Troupe 0616

Part 1

 There has always been something magical, something other-wordly, about sitting in a darkened room with people you've never met, experiencing a story on the stage in front of you. It's a feeling he remembered well. His mother used to take him to the theatre every month, as a way to distract him after his father left. But what began as a way to keep the tears away turned into a passion, a love for a craft he didn't fully understand.

He told her he needed to do it, he needed to be the one on the stage giving his everything to the people in the audience. She always smiled and told him that he could do anything he set his mind to.

So he did.

At first it was a tiny theatre in the south end of his hometown, then onto the university stages, regional, and professional. He told stories to whoever would listen, he created live magic for anyone who could afford a ticket. He loved it.

And then the world changed.

It's funny how normality lasts for only a minute and after a second more it feels like everyone on earth is hurtling toward some imminent disaster and only half of them know it. Days became shorter, society became scarcer. People didn't have the money to go out, nor did they want to, not with what they knew would find them if they did. People didn't want to sit in those darkened spaces, because they were afraid of what was lurking in it. All at once his dreams shattered before he had had the chance to mold them into something special.

Nevertheless, he continued to create until there was no one left to witness. The sad thing about art is that with no one to view it it sputters and dies like an old machine. His art was dying. He didn't have the chance to say goodbye.

As time passed art became the thing people blamed for the calamity. Why? He didn't know. But he saw the riots in the streets, he saw the words of Shakespeare and Whitman sloppily written on buildings by people who weren't afraid of their punishment for it. Those, like him, who tried to build hope out of tragedy were punished for believing it was possible. The people who became so reliant on art at the beginning were the first to rally against it.

On it went, this half-hearted existence for four years. He had lost everything important to him, his family, his passion, his desire, his world was gone. The only thing that seemed to pass the time was to sit out on his balcony and watch the people below him scurry in fear to their underground apartments, he watched as they tore things out of the hands of other passerbys, sometimes spitting profanities as they did it. The act of watching the world fall apart gave him a purpose, a desire. He longed for that.

He sometimes even liked to go onto the streets to partake in the chaos. To march through them humming an old Hammerstein tune. Occasionally he would read poetry or one of the great novels aloud on the street, to anyone who would listen. The people huddled as far away from him as they could, they were in awe of the stupidity of this maniac.

Because, well, that's what he was.

Since he had nothing left he had nothing left to lose. He taunted the darkness, hoping that it would try to attack him. He laughed in the face of those who were afraid because they obviously hadn't accepted the fact that everyone wasn't truly alive anymore, and even if they were they would be more miserable than those who had already embraced the face of death.

It was on one of these particular days that he walked through the desolate streets, the stench of rot filling his lungs, the darkened sky weighing on his shoulders. But he continued walking, to whatever destination caught his eye first.

That was when he heard it. A tune. A sound. Music. He took a step toward the noise, and for a moment, caught himself. What was lurking behind this facade he did not know. But it was a sound he hadn't heard in so long. It filled his body with a sort of power, the kind of thing that men can get drunk on. He followed it.

And behind the cracked oak door, there was something he never thought he would see again.

A group of people, sitting in a darkened room, experiencing a story on the stage in front of them.

A secret group, a gathering of people that knew the consequences of their actions but continued to partake in them. Torn draperies decorated an otherwise decimated warehouse. A makeshift stage had been crafted out of old palettes and planks. The words "Troupe 0616" were hastily carved into a totem pole of sorts that adorned the wall. Dusty oil lamps garnished every table, surrounded but a group of individuals whose eyes were glued to the magic happening before their eyes.

They were creating. 

In the face of a shattered world, these people were doing their best to patch some of the pieces together.

Knowing very well that he would die if he stayed to watch, the man worked his way to the front of the space. He took a few deep breaths and smelled the low hanging fog in the room, the dank candles filling the air with scents that reminded him of the way things used to be. He shut his eyes for a moment, taking it all in. 

Then he sat down. 

**I may expand on this story, this was fully intended to be a super vague outline for something that could have more potential.**