Dark Alley

Chapter 25

    Calvin brought me and his family in a mall. As what I have observed, a mall is a wide sector building of which has seemed to collect of fashionably dressed people, except for us. I also realized that every angle inside a mall defines the future that I must've missed for forty years from staying the alley. From that I think I already knew what Calvin wants me to see, movie time isn't just for my own advantage, but for his too, he thinks this is another level of adaptation for me to happen.

     I look at Tracy who still looks stunning with her jeans and her top. She didn't say anything but just walked, she was walking a meter behind us. I stop for a second for her to catch me up and so we walked together behind Calvin and Maricriss. She still isn't saying anything.

     "What are you doing?" She asks me. More of a whisper.

     "I'm walking with you," I tell her, "is there a problem?"

     "This whole family boding thing is the problem!" She exclaimed but still kept on whispering. "I really don't know what got into dad's mind!"

     "Why don't you like family bonding time?" I asked her again as if I know what she means about family bonding time.

     I can see Tracy's cheeks turned red. She's hiding something from me and to her parents. "It's just awkward, I mean I don't always go to malls with them and I'm just never comfortable to being with them."

     "Why?"

     "Because, one, dad never asked us to go to mall because he's always busy. And two, he never asked us to watch a movie for teenagers until now!"

     "Exactly what are we going to watch today?"

     "Like what I said it's another crappy teenage movie, 'The Girl Loves the Geek'," she says, raising her hands and wiggles her finger as if it was something scary. "I don't even know why dad chose to make us watch that. I mean I think he thinks that's my type. I think he has a lot of things to know about me," Tracy said. I can't relate to what she was saying but I am trying and whatever this teenage set up Calvin wants to make me adapt, I think I'd rather die than trying because as much as what I heard from Tracy, I heard enough.

     I met darkness as we got into the cinema. I felt something new in the atmosphere, it was more upgraded. Pleasing to see even if it's dark. The screen was four times wider and the seats were more in proportion. It wasn't like the old style cinema that I've been to.

    I've visited the theatre once when I was five, my father and I watched this movie he has been saving for years when he knew it was his favourite actor last movie because of his sudden death. Things were still clear through my visions of that day, because it seems to just happen yesterday. It was a happy experience. It was a privilege to make him buy me a ticket to accompany him with his savings. Even though the movie didn't look much like a full length movie but instead a tribute to the dead actor because of the unfinished ending, I still placed it a room in my heart. Not only because it was my first time but because for the first time I saw has my father cried. Tears of joy or remorse, I can't tell. He was both overwhelmed and sad. After we got out of the theatre he then made me promise to him not to tell my mother about him crying. I nodded and promised him that I will not. I can still remember him messing up my hair with his hand then after, he stand up and offers to carry me home.

     I almost cried as I sat on the chair. It made me comfortable already. Tracy sat next to me on my right while Calvin sits next on me to the right. We were in the middle of girls with blue eyes. Maricriss started passing the beverages, then a food called pop-corn. We were holding it while waiting for the movie to appear on the wide screen.

     I notice people coming in, trying to be as silent as possible. I counted the number in the area and I see that there were only less than twenty of us inside.

Is this movie really that awful?

     The screen started showing some things, I was pretty amazed because the people are not in black and white. They're more true to life except for their being. Their faces don't look like a real human being.

     "That's the trailer of the upcoming movie 'Aliens in the Planet' I bet it's way better than the movie we are about to watch," Tracy whispers to me. She started talking and happy with all these trailers she is seeing. She seemed so familiar with movies and I am quite impressed. A few trailers kept on showing up and for every trailer I ask Tracy if that's already the movie and she kept saying no.

     "Is it starting yet?" I asked her after a minute of being silent.

     Tracy sighed, "yes that's it." I may not see her because of the darkness but I can sense her boredom.

     "Why do you hate it so much?" I ask her. "The movie?"

     "I don't know, because it's predictable and disgusting," she says. "so the movie was about a very popular girl who dumps rich and handsome dudes for a lumpy nerd geek who doesn't even like her but eventually they started to develop to with each other and the end."

     "What's so boring about that?"

     "Of course, kill me. I forgot you just got into the future. You'll get used to boredom soon!"

     I don't get her.

     I decided to watch the movie instead. Unlike the movie I watch it somehow performs things I haven't actually seen people in real life have ever done before. Like when the girl touches one of those handsome men's lips with hers or how her eyes sparkles when she saw the nerds face. And how many times she mentioned the word love.

What is love?

     'My heart beats fast when I see him, his grey eyes were distracting me as if I see the world in slow motion when he walks,' I hear the girl says to her friends talking about the nerd who has grey eyes, 'I think I'm in love'

     Is that what love meant? That moment when you feel your heart was racing? When you don't want that certain person to be hurt?

     In the movie the nerd gets to be punched by a circle of handsome men who wants to steal the girl's heart from him. I don't know if stealing of heart is possible nor seen a part where the girl gave her heart to the nerd. The girl then went to stop the handsome men, not wanting the nerd to be hurt. She called some cops to capture the handsome men and says her last line: 'I don't want you to get hurt, because I love you.'  Then their lips touch and a 'The End' sign appeared on the screen.

     I almost cried. I've never seen a movie as realistic as that, like how could Tracy even say mean things to a plot like that? I look at Tracy, who is barely awake then to Calvin who is also looking at me.

     "What was that you want me to get from that movie?" I ask him. Giving him a crappy look.

     "The power of love kid!" He says, "I know it wasn't that clear enough but that's that, that's what it wants to tell you. God I can't find another good film to make you see. I couldn't even find 'The Notebook,' I think the tape was somewhere around the house. I would want you to watch that because I surely feel you will cry. But take it as a lesson instead boy!"

     "About love?"

     "Yes."

     I don't know why Calvin wants me to know all these.

     I look at Tracy whom I felt exactly everything the girl describes when she felt in love. She's so beautiful, even she's asleep. Until she quickly opens her eyes, her eyes sparkles even with the tiniest reflection of the dark.

     "Is it done already?" She asks, snorting. "I couldn't believe I slept for the whole time. God it was crappy."

     "You think it's crappy?" She asks for my opinion, her eyes half open.

     I shook my head, "no, no I don't think so."