the abandoned theatre part eleven

I climb down from the ladder and start walking around the room, curious about what is in each cabinet but unsure where to start looking. I glimpse some interesting labels that I may want to look at: Epiphanies, Moments When the World Was Yours. There are some scary ones that simultaneously repel and attract me: Monsters in the Shadows, Collections of Epitaphs, Bloody-Toothed Ghosts. I realize that every cabinet has a label on it. I can't help but wonder if some contain memories that are not yet memories - the events and feelings of the future. This thought makes me shiver with fear. I hope that the future is not yet contained within these wall-to-wall cabinets.

Finally I decide to pick one. It is labeled "I tried my best..." Inside are a countless number of folders crammed together, each also bearing a label. These labels are stranger: "That time with the raspberry tea," "The silence in the night-wind on a balcony," "You really can't dance like that so don't try again." The one that catches my eye is marked in scribbled handwriting, "Tattered old dreams." I take it out, open it, and grab the first paper in the stack. Suddenly I am blinded by a brilliant white light. A rush of sound fills my ears. Just as I feel like I am about to pass out, the world steadies, the sound subsides, and my vision comes back.

Everything looks both sharper and less harsh than usual. The light has some strange quality that I can't identify. I look around and get a shock to see myself, a few years younger, sitting in a chair in a small room filled with familiar people from the past. I hear myself speak some words that embarass me now in both their naivete and arrogance. However, I can't help but envy the confidence with which they are uttered.

Suddenly my old self turns toward me and a worried expression crosses her face. In that instant I am jolted from the moment and I find myself in another place, another time. I see myself as a child running down a sidewalk as the rain pours down. I am suddenly filled with a desire to be back in the present, and I wonder how to return to the room with the filing cabinets. I stick my hand in my pocket and feel the note that I found on the theatre floor: "I am here." When I take it out and read it, I am suddenly pulled back to the room.