An Interlude

I stand on the balcony looking down below. Sometimes I see couples dancing in various ways. Other times, I see the hushed crowd sitting in rapt attention, enthralled at the wonder of motion pictures no matter how long they have been around. One moment, there is a fellow washing his clothes in one of those large contraptions filled with soap and water. The next moment, a sad-looking woman is wandering through the carefully-reconstructed, but now decaying aisles. Like many others before her, she comes here to look for something she may not even be able to find here. Sometimes she sleeps here, as if it was the only thing she could do to find the closest thing to peace. Although she looks very much like her, or at the very least, reminds me of her, she is not my woman. For one thing, I can see her clear as day, whereas I have not been able to find Olivia for years.

In all truth, I don't know how long I've been here. It could be weeks, months, years, decades for all I care. I am only vaguely aware of the changes around me. Perhaps it is because I don't change despite all the changes which occur around me. The woman wanders through the theater with the strange man with his gun-like contraption. I get the idea that they are looking for me, or for Olivia. Sometimes I hear them talking about who or what they think we are. I'm fairly certain they are wrong.

"I think it's like some sort of recording of human energy." The man says. "It's like a tape playing over and over again, not like a real person who can interact with the living."

"I sort of see where you're coming from," The woman nods in agreement. "But to me, they are people who just forgot that they're dead and can't move on because of unfinished business. Maybe they don't even notice that we're here."

"You're such a romantic." There is no mirth or sardonic mocking tone to his voice. The man is more matter-of-fact in his observation than I would have been.

For one thing, I am well aware that I am dead, or at least the usual definition for it. I know that I cannot ever fully interact with the living, but that doesn't stop me from trying. Sometimes I wish more than anything that I could talk to these people and tell them my real story and not the ones made up to keep the tourists happy and interested. The strange thing is that I don't remember being buried or even dying, but I find myself here anyway.

I remember back when the theater came back in its third glorious incarnation of something resembling its former glory. The time it was the washing place was somewhat close, in its opulence and the comings and goings of young people. However, it lacked the dream-like grandeur of the old days. In its earliest days, back when I experienced time one full moment at a time, The Phoenix was a dance hall/vaudeville theater before it became a movie house. Those were the days when she was there, Olivia. Perhaps the other incarnations of The Phoenix lacked the majesty of the original because of her absence. Or perhaps I'm just a hopeless romantic as well.

In its second full restoration, which seemed little more than adding a fresh coat of paint everywhere and chairs constructed to look like the "original" seats, all sorts of people would come in and walk around in the aisles, much like this woman does. Yet they never took seats or enjoyed a show within its walls. These people seemed content enough to look at the theater beneath house lights and listen to stories from people who have never had any experiences in this place, but still felt like they were knowledgable enough to tell my story.

This is yet another case when I wish I could interact with them. Any of the lover's quarrels and torrid affairs anywhere else in the world would have been much more interesting. If anything, I was just some guy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. After awhile, I noticed that there were plenty of other people like me, people who fate decided should miss chances due to the most mundane things. Now I'm just sort of stuck here watching the lives of others moving by like some sort of movie. Maybe that was what the man with the gun-contraption was talking about. If people are actually able to "see" me the way the woman does, they only seem to see glimpses of me up here. I like movies as much as the next person, but after all it gets boring and rather frustrating to not be able to do anything about the things I see. Worse yet, I don't seem to be experiencing things in line with one another like any life or perhaps non-life would be.

Like I said, I don't experience time like anyone else would. I just watch and see what happens. Now the man and woman are gone. The seats look worse and there is a rather lurid film in color on the screen. Even though there are more people in the theater than before, there aren't many of them. None of them sit close to each other except for this woman who seems to have wandered into this world of few men. This is not a movie people go to for anything resembling enjoyment. Men in their desperation and inability to control their own lives come here, night after night to ease their suffering, no matter how mundane it may be, just for a little while before returning to the world. I do not wish to relate to these men, but sometimes I wonder if they are more dead than I am. It seems like for them, time has stopped completely. At least it keeps moving for me, even if it is out of order.

The strange woman gets up and lifts her skirts as she sits in the man's lap. There is nothing amorous or passionate in their exchange. Like machines, they pulse to a rhythm unnaturally set by the film on the screen. Like the film on the screen, the man seems to know he cannot get any real relief from the woman he is with. Nobody else in the theater seems to notice what they are doing in the back rows. All of them just stare ahead at the screen blankly, as if what could be called their souls was being absorbed into the film itself. Their lives could come and go in an instant and they probably wouldn't even notice.

