MY stories

 Friday night, theatre night. Every Friday night is. The sound of drums and trumpets fills the air with unnecessary tension and the crowd shivers at the thought of tonight’s show. They shiver and they wonder- who are they going to see? Let them wonder, I say. Let it be a surprise. Let them believe it’s real, sometimes I wish I could believe that too.

 I try to push my way through to the door, but someone grabs my coat and pulls me back.

 - Get on the line!

 I fall on the ground and hear the people around me laugh in amusement.

 There’s something about this night. The sky is dark and the stars are mute, distant. Their trembling lights are gone and the darkness of the sky hits me like the loss of a friend. Instead of standing up I sit on the ground and watch the people go through the doors. Women cuddling close to their husbands, children asking their parents for a balloon: “Just one, mommy, please! Please, buy me the red one! I want the red one, pleeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaase!”

 People. Excited. Nervous. Waiting. Wondering. Let them wonder.

 A group of friends stands by the door. Two boys and three girls. One of them turns around and for a moment my heart jumps, when I think I recognize the pair of eyes, but the face is unfamiliar. I blink and shake my head. It was a mistake of course, but I could swear I saw them, even if it was for a second. The eyes, their gaze and the smile that made the corners of my mouth twitch. They go in, their shaking hands holding crumpled tickets. The line moves forward. One by one the faces disappear, voices dim away and I’m the only one left on the small square. Me and the mask. The big iron face on the posters around me.

 “The man without a face, the voice of the world!”   

 It’s only a commercial that no one reads, but it sounds good though. The man without a face. What’s it in a face, anyway? The eyes lie, eyelashes flutter in false modesty, cheeks blush, giving away feelings you never meant to show in the first place. Eyebrows rise in questions you never meant to ask. Smiles, shining brighter than the sun blind you, they mock, guide in wrong directions, embarrass, rejoice when your heart may be crying and encourage what your heart may reject. Faces deceive in general, that’s just what they do. And to fake an expression is to be a fake yourself. That’s why I wear a mask. I’m better of without a face. Lips don’t tell the story, voices do. Imagination is provoked by words, not smiles, not tears. I guess by far my words have proved to be stronger than the cries and laughs of others.

 Slowly, I get up and dust off my coat. It’s nearly nine o’clock. The audience must be getting nervous already, but I don’t bother to hurry up. I don’t think they’ll enjoy what I have to say tonight anyway.

 The old lady behind the counter gives me a suspicious look when I pass my ticket to her. It seems faded and I can guess, that she’s wondering if I stole it.

 “You’re gonna be late. He’s starting any minute now.”

 “He won’t start without me, don’t worry.”

 She gives me a condescending smile and lets me go in. The people are noisy and no one pays any attention to me as I step in the shadows of the back row. I wait patiently until the previous act is over to get the mask out of my pocket. The light metal is cold in my fingers, dark like a deep pit that I have to jump into, absorbing me in its mesmerizing beauty.

 The actors leave the stage under impatient applause. The lights are off. The theatre goes silent and the sound of the power switch echoes like a gunshot. But the actor they all came to see was gone. Random claps are mixed up with violent curses. Suddenly a thin silhouette appears from behind the curtains and someone tries to throw something at him, but he’s far too small a target and they miss. Finally he turns to the audience and the grey glow of his face shouts down everybody else.

 I can almost see their thoughts- surprised, confused. Wondering.

 I throw down my old coat and the lack of stage costume beneath it surprises everyone. I can tell by the look on their faces they’ve finally started to realize that this night was going to bring something different to the stage. Something much more familiar. Someone so ordinary he could be anyone. I could be a mischievous son, a beautiful daughter, a loving mother, a responsible father. I could be the brother you always wanted to have or the cheerful aunt that gave you cookies when you were little. I could even be you. The man without a face.

 Tonight I don’t feel confident at all, but I figure it’s better to start talking now, while they’re still silent.

 “Have you ever wondered why you come here?” I ask and can instantly tell that they haven’t. “I have. I wonder that every Friday night when I see you. Stories are stories and all stories are fine, but what’s it so special about this hour you spent here? Is the theatre? The dim lights? The feeling of being around people who share the same emotions? Or is it me? My voice, my mask maybe? No it’s the mystery of the unknown. I talk about divine goddess’, rare jewels, the soul of nature, the freedom of birds and sad fairytales. I talk about dreams, things no one has seen or felt. Things that don’t happen anymore. I am the unknown and you’re drawn by my mystery, you come to uncover my mask and take a peek at my face.”

 I take a breath and hear a scream somewhere from the back: “Take it off!”

 I smile: “I will… in a way. The thing you have to understand about tonight, is that this night is devoted to something much more common and simple. Secrets.

 “Yes, secrets. And let me make it perfectly clear- I’m not talking about lies. I don’t mean things you just forgot to mention to your mom at dinner, or embarrassing truths no one wants to hear. I’m talking about sacred moments of sinful pleasure and divine suffering, that you hold close to your heart. That are your heart. Moments that have changed you. A small amount of time, minutes, sometimes even seconds, that’s just enough for your soul to burn in the flames of fear, lust or happiness and be reborn again. I’m talking about strong emotions that flow over you so fast they make you dizzy. And the harder you try to make them stay, the faster they go away and the only thing you have to treasure is the memory. So you keep it, but you keep it a secret, because you know no one else would understand something, that was meant only for you to feel.”

