Sitting On Satin
She sat next to the woman in white
pearls and lavish lace under-dressings. Turning away and blushing, she realized
how transparent that woman’s navy blue dress really was. There were only a few
seats left, scattered and spread around the very large room. She could barely
see the dotted people in the row across from her.
“Did you come with somebody?” she asked
the woman, still embarrassed to look at her dress.
The woman laughed, surprised at her
inquiry, “No, darling.”
She wasn’t the nervous type, but
something about the room made her feel ill. Maybe it was the bright, harsh
lights or the stilling silence. Maybe it was the fact that most the people here
were triple her age.
The woman in white pearls grabbed her
hand and smiled. “You didn’t expect to be here, did you?” she asked the girl.
“No. I’m a little lost. I was on my way
to the theatre…Is this it?” she asked. She was never good with directions and
often ended up in places that may have
been her destination.
“Of course,” the woman replied. Sighing
with relief, the girl sank into her seat. It was very comfortable, lined with
white satin overflowing a wooden trim.
“I’m meeting a friend; she said the show
was a surprise.”
“Indeed,” the woman responded.
Suddenly, the lights dimmed. A large
screen rose up from the middle of the arena-type center, blinding the audience
with brilliant light. The girl went to check the watch on her wrist, noticing
it was gone. She often left expensive things at home.
“I wonder where she is?” she thought,
thinking about her friend.
The movie began to play. Panning to a
sickly face, wrinkled and pinched from a devastating illness, the camera slowly
faded in. The woman in the frame was obviously on the brink of death, gasping
for air until it didn’t come. Family around her sighed and sobbed in quiet
gratitude for the end.
The woman grabbed the girl’s hand, tears
streaming from her eyes.
“This is a sad movie,” the girl
murmured, allowing the stranger to grapple her for comfort. As the scene faded,
she turned around to look for her friend waiting at the entrance. Spinning
around dizzily, she noticed an absolute lack of entrance and exit signs. “Maybe the signs are broken,” she
thought. It was dark, after all.
Focusing back to the movie, she turned
just in time to see the camera fade into a funeral—presumably the woman who
died in the previous scene. The camera zoomed across the room, showing all of
the family and friends that dared to attend the funeral. Finally, the camera
focused on the casket, and the body. The girl squirmed in her seat a little,
uncomfortable with the idea of death.
The woman in the casket looked like a
different person. She was no longer wrinkled and jaundice. In fact, her family
had dressed her in her finest pearls and navy blue dress. One that was a little
transparent even under the dim funeral lights.
The girl turned white.
“T-that’s you!” she screamed, pointing
to the screen. She turned, noticing the woman’s grip on her was nonexistent.
She wasn’t there. She was staring at an empty seat.
“What’s going on?” the girl screamed,
looking around at the hundreds of people crying in their seats.
“Sit down, dear,” an old man sitting on
the opposite side of her said. “You’ll see.” Stunned and scared, the girl
focused back to the screen.
This time, the scene opened to a place
the girl knew well—the street she lived on. The girl saw herself walking down
the street, wearing the same clothes she had on now. The only difference was
her gold watch, dangling expensively from her wrist. It was a gift from the
friend she was meeting.
The girl froze in her seat, immediately
insisting it was a dream. But she wasn’t waking up.
Wake
up.
The camera followed her down the busy
city street, panning in on a strange man a few feet away from her.
“You really shouldn’t have walked alone
after dark,” a man sitting behind her whispered. The girl watched, tears of
fear and confusion swimming down her cheeks.
The strange man pulled a knife and cut
her throat.
The watch slipped off her wrist like
butter.
Wake
up.
“Don’t worry dear, you don’t belong
here.” The man next to her insisted.
Wake
up.
The harsh lights turned on again, but
nobody around her seemed to notice. They were still watching the screen. The
girl tried to focus in on the scene, but the bright lights made it hard to see.
She saw paramedics. An ambulance. The lights.
Wake
up.
“C’mon, wake up…I got a pulse!” the girl heard somebody scream. She tried
to open her eyes, but the dazzling lights in the ambulance were painful. Her
throat felt numb.
She drifted to and from the theater
until she felt solid again. When she woke, she wasn’t sitting on satin.