Then again, when I passed, I hardly noticed. I still stayed for the parties and the music. For awhile, I did not understand why nobody accepted my offers to dance with them or sit with them during the shows, but I soon realized that it was not merely a case of becoming a social pariah, but becoming truly nonexistent in the only social scene I had grown familiar with. Sometimes the people would look different. I remember the young man in his large trousers and rumpled shirt waiting for his friend. I wanted to tell him that she had been there, but left to go pick up something from the store down the street. Fortunately, he did not leave, although I watched him curiously following around one of the girls who worked at the clothes washing place. I guess fellows are much more fickle in that time than in my day.

I never thought I would become an old man. For one thing, I was a young man in my prime when I had passed without passing onto wherever it is people go when they die. Then again, maybe this is what is supposed to happen and my pastor was completely wrong. It feels like I've been here so long that I can't remember what I look like. Maybe with time, my mind, or whatever it is that lingers here, aged me to be skeptical of the human interactions I witnessed. As much as I had fantasized about my Olivia during odd hours of the day and night, I would never have dreamed of doing some of the things I had seen in the lurid picture shows.

Or maybe it's just the old man in me. Not having a body makes it easier to forget that such urges ever existed in the first place. All that remains of me, or the me that felt is a sense of longing. Like I said, many people came and continue to come to The Phoenix searching for something. I haven't stopped looking. Maybe once the machines come to tear this place down to rubble, I'll still keep looking in the dead clay and wood. Maybe then I'll finally be able to find my Olivia.

The question remains as to whether or not she wants to be found. I worry when I see the woman and the man with the gun-contraption, not so much because he could hurt me with it since I know that is impossible. Instead, I worry for the woman, who seems more like a girl than an adult. I know she is looking for someone as well. Even though I was not as close to Olivia as I would have like to have been, this woman looks on with dimly-lit eyes at this small, ever-changing world. Perhaps she wishes she could see this world the way I do, but I'm having no more luck finding the one I am searching for as well. At least she has a sense of time and how it passes. Each moment to me could occur decades apart for all I know.

All I wanted was to dance with her. Now I just wander around aimlessly in this greatly diminished, artificially-created world just wishing I could do anything now. The restaurant in the lobby serves such beautiful food, but I could never hunger for it no matter how many times I heard people raving about the piquant and salivation-worthy smells or the heavenly taste of the blended spices. Like I said, not having a body makes it easy to forget even the most basic of hungers.

All that is left is a sense of longing. Sometimes I wonder if I mourn more for the living than the living mourn for the dead. I want to see the woman and the man investigating the hollowed-out shell, once reconstructed to achieve some sort of touch from past glories. I want to see her even if I can never speak to her or apologize for what happened. If I could ask one question, I would either ask her if she had seen my Olivia or simply ask why she keeps returning to the place she had lost someone so close to her. For one thing, she was still alive and had the ability to leave. I continue in my futile search for lack of anything better to do. She never leaves with any sense of satisfaction or peace compared to before she had come in. So why does she return?

But for the most part, I wish I could apologize or explain what had happened. It could have happened to anyone up in the balcony. The wood at that time was still rotting out. Yet it wasn't so much that the floor fell through. I watched the woman's brother fall. Instinctively, I reached out to him even if there would never be a possibility of me touching him, let alone pulling him back. He fell so hard that he took out several chairs, leaving them in splinters. There was also a dent in the hard floor beneath him when they pulled him up to try to get him to a hospital. It looked more like someone had thrown him from the balcony than a mere fall. The worst part of it is, after I had reached out to him in my futile attempt to pull him back, she looked up at me with great hurt in those once-bright eyes of hers. Now she doesn't come here looking for Olivia or me really, she searches for her brother with a stare so vacant it seems like she isn't trying at all. If she was looking for me at all, I believe she would confront me in anger as opposed to the curiosity she once exuded when she first came to The Phoenix Theater.

The trouble is, if Olivia is still here, I can't see her. So in theory, if the woman's brother was still here, I wouldn't be able to see him either. Or, if there was someone else here who had thrown him, I wouldn't know who it was or why they did it. I think the dead are not only dead to the living, but to each other as well. Yet at the same time, I can't leave this place. The only reason I can think of as to why I stay is because I am still searching for my Olivia. For all I know, she has moved on. Maybe she's even forgiven her other suitor. Maybe she's forgiven me for whatever it is I could be blamed for.

These days, I seem to think less about Olivia, although I do think of her often. The only other person who crosses my thoughts is the woman searching for her brother. I wish that I could apologize for what happened, even if I did not cause it. More than anything, I wish I could tell her never to come back here again. The Phoenix is a beautiful place to visit, but not really anywhere anyone would want to live, or die in for that matter.