Sitting on Satin

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.