DEAD TIME

The End

Credits have rolled

Audience gone. All except one.

In the shadows at the back

The End. Two words

That's it then? The End

Just like that

Finito. Adios muchachos

Exit stage left
Exits? Where are they?
In the corners as usual
The unlit EXIT signs hover over doors no longer there
You turn. The screen blank, black
You move downslope to the front
Is it there still?
Lean forward
Hold onto the back of a seat as the floor shifts
Hold tight. Steady yourself
One by one the rows dissolve
In the gloom you grip the seat
It slips away

The figure from the shadows is suddenly close
Rank breath. Hollow teeth
Cloudy grey translucence
Star Wars. Bergman. Bill and Ted
Laugh it up, fuzzball
The cinema screen presses
against the space where your nose used to be
The ceiling lowers. The walls throb
Darth Vader's smell of burnt plastic no longer lingers
In deathly deadly silence. Senses switch down
Back catalogue fades. Black space. Twilight Zone
Soundless, tasteless, breathless
Nothing
No vestal virgins
No celestial succour
No harp-playing toga'ed angels
Nothing but trapped thought
Locked up thought without context, without corporeal form
Conscious consciousness
Extended beyond the confines of body
Spirit

Really?...

The panic button is pressed

Panicking doesn't work anymore

You don't "feel" anymore

Short and long sentences

That's all. Text

Rhythm of thought

Language and pictures

Spliced edits

Moving pictures

in between what passes for thought

The power to disturb, remind, torment

Mindfulness. Stuffed into a living nothing

Forever  

Full stop.  

Period

 

The End