when I saw my first movie here with my parents as a child. Around the halfway mark of the movie, I'd stood up on my seat with my little legs and gazed at the packed theatre behind me with the glistening eyes of the audience fixated on the vibrant images exploding on screen.

The movie was not far-fetched in its premise and invited us and allowed us to stay in a world that was not our own but instead a reflection of it. Each minute served not as a means of commercial escapism but as a means of travelling to a world where we could all be more than we actually were. We could always find the right words to say, summon the right amount of courage and feel emotions we could only dream of. We could be heroes, even if it was just for roughly one hundred and twenty minutes.

The movie is scheduled to start a few minutes from now, so I push open the massive doors in front of me and pass from the emptiness of the waiting room to the emptiness of the theatre screen. The seats are old and worn, the air-conditioning is no longer functional, and the fire extinguishers seem to have been stolen. My seat creaks as I sit and lean back into it, while I wait for the opening credits to roll.

A slow melancholic guitar strumming fills the theatre as the movie begins. The first shot of the movie is an extreme close-up of our main character's eyes: fearful and uncertain. He looks directly into the camera and I, in the middle row of the theatre stare right back at him. Quite frankly, my expectations for this movie are not very high. Stories and rumors of troubles during production and its poor reception from test audiences are the primary reasons. To compound on these factors, this movie is Hexley's first after a two-year hiatus. Prior to this, he'd release a movie every year.

The studio executives and distributors were unimpressed by the footage of the movie they'd seen so far and so decided to devote more shows to other movies that would bring in more money, which resulted in this movie being relegated to a single late-night show in the middle of the week.

My attention to the scene on-screen is interrupted when the doors at the entrance of the screen collide with each other producing a loud-enough sound to be heard from the middle row. In walks a figure at a fast pace and climbs up the stairs to get to their seat.

I feel a heaviness within.

It is her. It has to be.

She passes by me without breaking pace and my head turns as it follows her movement.

"Sarah?" I call out. She stops in her tracks and turns towards where I'm sitting. The projection on the screen ever so partially illuminates her eyes in the dark.

She sees me. And she sees me looking right at her.

She doesn't respond and makes her way to her seat. I try to divert my attention back to the screen, but my train of thought has been derailed indefinitely. I turn back in an attempt to see her again but the position of her seat prevents me from doing so. The previous scene has ended and the next one has begun. I spend the next few seconds trying to figure out what the last scene was about and the next minute trying to focus on the new scene but to no avail. My thoughts are plagued with memories.