The cinema of emotions

Paul sits in a streetcar and repeatedly knocks his head against the smudged window. There is silence, only the soft whirring of the engine can be heard. The other passengers are all staring into space. Paul rubs his eyes, he hasn't worn his lenses for a week. Only now does he realize how stupid the others look as they stare open-mouthed into their holograms. There are no more free seats on the train. Paul takes a deep breath, coughs and looks at the display. Ten minutes to his stop.

He had to wait a year before he could get a seat in the movie theater for him and Sofia. Word of the opening spread through the city like wildfire. When he asked visitors about it, they didn't want to reveal anything. They simply told him that he should find out for himself and then he would understand. They said this with a gleam in their eyes that he had never noticed in anyone before.

He turns his gaze to the street, observes how people look into their lenses, avoid each other and occasionally nod. Everyday life. There is a haze in the air that settles around the skyscrapers, making them look like small cuboids surrounded by people in gray robes.

After eleven minutes, the train stops at his stop. Paul swings himself out of his seat and squeezes past the other people through the door. Eight minutes later, he is standing in front of a large concrete block with no windows. As he looks at the building, he remembers Samuel, whose office he walked past the day before yesterday. Samuel was holding a photo in his hand and crying. Paul watched him bury his face in his hands. He had never seen anything like it before, he only remembered stories from history lessons. At first he put his hand on the glass pane, wanting to enter to be closer to the action, but then he pulled his hand back and walked on without giving it a second thought. Until now. Paul remembers that Samuel has also been in this movie theater. A dull throbbing spreads through his stomach, which has roughly the fading power of a wilted flower. This feeling, or rather this impression - as they say these days - disappears in the blink of an eye.

In the educational institutions he has visited so far, they have told them that one hundred years ago, everything almost collapsed. A social implosion due to too many feelings flowing through our organism from all sides, day after day. While our early ancestors were still exposed to few stimuli, a few decades before Paul's generation, people were flooded with sensory impressions. The human brain was not designed for this. Fear-mongering, anger, hatred, agitation, the gnawing feeling of being inferior to others, and all this every day with an unprecedented intensity.

The human body, regardless of the duration of evolutionary changes, has therefore drastically reduced the processing and expression of emotions. What Homo sapiens developed over thousands of years as a selective advantage to form complex communities disintegrated into a shriveled apple within a few generations. Feelings and emotions have been reduced to a minimum, and feelings, which are the visible part of our emotions, have almost come to a complete standstill. Emotions are still present, but only in the depths of the subconscious, whereas our instincts - despite their strength - are kept in check by rational thinking. Hate, fear, anger, love and joy have degenerated into a polite staleness that makes humanity more and more lonely despite cohabitation and changing partners. Until the day the cinemas opened.

Paul has read on the internet that more have allegedly appeared all over the country, and no one knows who is responsible. He steps from one foot to the other. In his hand he holds a thin cigarette that he has almost smoked up. The building does not stand out from its surroundings, except for the lack of windows. The wind blows through his black hair. He pulls up the collar of his coat and recognizes a slender woman in the distance, her blonde strands peeking out from under a green cap. She, her eyes on the ground, a dark blue scarf wrapped around her neck, comes towards him in quick strides. Although she has long legs, she takes small steps, which makes him think she is walking even faster. When she stands in front of him, he takes one last drag on his cigarette, flicks it into the street and greets Sofia with a fleeting kiss on the cheek. A smile appears on her lips, which is not returned by her eyes.

"Have you been waiting long?"

"Five minutes. How was the drive?"

"Good, nothing out of the ordinary."

"Seven more minutes, shall we go in?"

Sofia nods, then they both step through the large glass door.

The foyer of the movie theater is made of concrete and glass. Only now does Paul notice that the front facing the street is completely glazed. You can see out through the glass, but you can't see in. Their footsteps echo on the walls. They walk on to a doorway where Paul scans his reservation. Then they step through the opening barrier and see a cluster of people in front of a red gate. Signs indicate that all lenses must be switched off and removed when entering. Paul and Sofia stand at the edge of the crowd, where only a few people are talking. Like many others, Paul stares at the polished concrete floor, in which he looks at himself as if in a mirror. He sees Sofia take off her cap, stow it in her bag and pick up a case to put her lenses in.

"Aren't you going to take yours out at all?"

"I don't wear them anymore."

Sofia tilts her head for a moment, then stows the lenses away. They have been a couple for a year and have not gone beyond fleeting kisses and holding hands. Even if they still have a kind of reproductive instinct, they have not yet made use of it. In their generation, only those who want children are having sex. At school, he was told as a child that there were eras in which sex was performed for love and fun and the reason for procreation usually played a secondary role. Even then he turned up his nose and still does today. When Paul thinks now of how Sofia's long legs could wrap around him, he doesn't know if he'll ever be able to, if they ever get a quota for offspring.

The click of a lock snaps him out of his thoughts. In accordance with socially accepted standards, Sofia holds out her hand to him and they walk into the auditorium, whose walls and floor are made entirely of polished concrete, with the difference that blue lights are attached to the walls. The movie theater seats sixty people. Paul and Sofia go to the sixth row and sit down in their seats, fifteen and sixteen, which are right in the middle.

