The Last of Us: New Normal

"What about this one?"

I looked at my friend and moved toward his side. "Really?"

"What? What's wrong with this one?

"Would you want to watch this shit?"

"Come one! What is wrong with it?"

"It's the third movie in a series about a bunch of guys getting hit in the nuts. Why is that fun?"

"Fourth."

"Fourth?" I said incredulously.

"Yeah. They released '2.5' which was stuff cut from the sequel," he laughed. "The first sequel!"

I shook my head and muttered, "Jesus Christ, why?"

"You're one to talk by the way! You said 'Machete Kills' looked good!"

"I didn't say it looked it, I saw it. It was good - fun. It was fun!"

"So watching a washed up old never was in a shitty B-movie is more fun than watching people do real, actual stunts?"

"When said stunts are a bunch of frat boys doing nut shots and covering each other in shit, no, I don't find it fun."

He groaned and walked to the next poster along the side of the theater. "What about this one? Would this not be fun enough?"

"Well...the first one was pretty boring..."

"I...ugh yeah. Can't disagree with that."

"Not to mention the reviews didn't help its cause much. There's a reason why I skipped this one."

Kirk just grunted in response. We just stood there for several seconds, looking at the inoperable movie theater as a warm nearly summer breeze worked its way through the quarantine zone.

"What time is it?" I asked.

"You need to get a watch," Kirk said as he looked at his. "Nearly noon. Where are we supposed to meet Tonya again?"

"Shit man! I thought you knew!"

"You bastard!" he laughed as he shoved me. "You're going to tell her that when we're late."

I knocked his hand away; "She's on the front gate today. We'll be fine."

We set of on our path, first crossing the nearly empty parking that lay next to the theater. I looked towards the small pile of boxes piled in a parking spot and barely visible across the fairly large parking lot. On the opposite side of the lot, at the furthest spot away from us (even as we crossed the raised concrete sidewalk that nearly split the lot into two rectangular halves) was an ever-growing collection of building supplies. No one that I had talked to really knew what it was for, but the current rumor was that it was the beginning of a permanent housing project. I stared at the collection as Kirk and I walked across the second half of the lot in silence, my mind contemplating the rumor.

Even after the walls went up, we didn't visit this theater often. But, as anyone who decided to venture away from the constantly buzzing marketplace could tell you, the supplies being gathered had been an increasing presence in the past two weeks or so. I felt a slight tingle of sadness as my mind continued the slow process of accepting this rumor.

As soon as we stepped foot onto Entertainment Avenue, the small road that ran between the derelict movie theater and the marketplace, Kirk brought up the first time we snuck into a movie with a laugh. It was a bit strange since the theater we had just departed wasn't the one that we had snuck into (a fact that I'm not quite sure how I remembered), but I went along with it. Somehow neither of us could remember what movie it was, other than it was an action movie. As we walked along the avenue we spouted off every action and war movie we could think it might be, but most of the ideas we had were shot down by the other on account of the fact that the suggested movie wasn't released (or in theaters) back when we were sophomores. All of the talk about movies from our teenage years got us to start reminiscing about movies of years past and the conversation shifted away from the utterly forgettable movie that we wasted our first R rated movie going experience on.