Counting Seconds

Breathing can be tough. So can many other things. Yet, there is almost always a way to get around them, right? Wrong. I feel that obstacles in life are inevitable. But getting stuck on the problem instead of working to fix it is something I do a lot. I get stuck in my brain too much as well. I mean, don't we all? No, I'm probably the only one, right? I get lost in my thoughts too much as well. But I suppose that’s pretty normal.

“Claude!” Someone shouts.

I can’t really tell who it was, to be honest. I look up to realize I have fallen behind. The concrete sidewalk stretches out for what I assume is about 20 feet. Both Eve and Quinn stand still facing me. They both look an equal mix of concerned and annoyed at the same time. The harsh mid-autumn wind brushes against my face and I snap back into focus and shake my head as if I could shake off the fuzzy feeling in my brain.

“Come on Claude!” It is my friend Eve that shouts this time, “I don’t want to be late to the show!”

Eve bounces up and down impatiently as I slowly jog over. Eve’s black hair was thrown over one shoulder at the beginning of the day and it kept sliding over her shoulder and always ended up resting on her back. She kept adjusting it every time it fell back for the first half-hour but eventually, but she ended up just letting it hang against her back. Eve has about the longest hair I’ve ever seen on a human being. It reaches all the way down to her upper thighs. I don’t think she’s ever had a single haircut. It’s not like she can’t afford it, her family lives on the upper-class side of town. I’m pretty sure it’s more of a personal choice. But then again, you never know. Eve's family is very religious. Hence the name. There’s obviously church on Sunday and Sunday school as well. I think they might go to church daily too but I’m not sure.

“You know that we’re still like 30 minutes early, right?” Quinn asks.

Quinn is extremely Irish. It’s not just that he’s extremely proud of his heritage, he’s also the stereotypical Irish person. Red hair with freckles and green eyes. “Sorry about that,” I say, catching up to them.

“All good. We just need to make sure we catch the movie,” Eve replies.

“Eve for the second time, we have a half-hour to get there and the theatre is only about 5 minutes away,” Quinn sighs

I roll my eyes at them and chuckle quietly. Both of them always have something new to say. They're extremely stubborn and strong-willed.

“So what movie are we seeing?” I ask after about another minute of walking.

“Not sure, but whatever’s showing in…” Quinn checks his watch, “20 minutes”

“I want to catch the last morning movie, so we get the early bird discount,” Eve explains.

“What if it’s rated R?” I ask, “Your mom still hadn’t agreed to let you see one yet,”

“If it is, I’ll just tell her it was PG-13 probably,” Eve replies.

“Wow, what a rebel!” I laugh.

Eve rolls her eyes and Quinn laughs along with me. I feel like we do that a lot. Rolling our eyes, I mean. It’s kind of a weird thing to pick up on, but still. I couldn’t help but notice it.

We walk for another 3 minutes and came to a stop outside of the CVS next to the theatre.

“Should we grab something to eat at the movie before we head in?” Quinn asks.

“It’s fine, I brought money,” Eve answers.

“You know, I feel like that’s just bad planning,” I say, mostly to myself.

“What is?” Eve asks, looking down at her phone to check something quickly.

“Putting a CVS next to a movie theater. People are obviously just going to go in and get shit to eat in the theatre,” I say.

“HEY!” Eve yells, “SWEAR!”

“Sorry I forgot,” I say defensively, putting my hands up.

We walk into the theatre and up to the snack counter. The theatre is set up really weird, with the snack counter first and the ticket booth around the corner behind it. What if you buy $20 worth of food, just to learn that Shrek 5 (Or any other much needed sequel) doesn’t exist yet? Well, you could probably just see a random movie actually. I stare at the blank, plaster space between two movie posters of movies I hadn’t even seen trailers for. While I lean against the wall facing side of the glass box that contained all of the candy in the theater, I start to think about why the people name colors. How they come up with names for them I mean. Who thought that the word “white” described a certain color? You know, it probably comes from some Latin word or something. I don’t understand Latin, to be honest. My dad always wanted me to learn how to read Latin because knowing Latin showed that a person was “class”. He wasn’t a very classy man himself.

