The Theatre of Life

The sound of a heartbeat woke me up. I opened my eyes to searing light coming through the window, and a gentle rocking pulling me back towards beckoning sleep. My vision was blurry, like I’d been asleep for a long time. I checked my watch. 4:00pm. I searched my mind. Nothing. I couldn’t recall when I went to sleep. I moved my gaze to the window to see the world rushing by in streams of colour; vibrant greens and pale blue shot past me, almost too fast for my eyes to follow. Not a heartbeat that awoke me, I realised. No one was around me to have provided the heartbeat. The sound of a train, chuffing along at an alarming rate. A train I was sitting on, slumped in the corner against the window. And one that didn’t seem as though it was stopping any time soon.

My eyebrows pulled together as I concentrated on trying to pull my memories from the depths of the fog clouding my mind. I couldn’t remember how I got here. I couldn’t remember anything between walking in for an interview and waking up here. I pulled myself to a standing position, and opened the door to the cabin I had been sitting in. I peered down a corridor full of identical cabin doors. No one was around. It was quiet on the train, as though everyone was asleep. Nothing but the train was moving. The train – and me.

As I made my way down the corridor, I began to notice that none of them were occupied. It struck me as odd that the train was so quiet when no one was sleeping in the cabins. Perhaps there were more on another carriage. There was a blue door at the end of the hallway. I reached for the handle.

"Are you sure you want to go through that door?" I turned around. A young girl stood in the open door of the nearest cabin. She looked familiar. Somehow. I couldn't quite place her face. She had round green eyes set in a heart shaped face. She looked as though the world was still full of wonder. As though she’d never been touched by the cruelty of life. I looked back at the door, then back to the young girl. I was almost sure that I’d glanced through the glass set in the door she was leaning against. Almost sure I didn’t see anyone there, but now I couldn’t say for certain. Perhaps she’d simply been obscured from view somehow.

“Why wouldn’t I want to go through the door?” She smiled at the question. It was an infectious kind of smile.

“Don’t you want to see?” I frowned. She beckoned at me, then held out her hand to me. I supposed I could spare a moment for whatever it was that she wanted me to see. The young girl pulled me towards the door at the other end of the hallway, glancing back a few times with a bright smile as we went. It stirred a memory that refused to surface. I could feel it on the edge of my mind, like it was teasing me.

“What’s your name?” I asked. Perhaps her name would help me bring the memory to the front of my mind. The girl stopped rather suddenly in the middle of the corridor, and I only just kept from walking into her. She spun around to stare at me, studying me. Her eyes flicked between mine for a few moments, before she lifted her finger to her lips, shushing me.

“It’s a secret,” she whispered. Then the strange moment passed and she spun around again, taking my hand and leading me on towards the ever-closer door. Apprehension built in my stomach and I began to question my decision to follow the strange young girl. I couldn’t fathom why I would possibly be unnerved by a door, but it was becoming apparent that it wasn’t just an ordinary door. Or at least that was what it felt like. Something just seemed…off. I didn’t have a sense of foreboding, no gut feeling telling me that I should turn around and run from the curious encounter, but it felt offbeat. Like something had been thrown out of sync.

We reached the door, and the girl stepped to the side, staring at me expectantly. Uncertainty filled me at her look. I wanted to know what was behind the door. I wanted to see. But my fear of the unknown reared up, pushing against my curiosity. I shook myself. It’s just a door. I wiped my sweaty palm on my trousers, then reached out and turned the handle.

The strangest sight greeted me on the other side of the door. It was an old theatre, with a stage set up across from me. There wasn’t any seating, so I remained standing. The curtains opened then. A mother, cradling her child, sobbing. She was still in the hospital bed. Her baby was screaming, having just taken its first breaths in this world. I tried to move towards the mother and her baby, to attempt to console mother or child. Maybe both. But my feet would not move, frozen to the spot, I watched the young woman try and calm her screaming babe. My mind could not catch up with what was happening around me. I knew I was still on the train. I could still feel the gentle rocking lulling me, but it felt as though I was worlds away.

The scene dissipated like smoke, and the young girl again took my hand, leading me to another carriage with another theatre and a different act playing out. A park. Children ran through the trees around me and I watched as their parents chatted, sometimes breaking off mid-sentence to call after their child in reprimand, or to simply remind them of where they were. I scanned the picture before me, searching. There. Sitting quietly on a bench, the mother from the hospital, reading to her child sitting beside her. She glanced up, looking just next to me.

