The Wait — until the movie begins.
The movie starts at two.
I am early, for I had to check in with FLICx.
I pick up a cup of water,
and I sit to wait.
There is an art to waiting.
It involves painting moments,
as they pass with agonizing lethargy,
quietly, with anticipation, fear,
and a little bit of guilt.
I sit there watching seconds
bleed out their lives,
in cruel, humorless irony.
A glass divides me, the one who waits,
from the outside.
Out there are people,
coming from somewhere,
going somewhere, living
their own lives this Saturday afternoon.
There are people who look in on me,
as they go about their walks,
wondering what magic holds me inside.
Their eyes search me for hints,
clues, answers.
I have nothing to say.
I wait.
I wait for the movie to start.
To show me lives of fictional people,
who will come alive and die,
four times a day, if there’s someone watching.
Someone like me.
I wonder at the question in their eyes though.
I wonder what brings me here,
to the Belcourt, what magic pulls me,
what threads bind me, what makes this so much like home?
I look at the dragon painted on the wall in front.
Everyone sees the painted dragon.
But very few realize that even a painted dragon has still in itself,
the soul of a real one.
Even the thought of a dragon is a dragon in itself.
I wake up the sleeping dragon.
It uncurls its wings and sits up,
the old dragon and I talk.
It speaks in magic with the old tongue that made the world,
I listen in silence,
the language to which all other languages can be translated.
It knows the question whose answer I seek.
It thinks,
embers of thought glowing red hot in its eyes.
‘There is magic here, yes, and old,
for it is the magic of making.
Things are made up and put into
images with sounds that move,
and if they carry with them some magic,
people like you believe in them.
That magic is called Narrativium.
Narrativium is a powerful force,
just as powerful as gravity, or electromagnetsm.
It’s just that it is not expressed in math.
It is expressed in belief.
It is, if it can make you believe in it.
So when you leave a good movie,
the movie leaves with you, since,
the movie lives with you.
And so,
as Bob places the chips on the table,
you feel your pulse quicken;
as Ho turns around the corner expecting the ghost, you jump in your seat;
as Vincent dies, you cry a little;
as Jin and Casey walk around Columbus, you find poetry in the stone;
as the Stalker moves close to the room, you start wishing;
as Norman eats the peanuts, you feel like breaking up and celebrating at the same time;
as Cleo waits for the clock to strike seven, you find yourself falling, briefly, in love,
as the toaster pops up the bread, you startle along with the Salesman and his wife,
as the little girl tells her poem to the bus driver, you realize that water, falls.
There is magic here.
If only you believe in such kinds of things.’
Somebody comes up and announces that the seating for the show is open.
I see the dragon disappearing into the mural from the corner of my eye.
I look at the wall briefly, shake my head,
and walk in to take my seat:
second row from the back, and center,
when I can get it.
I think about what the Dragon said.
I am indeed carrying a lot of movies that I have watched.
I pull out my phone and start writing this poem.
I get through till the line about guilt.
Then the movie starts.
And to know what happened then,
you need to go see it.
Written for Jait Dixit, who loves movies, while waiting at Belcourt Theatre.
