left in the dark

 

Dark choices

In a darkened theatre where no audience sits a dark curtain slowly begins to rise. Never in the history of this theatre has the curtain been lifted, never have the lights illuminated the stage and there has never been a person to stand on the stage. This theatre has always been a decrepit place full of sorrow, tragedy and misery.  Except tonight things changed and it began with the rising of the tattered curtain. There was no one there to operate the curtain and there was no one waiting to watch what happens next. The curtain rises in an empty stage. There were no set pieces, no backdrop, no props but there did seem to be several large holes in the sage that led down into the darkness. The theatre was absolutely silent, there weren’t even sounds of mice or other vermin that often live in abandoned buildings.

Then from somewhere in the darkness that would normally be backstage there was movement. Nothing big but a definite slight movement that could have easily been missed, but there was no one watching. Whoever or whatever was doing the moving slowly and deliberately made its way to centre stage. Step by step and inch by inch it moved making only the slightest of sounds. When it reached centre stage one of the spotlights turned on making a racket as it did. There was no one there to operate the lights either.

The form standing on the stage was a girl. She was small and fragile looking. Everything about her was pale, her skin, her hair, her dress and even her eyes were the palest white. She stood there and stared out at the non-existent audience. The girl began to pace the stage, walking carefully around the holes in the stage. She walked with confidence and authority like she was accustomed to commanding the stage. She paced back and forth seeming not to notice the time ticking by. It could have been hours that the girl paced or maybe days without stopping, as if the girl was waiting for something or someone.

After an undeterminable amount of time the girl stopped walking. She stood in the middle of the stage again and just stared out at the empty audience, except that the audience wasn’t empty anymore there were two shadowy figures that weren’t there before. The girl stared at them and the figures stared back silently. “You know what I want,” one of the shadows said. Its voice was neither feminine nor masculine neither soothing or frightening. It was just an empty voice that carried in the empty theatre. The girl onstage nodded and pulled out a small but sharp knife from the folds of her dress.

“Remember it is your choice,” the other figure said. Its voice had the same emptiness that the other one had and it did not show any type of emotion.

 The girl nodded again and the spotlight went out plunging the theatre into total darkness again and the only sound to be heard was the falling of the curtain.

   The End