 Now they listened. Now they cared about what I had to say, because now I was talking about them. Their faces were all eyes searching for mine and ears, open not for words, but thoughts they could not hear. So I spoke, because now my secrets were about to become theirs.

 “This Wednesday I fell in love from first sight.”

 I looked at the crowd and they looked back at me. Expecting. Wondering.

 I blinked in discomfort. Somewhere in the darkness someone was staring at me. I shivered, but no one saw it. A face leaned foreword and I backed away, up on the stage. I felt my legs trembling and I was afraid I’d fall. The eyes were curious, throwing invisible arrows at my heart, chasing after my feeble breath. It was a face I’d already seen, but didn’t dare to dream of. A single, crooked smile was enough to draw words from my mouth. I turned to the audience again.

 “I fell in love and that’s the beginning, middle and end of tonight’s magical journey through the fields of fantasy. That’s the whole story and I don’t want to ruin it by talking more than I have to. I don’t want to cover it with words until you can no longer remember core and purpose of the best secret I have to share. If I was Shakespeare I would conjure up a tragedy, but there’s nothing tragic about finding out that the single reason you were born is hiding in the smile of an unfamiliar face. What plot could be more passionate than that one moment your eyes finally meet and you feel like Adam and Eve in heaven- alone, naked, unaware of anything else, but each other’s presence. You could be miles away from each other and yet your skin shivers at the touch of the wind as if it was the fingers of a lover. What happier ending could there be than to see lips being stretched in a smile they won’t give to anyone else. A smile that’s made only for you. A smile that tells you, not only your heart lost its way, somewhere in the last couple of minutes, and stopped to ask for directions. A writer might ask for characters. What characters could a love story ask for when she already has a couple. Adam and Eve. Fingers locked together as if in a tight embrace. Her and me, and our lips don’t need any dialogue to move.  

 I bent my head- I was determined not to look at the face, smiling curiously in the dark. I was too afraid the eyes, I could still feel were looking at me, would recognize themselves in my words.

 “I met a girl.” I smiled. “She could’ve been anyone, but she wasn’t. She would’ve been invisible if she was anything different than what she was. Her hair would’ve been brown if it wasn’t the color of melted chocolate. Her eyes couldn’t have been less than glowing embers or I wouldn’t be talking about them right now. And her lips… her lips were the imprint of a kiss. Her lips were the fluttering wings of a nightingale, running away from the dream I was trying to lock them away in.”

 “If keeping this a secret would make me at least a bit unique in my experiences and happy, you wouldn’t have known it. But the truth is that, if no one knows, it’s like it never happened. The truth is, your secrets aren’t worth anything unless you share them with someone who doesn’t need words to understand.”

 I dared a second glance at the eyes, undressing me all night long. I blushed… and I think they saw it.

 “If you’re wondering why did I share that with you, it’s because tonight, in this room, there’s someone I can’t stop dreaming of and I hope now he’ll dream of me too.”

 Confused whispers rose among the people and heads started turning curiously around. Nobody saw me disappear behind the curtains. I could hear hands clapping at the empty stage, but I didn’t turn around.

 I hid in a lumber room just like after every other show. It had a mirror, but no chairs. I didn’t need any anyway. I put on my coat and slowly took off the mask.

 The mirror saw a girl. Her eyes were dark and her hair was brown. Her lips were pale, thin and wide. She had a mask in her pocket and a secret that burned her cheeks bright red. This Wednesday she fell in love from first sight. He had blond, curly hair; lips she wanted to mark with hers and blue eyes so deep she almost drowned tonight. She would never know what he thought of her, but tonight she managed to make everybody believe that the man of her dreams dreamt of her too.

 She convinced everyone, but couldn’t convince herself. Sometimes I wish it would happen the other way around.

 There was something about tonight. The stars were gone from the sky; the people were nervous. The air was tensed. If it was any other night I’d have just gone home, but that night just couldn’t stand to be predictable. A dream spoke with a man’s voice somewhere behind my back:

 “I didn’t shiver, you know.”

 I turned around. He was smiling and my mind was too busy making a memory to make sense of his words.

 “Excuse me?”

 He laughed and came a bit closer to me.

 “You got all those other stuff right, but I didn’t shiver. I don’t know why you said it.”

 My voice was hoarse, but I spoke nevertheless:

 “Because I did.”

 “Oh. OK then.” He nodded. ”So, if you have it all figured out, can you tell me what I’m thinking about right now?”

 I smiled: “I don’t know. Surprise me!”

 It was Friday night and the crowd in front of the theatre was looking for a show. There was a young couple on the square- he was blond, she was a brunette and strangely familiar. He kissed her and she kissed him back. Their fingers were locked together as if in a tight embrace. Some stopped to look at them and try to guess what next week’s show would be about. They watched and they wondered. Nervous. Excited. 

 Let them wonder.