I sucked in a breath. I hadn’t noticed it before, but the mother looked so familiar. Like someone I’d known all my life. I felt something brush past me and watched as the young girl who had brought me here ran past me, giggling with her arms stretched out, as though she had all the freedom of the world in that moment. The young child looked up, squealing with glee as the young girl neared them and leaping into her arms when she was close enough.

We changed carriage again. And again. And again. Each one with a different scene playing out. A schoolyard, the child being pushed over for the first time on the playground. A school play, where the child played a minor role. A family Christmas. Each time, the young girl moved to join the story before it faded into another, smiling and laughing. Then we reached the sixth carriage.

The first thing I noticed was the smell. The smell of burning. Flames engulfed a tangle of metal I imagined was once a car, lighting up the nightmare in front of me. Then I heard the screaming. I felt the agony in it. I watched as the mother sat, several metres from the burning car, cradling something. I didn’t understand what was happening. I looked beside me, trying to see what the young girl would do, but she wasn’t standing there. I shifted, and realised I could move my feet before the end of the scene. I took a testing step forwards, and when I met no resistance, I moved. I rushed towards the mother, falling to my knees beside her. In her arms, eyes vacant and unseeing, was the young girl. The mother continued to heave great, anguished sobs as she cradled her daughter in her arms.

“Mama?” It was the smallest of whispers in amongst the sound of plastic and metal burning. Somehow, the mother heard it. She looked up from her daughter’s lifeless body to meet the eyes of the child. I looked at them, the tiny child lit up by the backdrop of flames, the mother clutching her other dead child, staring at the living one. And it all clicked. I was glad I was already on the ground. Had I not been, I likely would have fallen. The image faded and the memory flickered to life in front of me. Not just in my mind, but in the carriage. My sister sat in front of me, cooing at me and pushing a toy car towards me. Her smile lit up the whole room. Her green eyes were filled with life, that heart shaped face filled to the brim with the love she held for her baby brother.

Tears filled my eyes as she tugged at my hand and lead me to the next carriage. We moved through the carriages, images of my life flickering before me, like a strange play. Pieces of time that had changed me inexplicably, and small things I could hardly remember. My first day of high school. The awards I won for my academic achievements. My first kiss. The first school dance I went to, where I danced with my crush. Losing my first game of soccer. My first job. First love. Every first. My mother’s last words to me. The last time I saw her before she died. The breakups I went through. Every single heartbreak I ever had. The happiest times I had, and the times I was in a pit so deep I felt I would never crawl out of it. I watched as my life played out before my eyes on those strange theatre stages.

Finally, we reached the last carriage. I walked towards a building. Cars sped past behind me as I craned my neck to look at the intimidating silhouette carved against the city scape. I took a deep breath, smoothing down my suit. It was important to make a good first impression. I sucked in another breath, then stepped forward, towards my new job. I hoped. Then I took another step, and another.

The doors opened automatically in front of me as I made my way towards the front desk.

“Good morning. I’m John Williams, here for the interview with Mr Garcia at 12:00 midday.” The woman at the front desk smiled at me, nodding.

“You’re early Mr Williams. Mr Garcia will be in his office on the twelfth floor. If you take the elevator up and let his receptionist know you’re there he’ll be sure to see you soon.” I thanked the receptionist and headed towards the elevator. Ten minutes before the interview. Plenty of time. I pushed the button then turned to watch the lobby as I waited. A man bustled past, glancing at me with an odd look on his face. I turned back to the elevator as the doors opened for me.

The memory stopped, and I frowned, turning to my side. The girl – my sister – stood there, quietly watching as my whole life was set before me.

“What happened? Where’s the rest?” She cocked her head to the side, a sad little smile playing on her lips. My frown deepened. I didn’t understand. I wanted to know what happened next. Whether I got the job. I didn’t know why I couldn’t remember anything after that, but perhaps the memories would come back if they played out in the theatre of life. She looked up at me, willing me to understand.

“Do you see?” I thought about it for a bit. Maybe…maybe I did see. I looked around me at the carriage. It was dark now. Nothing else played out on the stage. All was quiet again. The sway of the train was, again, the only movement other than the two of us. I looked down at my sister. And she looked back at me, her face as full of life as the last time I saw her before the accident. My memories of her were hazy at best; I was so young when it happened. I understood. It was the only way she could be here. She held out her hand again.

When she opened the door we’d just come through, instead of taking us back to the scene we’d just left, we were in the corridor of doors. I stared at the blue door at the end of the hallway, sucked in a breath, then stepped forward, towards the door. Then I took another step, and another.