of the Cinema Grill. She sat with her hand on her chin, her long brown hair falling over her hand and shoulders.
Before leaving my dorm room, I drank maybe six Amstel Light beers, and my stomach pushed over my belt as I walked
down the streets, looking at the cruel moon hanging over my head.
A pole blocked her view from the street. I stood behind it, watching her. Her bosoms were small. The color of
her eyes: I couldn’t see that far. So, I stood and looked at her, mustering the courage that might one day lead me
to say hello.
One night, I walked up, bought a ticket, saw her green eyes and smile, and my heart fluttered. My lip quivered
and my voice cracked naming the film. She handed me my ticket.
There was a bar to the left-hand side as you walked into the theater. I walked over to the soft light diffusing
the bar and ordered drink after drink as the smell of popcorn, candy and coke floated through the air. The place
closed at midnight, and there I sat, alone, sitting on the black stool at the bar, licking the taste of alcohol off of my
lips, my eyes bleary and red.
Someone poked me on the shoulder. Sir, we’re closed, the voice said. I turned around and saw her standing in
front of me. I wiped off my mouth with my right hand.
Oh, I said, getting up, pushing the stool into the bar.
She smiled, looking at me, and I stumbled forth, so drunk she had to help me. It became clear I had made a fool
of myself. Outside the theater, I put my back against the wall and slid down, cool wind blowing through my hair,
unable to gather the energy to walk back to the dorm.
Footsteps echoed after a door closed, and I could feel her looking at me. She walked over to me and stood in
front of me.
You ok? She asked, looking down at me.
Yeah, I said, looking the other way, I’m ok.
Her name was April, she said. She helped me up and walked me to the corner. Where are you going? She asked
me.
Don’t know, I said.
The great buildings of downtown stood over us, illuminating our smallness, alone in this mess. Next to me, she
stood, saying nothing.
You wanna keep walking? She said.
We did. She began to talk. We walked through the park where homeless men sat and lay on concrete
benches, breathing the poisonous air. It seemed the night wouldn’t end. April suggested a bar, and we walked
there. We walked inside, and a country song jangled from a jukebox.
We sat at a green booth. A waitress with curly blonde hair walked over, leaned over to hear our order, and
brought us drinks. We drank the beers, eating up the smokey silence between us. It was then I saw she had a silent
heart, and I would have to speak to it. Her eyes blinked quickly, like a shutter.
I’ve seen you, she said to me, looking down at the table, her fingers tracing the grooves in the wood.
How do you mean? I said, looking up at her.
Seen you watching me, she said.
My eyes trailed down, my mind grasping for words.
Well, I said, shrugging.
Silence. We ended up walking back through the misty darkness together, as if we somehow knew each other,
walking along, both of us aching to fill the lonesomeness in our chests. We passed homeless men sitting against brick
walls of vandalized buildings where each and every window had been knocked out.
Through the night, the mist moving by us. She folded her hand into mine. We stopped and sat on a curb until
the sun rose pink with trails of orange forming tortuous trails in the sky.
Do you need to be somewhere? I said, squinting and turning my head to her.
Nowhere, she said.
I need to show you something, she said.
I followed her, rubbing the rheum from my eyes. We walked through an opened door of an abandoned red
brick building. The place smelled of rotting wood and bugs. Through the doors, up the creaking stairs, and into a
room where many pictures hung from the walls. Pictures of flower gardens, rain forests, and jungles.
Why bring me here? I said.
Why not? She said.
A knock came from the door behind us, and a man walked inside. He was a tall black man, probably seven feet.
Standing over us, he spoke in a different language to April. She nodded her head, pointing at me. Yes, yes, she
said.
We followed him upstairs through the building, the smell of vanilla trailing back to us from the man. I tried to
whisper to April, ask her what the hell was going on, but she didn’t hear me.
We walked into an empty white room that smelled of fresh paint. In this room was a door. April opened it, and
it led to a smaller room. We crouched down, nudging our way through it. The door closed, and the black man was
gone.
A dwarf sat on a metal stool in this room behind a bar. I didn’t say a word, wondering if I was dreaming. This is
my home, she said. She brought a miniature beer over to me. The dwarf waved as she opened another door, and my
feet followed her, compelled forward.
In this red room that had the odor of new clothes and four beige mannequins stood and started dancing about,
all of them in red paisley dresses, singing something that blurred, and the room turned to darkness. When the room
lit up again, I sat in the room alone.
Voices crackled all around me. The room turned dark again. A light came on above me. A door opened and
two men in white linen suits walked in, speaking what sounded like German. The brown-haired one pointed at me.
The one with blonde hair took a pair of manacles out and put them on my ankles. I tried to move, but my body
seemed frozen, as if I watched myself from the outside.
Everything turned to darkness. I woke in a circle of other people chained together in a beautiful green garden,
the smell of roses and oaks filling the air. Birds sang songs somewhere over our heads.
A man spoke to the right of the circle. He wore a black suit and had an apple in his right hand. The people
around me moved their mouths, but I heard nothing. My mouth wouldn’t open.
The man in the black suit walked over and grabbed me. He carried me as if I weighed an ounce over to where a
line of people stood. This line of people wore white robes, and their faces were circular blurs. They began to
circle me, poking me, as if I was some strange creature never before seen.
A woman walked toward me and poked my face, the smell of her skin like nectarines.
A man walked before me, raised his hands to the sky, said a few discombobulating words and my vision went
black.
I woke in a palm tree, a snake slithering toward me, its tongue sliding in and out of its mouth. An arm grabbed
me and pulled me down.
Hello, this man said. He had slick black hair and a thick mustache. Smoke issued forth from his pipe as he
dragged me along the sand on the ground.
You have not been good, he said, looking down at me as he dragged me. Not good at all.
He walked to a white building, opened a door, and dragged me into a dark room with a single metal chair in the
middle of it. He strapped me into the chair and placed a device on my head. It felt as if I was being sucked into the
past, watching myself.
I saw myself sitting alone at lunch in high school. I saw myself walking alone on the sidewalks of my youth. I saw
myself watching April. I saw myself masturbating in my bed. My chest caved in as I watched.
The head device came off, and he stood before me, smiling.
You, he said, pointing at me, you, and his head turned into a blur. A phone rang and he picked it up. Yes yes,
he said, looking at me. He closed my eyelids with his cold fingers. I felt myself begin to float upward into a warm
mist, the smell of irises plugging my nose.
When my eyes opened again, I watched myself, sitting in a room of the abandoned building, alone.
I cried and April stood in front of me, shaking me. I yelled, trying to moved forward, but I couldn’t move, so I
watched.
I grabbed my head, and my fingers seemed to slip right through it. April, I yelled. April.
I saw my eyes open and look at me. We sat, watching each other.
April looked down at me. What are you doing? She asked. I looked up into her green eyes.
I don’t know, I said. I don’t know. She grabbed my arm, helped me stand up, and we walked to a window
where we looked down at the tiny bodies moving through the streets in the burning light of the sun.
