"Shadows in the Dark" or "Enlightenment - virtue or crime, blessing or curse"? 23 comments

13 Sep 2007 @ 20:48, by Max Sandor I had a dream. Imagine a movie theater filled to the last seat. The lights are off with the exception of the screen, of course. Only the little signs pointing to the emergency exits are glimming forgotten in some obscure corners of the great hall. The volume of the theater's surround sound system is turned to the max. It is nearly impossible to hear the noise of the trucks passing by the theater on the outside. Much time has passed already, everybody seems captured by the drama unfolding on the screen. Everybody? There, amongst the crowd, is sitting a lonely person, thinking for himself: what... ...happens when all of this will be over? Can I have another experience like this? Or is everything gone forever? Why can't the movie be longer than it is? And, who created this movie? Who created this theater? These sounds? Can I change the events on the screen with my will power or is everything already fixed? Is the end already determined? Or is everything by chance? Statistical events floating by? Who knows?" The more time passes by, the more our lonely person in the crowd was getting uncomfortable. Loosing his patience, becoming unhappy. It's a horror movie, he realizes suddenly, can't I change the channel? Meanwhile, about everyone else is enjoying the show. Yet finally, our lonely person, even though he can't remember anymore anything before the movies had started, realizes that he had brought with him some matches into this theater. Soon he is lightening one of the matches. For a second he forgets about the movie and stares into this little light of his until the match is burning his finger. What a fascinating experience! Much more real than the movie itself, he thinks for himself. Even though I burnt my finger, or perhaps because of that? Some time passes, the movies have drawn his full attention again. But somehow they have gotten somewhat less interesting to him. Eventually, he lights another match, this time a bit more careful not to burn himself. He starts looking around, towards the light, at the movie screen, back to the light. Until he suddenly perceives some shadows in the darkness in front of the screen. Aaah, he says to himself, there are others like me around here, watching the show! Aaah, how fascinating! But before he could look any further, the fire of the burning match hurt his fingers another time. And then the events on the screen are capturing his attention again, and for quite some time he is staring at the movie like everyone else, like all the many, many times before. Much, much later, remembering the little light of his own, he can't resist lightening a third match. This time he turns his head around immediately and starts talking to the spectator closest to him. "Man, do you realize that this is only a f...ing movie and, dig this, man, that you can have your own light, buddy?" he shouts through the noise of the theater's surround sound system. His neighbor shows no reaction, he is too hypnotized by the events on the screen to notice anything else. However, a few other people are starting to complain about the irritating little light. They seem to hiss and boo, and, not before too long, some of the theater's security personnel is on the track of the disruption caused by our lonely person in the crowd. Whose attention had already been caught again by a movie. It is just such a cool show! Instantly, he became like all the other spectators again. (This is how the theater's security lost track of him, and fortunately so, as this little story would have ended right here and now if they would have really found him...) Well, for another long time, the lonely person stayed lonely and quiet within the crowd in the theater. But, seeing movie after movie after movie, the memory of his own little light and the perception of the shadows of other spectators in the darkness, these memories did not go away. These memory were nagging him again and again, and, eventually, they won his attention again. The lonely person tried to see into the darkness without using a light, more and more often, and finally, in the end, he perceived, even without a match, some of the silhouettes of the other spectators around him, like shadows in the dark. "OK," he thought for himself, "if I would light a big light, it would be seen by all the others and they would carry me away. But if I try to sneak through the darkness until I find a way to a really, really BIG light to lighten up the entire hall, I could prove to everyone around here that all of this here is only a show!". And, very carefully so, he moved through the darkness. At first without any goal, any direction. For a long time he was moving around amidst the huge crowd of spectators. Every once a while, the movie on the big screen seemed so interesting that he forgot his inner goal for some long times. But eventually, he once again remembered that he once remembered. And he continued to roam in the darkness. Until at one time he spotted a little dim, red light, saying 'Emergency Exit'. Obviously, that was the place he had to go! And, after moving through the rows of spectators, causing much discomfort to himself and the others, he reached the place near the sign that says "Emergency Exit". The sign is atop a huge door but, alas, there were also two grim security guard in front of it. As our lonely person of the crowd leaves the latter behind, moving towards the portal, he was and will be stopped. "Halt! What the f... are you trying to do?" says one of the guards with a threatening tone. "Just getting the f... out of here!" the lonely person answers, feeling lonelier than ever. "When the movie is over, the portals will open for everyone," declared the other guard with a stern voice. "Now get the f... back on your f...ing seat and enjoy the f...ing show!" There was no way out for our lonely person, who by now was no longer part of any crowd. Neither was he interested anymore too much in the movies. Instead, he peered into the darkness, trying to locate some others like him. There must be people like me, he thought. There MUST be! Eventually, he made another try. Sneaking over silently back to the portal, he was stopped again. He complained