The Theater

I loved going to the theater. Every evening, my parents would bring me there. My most frivolous pleasure was to run from the balconies rented by my family, and from the top of my perch I would salute to the little gentries and the poor who crowded into the back of the theater. I had heard that for them, the theater was a luxury, and that the sits of the rear, even if they could not see anything, gathered a lifetime of their small savings. Then I laughed and laughed to cry, as if I was about to unhook my jaw. The theater! To be an expensive and expensive luxury! Then I laughed even harder, and from the corner of my eye, I saw the servants shocked at my incessant hilarity about the living conditions of the little populace.

To go to the theater, which, as I said, happened every day, my maids would wash me, preen me, and they’d always finish by makeup, just a little to beautify my youthful face, but not too much to offend my parents. Then came the dresser, and her hundreds of dresses more colorful, more cute, more expensive than the others with their silk, their lace, their little froufrous that would make any little girl of the poor or the great ladies of the gentry drool of envy. Last of all, came the hairdresser, with her delicate brushes, her perfumed products, her ribbons, her headdresses and so on.

To get out, and head for the car, every night a new little girl of the common accompanied me to my own small private car. No way that she would be allowed to look at me and even least touch me! Impoverishment and poverty are serious and highly contagious diseases. She could look at me from a distance, discreetly, and only if anything separated me from her, like a window or a cloth.

After half an hour in the carriage, where a private musician was singing and playing the cello to distract me, I finally arrived at the theater. A valet helped me out with gentleness, and then guided me to the entrance reserved for royalty.

That evening, however, the carriage did not stop in front of the theater, but rather in front of a dimly lit alley,  smelling like humidity and detritus. A smelly boor swept me away, and forced me to walk faster than my usual rhythm. When I tried to call for help, he covered my mouth with a hand covered with filth and brought me all the more quickly to the end of the alley. Curiosity prevailing over my terror, I could not struggle and attempt a flight once I reached the end of the alley. A blinding white light blinded me completely for several minutes, and I could hear the murmur of voices calling me away, seeming to get closer with every passing second. The arms pressing me tightened their embrace and I finally regained the sight. Two men were holding my limbs, while another was busy bringing me back to me, while he was tearing away my organs, slowly, with precision.

The lane disappeared. My clothes and my dreamed youth disappeared. I was dead, but they brought me back.