I Love The Theater
I Love You, Too
Past the outskirts of your town, down a road you would never think to take, lives a gracefully aging movie theater. It hasn't gotten many visitors the past few years, but it's okay with that. After all, it really only needs one.
Up in the projection room lives the theater's wife, one Mrs. Marcela Theater. That's what she calls herself, at least. These days, she's the only one you'll ever find behind the ticket booth or the popcorn stand. Catch her in-between showings and she'll be happy to tour you around and tell stories about the old place. All of them blatantly untrue; fantastical tall tales of perilous adventures and covert missions, back in a time when her mysterious former employer was more tolerant of her particular partnership. She'll make the theater itself into a character - she likes to call it 'Liv' - and talk for hours about their romance if you let her. It's often more entertaining than the actual movies.
Sometimes, if you stay long past a showtime, you might hear old Mrs. Theater talking to the building, crying, laughing, reminiscing. And sometimes, if you stay even longer, the creaks in the floorboards and mechanical whirs of the projectors begin to sound like someone else's voice doing the same.
One night, for instance, as Mrs. Theater locks the front doors for the night, you might hear her say, "Hey. Are you doing alright?"
And you might hear the latches on the doors make a softer, lower click than you'd expect, which Mrs. Theater will answer with a sigh and a "yeah, me neither."
And as she walks up the stairs to the projection room, she'll notice a small leak of water dripping from the ceiling. And she'll rush back down and lovingly rest a bowl under the leak before she turns to hug the wall. "Oh, babe," she'll say, "oh, babe, I am so, so sorry."
And the leak will get worse, and Mrs. Theater will kiss the wall, as tears well up in her own eyes, too.
Some nights, the two will watch Marcela's favorite movie again for the millionth time. Other nights, they'll watch Liv's. Most nights, though, they watch nothing at all, but they sit and they rest and they find a little peace in each other.
Liv's always found some kind of strange comfort in bad days. Bad days are a part of life, and Liv, who had to fight to become alive and to be seen as alive, wants to make sure it has every part there is. Bad years are hard, sure, but they're the same thing, only on a larger scale. They're like a movie. Conflict, big feelings, resolution, catharsis. It loves a year that feels like a movie, even if it's a sad one.
Before now, it had never really had bad chapters before. Several years all in a row, all of them bitter. It starts to feel less like being alive, not more. It brings out some old habits, and those old habits make things worse, and eventually it can't remember what being better felt like and struggles to picture feeling better ever again. It blames itself terribly, even when Marcela insists none of this is its fault.
Marcela, for her part, has been through worse. Liv will never believe it, but living in the theater really is better than living with the Foundation, and it's not even close. If she had to choose between the two of them again, she'd make the same choice. A million times, she'd make the same choice.
That's not to say she isn't doing bad, either. She feels guilty to say it out loud, but she's lonely. There was a time, not too long ago, when all her friends would meet near-daily in the theater, watching movies and playing games and throwing parties, all under the thin veneer of doing their jobs to keep up good relations with an anomaly. When she closes her eyes she can still imagine them all here. She can still imagine the happiest time of her life. How long ago was it, now? She counts the years, then the months, then the days, even though she knows it will hurt to. She counts all over again every single night.
It's a strange pain. Knowing that you have each other, and knowing that it makes everything so much easier, but also knowing that it doesn't make it all okay. It sounds silly now, but both Marcie and Liv kind of thought the only real problems in adulthood were relationship problems, and as long as they had each other, there would be no more room for dark clouds. That's how it works in all the movies. That was the promise, right? Happily ever after?
At least they have the 'ever after' part. At least they have each other.
Once the leak stops, Marcela pours the bowl into the sink before putting it right back where it was, just in case. She walks up the stairs and into the projection room, where a quaint bed is tucked into the corner next to a nice window view. She wipes her eyes and climbs into bed and puts her hand on the window.
"I love you," she says.
"I love you, too," says a snippet of film suddenly played in the auditorium below. And as Marcela falls asleep, Liv hums to itself by spinning projector reels.