to the guards: "Tell me, why the f... can't I open this f...ing door and go back home? What f...ing right do you have to keep me here?" One of the guards answered with a faked friendliness: "It's because the show is over when it's over. You agreed to it when you entered the theater, don't you remember, my friend?" And our lonely person answered "Well, I don't. And I wonna go home now. Basta!" The other guard, without faking friendliness, hissed: "Well, you can't, shithead! Go back to your seat now, and keep f...ing quiet, or else...!" And so he did, the lonely person, disappearing in the crowd again. Time passed by, many movies had been shown, all of them fascinating everyone who watched them. Only rarely, very rarely, the lonely person in the crowd turned his head, peered into the darkness until he saw the shadows in the dark: there they were - the other spectators of the greatest show that ever was and ever will be. One day, or was it night, who can tell when you're in the movies?, our lonely person had the strange impression that he already knew the movie he was seeing. He turned around to his neighbor in the crowd but that guy was utterly fascinated by the events unfolding on the giant screen, the audio volume always at the max. No reply. And the more movies the lonely person saw, the more he realized that there were replays, repetitions, similar scenes, sounds quite like others before. "I'll be darned", he says to himself, "if I didn't see this already once before!" Eventually, it was too much for him. He yelled through the great hall of the grand theater "It's enough, let's get the f... out of here!" but his neighbours are hissed "pssht" and the theater's guards immediately tried to locate him in the crowd. As nobody would listen anyway, he stayed quiet then, looking around in the darkness for a solution to his dilemma. Careful not to be seen, he explored all the walls of the theater hall and every corner of it. Much to his own surprise he discovered that there was an extra little room with a lot of switches at the wall. Perhaps one can open the doors or perhaps one can bring a true light to this theater with some of all of those switches?, he asked himself, and he raised his arm to try a few of those. "Are you out of your f..ing mind?" grumbled an angry voice behind his back, "the last one trying to do this, we crucified that fellow along with two other scoundrels." "Who the f... are you?" asked the lonely person with surprise. "I am the lightman, of course," he answered, "when the show begins, I turn off the lights. And when the show is over, I'll turn them back on again. My fee is the tenth of anything that the theater earns. Never heard of me? Haha... Now get outta here of that switchroom, will you!" "But I wonna get outta here since a long time!" the lonely person insisted, "and", he added, "if anyone should feel like me, I'd like to take him with me! Out of the darkness of this theater, away from the movies that keep repeating themselves!" The lightman rubbed his chin. "Hmm", he said after careful consideration, "hmm, so you know? Hmm, at least you don't want to show everyone out and be the last one to go, like someone claimed the other day. OK, listen buddy, usually we're burning on the stake all of those who are playing with them switches. As witches, you know. Hahaha...." "Bad pun," said the lonely person angrily, "bad pun. You should be ashamed of yourself!" "Yep, I know, I know. It's all a bad joke... why don't you have a look out of the window here? You can see how terrible it really is outside of the theater and then go back to your seat and enjoy the show..." And so it came that one lonely person in the crowd got to know the outside of the theater. With all its noisy trucks passing by, the sun burning down from the sky, the hot wind bending the trees at the entrance of the theater, and... a long, long line of people, all waiting for entrance to the show. "See for yourself, why would all the people there trying to get into this theater if the show wouldn't be alright?" said the lightman to the lonely person. "Look, this could be the last movie running, don't you want to miss the grand finale? Of course, there could be another one, even better..." "Listen, the show IS alright, dear lightman, OK, OK, but the show never ends. The film is repeating itself endlessly, isn't it so? When will the doors really open again and the people here go home?" "How could I know? I'm just the lightman. When the show is over, I'll turn on the lights, didn't I tell you that already?" "You told me so, lightman. I just wonder, am I the only one coming by here, looking for an escape from the endless chain of movies?" "Oh now, what arrogance!, tzz.. There are quite a few of you. So far I convinced them all to either jump out of the window and go away or to stay and shut up. Or, even better so, to promise everybody that after the current movie there will be an even better one. Or that the doors will open. Depending on how gullible you are, haha". "Very well so, lightman. Can I talk to your supervisor now? I have a right to know, you know..." "You waved all your rights when you entered the theater, dear friend, didn't you read the fine print? And nobody ever talked to the supervisor, if he should really exist. Listen, everyone here enjoys the show. Who are you to disturb it? Spreading some light in the darkness... how silly. Now go back to your seat, or you'll be in some real deep shit!" What other choice for the lonely person in the crowd than to turn back to his seat in the grand theater and to continue to stare at the screen? Sure, he could have jumped out of the window, leaving the endless show once and for all. Sure he could have believed the lightman that the show will be over after the current movie, or that an even better one is around the corner... Dreaming on and on and on, my dream ended right here and now. Because, fortunately, or unfortunately so, my beloved one woke me up with a birthday song, a rooster joined in, and then another one. Birds were singing, the golden dawn of a new day shimmered through the top of the trees outside the window. "Let's celebrate in style!" she smiled, and so we did. Even though it was just 6 o'clock in the morning.

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