“Claude, what kind of drink do ya' want?” Quinn asks from the other side of the candy box. I could hear a tinge of his accent coming through.

He sometimes has a hint of an Irish accent when he speaks. He’s had it since he was a kid because he grew up in Ireland. He technically didn’t live in Ireland, but since his mother emigrated from Ireland to get married to his father, Quinn is technically a legal U.S. citizen. But, all of his family on his mom’s side still lived in Ireland, so the entire family made constant trips to Ireland almost monthly. Since he didn’t really have time for friends as a kid with the trips and all, so the only voices Quinn heard growing up we’re basically Irish. But after he started school it started to fade year by year. His mom Cathleen grew up completely in Ireland, so I guess that’s why she still has an accent.

“Uhm. I don’t know just a small Coke maybe?” I answer. Snapping out of my daze once again.

“Alright so add a small Coke to that order than please,” Eve says to the dude at the counter.

I glance over my shoulder at them and then went back to my white plaster wall. This time I think about puzzles. They can be overly complex though. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’d actually ever completed a puzzle. Not even as a child. Eve and Quinn breeze past me and I do my blinking thing again and I take a big step so I can walk in-step with them.

We get up to the ticket booth around the corner. Eve hands me my Coke and one of the popcorns. Quinn holds one popcorn as well, in the crook of his elbow, and the other two drinks in his hands.

“Three tickets for whatever’s showing please!” Eve says, smiling at the girl who worked the ticket booth. The girl does not smile back. She doesn’t even tell us the name of the movie.

“Theatre four,” She dead-pans.

We walk down the hall that led to all the theatres. It is directly behind the ticket booth and has a red carpet that had these weird yellow tassels on the sides. Luckily, the wall isn't plastered white anymore, and has changed to a more… how should I put it… abyss black. Yes, that’s it.

“Alright theatre four… " Quinn says, trailing off.

We walk into theatre four silently. No one makes any jokes for some reason. The movie theatre was so low-budget that they didn't have those cool light-up plastic things, the ones that had movie posters inside of them, on top of the theatre door.

The theatre is surprisingly empty. There are four people, other than us, in the theatre. The walls seem to be an even darker abyss black than the walls in the hall. The floor is just smooth concrete. No carpet for us. The air feels stale for some reason. Like the air in an attic that hadn’t been opened in years. Or the smell of a storage unit that was last opened by your great Aunt Gertrude somewhere between 1950 and 1977.

We sit in the back of the theatre, as to avoid all of the people who for some unknown reason believed that the closer you are to the screen, the more enjoyable the film is. This is an incorrect belief. We’d been to that theatre so many times that we knew exactly where to sit. Second to the last row in the back, four seats inward. I sit in the middle with Quinn on the left and Eve on the right of me. We have been to the theatre 37 times in total. On the topic of numbers, I have been in school for exactly 27 hours and 33 minutes this week. I was late a few days and didn’t feel like going so I skipped on Wednesday. Eve gets mad when I skip school or cut class, but what real damage could it do. Nothing brings me joy, to be honest. School just makes everything worse. The movie screen is just pitch black. The theatre doesn’t pay for things like “First Look” or any of the pre-show stuff. There are only about a few trailers during the beginning of the movies as well. The only two trailers are rated PG and PG-13. So, the movie definitely isn’t rated R.

The movie kicked off with some cheesy music played over two terrible actors fake kissing. I don't think their lips are even touching.

“Really?” The woman says looking up at the man.

“Yes. I will always love you,” The man replies.

“This movie is shit,” Quinn whispers to me, careful to not letting Eve hear.

“Yeah, little bit,” I whisper back.