Once everyone has taken their seats, the door closes behind them and the lights dim. Instructions appear on the screen to put on the glasses with headphones in front of them, which they immediately comply with. Two minutes later, a shrill sound is heard. Paul notices a kind of thick blanket wrapped around his arms, upper body and legs, which a woman's voice in his headphones describes as an emotional suit. As the suit envelops his body, his field of vision plunges into black and the same voice says: "You've been living in the shadows for too long. Welcome to the movie theater of emotions."

Paul breathes in and out intermittently, yawns, then he hears a piercing frequency that makes his ears vibrate. It flickers before his eyes. He waits for the movie, but all he sees is himself in black and white, walking down a street with a cigarette in his hand. At first there are no people there. Little by little, individuals cross his path until there are more and more. They all seem to be walking in a different direction. As they pass each other, they nod to each other. Women, children, old people, young people, men as women, women as men. They are all heading towards their own destination. Paul has to make an effort not to lose sight of himself, it's as if he's looking at an anthill. His view zooms in on him and follows his mop of hair through the crowd of people who are not touching each other, all gliding past each other as if in a dome of glass. After a while, his figure reaches the edge of the hustle and bustle. A gray cliff stretches out in front of him, leading into the black. He sees people drifting away from the cliff like ebbing water, quite unlike his self, who is now heading towards the cliff, stops just before the abyss, takes one last drag on his cigarette and then falls into the depths with one more step.

His heart is pounding, he clutches the armrests of his chair, wants to scream, then suddenly he is standing on a boat, surrounded by a surging sea. The longer he looks at the roaring sea, the more Paul feels the swell. He looks around and realizes that he is standing alone at the railing on the deck of a fishing boat. Fishing nets hang down the side, but he doesn't see a single fish, let alone anyone belonging to the boat. Instinctively, he goes to the steering wheel, feeling the sanded wood between his palms. Waves pile up in front of him. The boat defies them, water splashes upwards on all sides. Over time, he feels a tug in the pit of his stomach that is more intense than usual. A wave as big as a skyscraper towers up in front of him and the boat. Paul's hands are shaking. He can neither avoid it nor drive through it. The boat continues to drift towards them, he clutches the steering wheel. The inner tug intensifies, he is overcome by goose bumps and something hammers against his chest from the inside. The further he heads towards the wave, the higher he travels on it towards the cloud cover and the more his boat is in a vertical position. Finally, he reaches a moment in which he is weightless - just for a moment - before the wave collapses above him. Pressure surrounds him. He dives into the black again.

As the pressure around him eases, he stands in a park. Again there is no one to be seen. Everything is quiet. This time something is different. Everything is bathed in the colors of autumn. He recognizes small bridges and ponds, maple trees glowing orange-gold and red. If he is not mistaken, this is Central Park in New York, before it was destroyed. Paul only knows it from pictures, but standing here now fills him with a kind of lightness. It's not that familiar, dull and dull-feeling brushstroke inside him, no, it's something brightening. He feels a grin forming on his face, which begins to hurt after a few minutes. He walks along the path in front of him, surrounded by plants he has never seen before. He stops at one of the maple trees and picks up an orange leaf from the ground, which feels like leathery paper in his hands. He strokes its texture, feeling the many small veins and bumps. As he holds the sheet in his hands, a woman appears in his field of vision, doing the same thing as him. He turns to her and walks towards her. After a few steps, he recognizes that it is Sofia. She is wearing a light blue long dress, her hair is loose and falls over her shoulders. She also walks towards him. As they stand in front of each other, they don't say a word, just look at each other.

Paul looks at her without blinking and when he closes his eyes again, another feeling joins the joy inside him. This time it is a warmth, a shiver, a tingling in his stomach that rises up to his throat. It is unlike anything he has ever felt before. Sofia takes a step towards him. The tingling spreads through him like fine rain. She reaches for his hand, the sun warms his face. Everything is so real and unreal at the same time. As she stands very close to him and he feels her breath on his face, his lips touch hers. An explosion of pins and needles, hot, cold-drawing euphoria rises up inside him and spreads through every fiber of his body. Her hair tickles his face, her lips as soft as cotton candy. She breaks away from him, then a voice rings out again: "Now look!"

A bright yellow light blinds him, then it goes black again.

The suit and glasses come off his body and he reaches for Sofia next to him, almost demanding. Her hand nestles in his, a redemptive act of touching, as if he were holding her hand for the first time. He doesn't dare look at her. Everyone present is now staring at the screen, waiting for an explanation of what has happened to them, but it remains unplayed. Everyone is silent, waiting, processing what is going on inside them. No one dares to stand up, because they all seem to know: it would be a step into a new life.

The blue lights on the walls now illuminate the hall, Paul squeezes Sofia's hand in the hope that he will never have to let her go again. He hears a few people in the audience crying, he too has tears in his eyes. In the blink of an eye, he realizes that he has been on stand-by all these years, as if something had been sitting on his chest all this time that has now disappeared.

He looks at Sofia, who is sitting next to him with a flushed face. There is a tenderness in her face that he has never noticed before. A surge of happiness rises in him, then he lets go of her hand. His heart pounds as he stands up, knowing full well that there is no going back to their old lives. A gate next to the screen opens. He reaches out for Sofia again and she grabs his hand. Paul doesn't know what she has seen, but he suspects it was similarly grueling.

They are the first to walk through the red gate. They walk in small steps, clasping their hands so tightly together to dispel most of their doubts. The corridor they walk through is long and dark, but at its end they recognize another hall with a red carpet. As they stand in it, their shoes sink into the carpet and the scent of hot wax from the candles hanging on the walls fills them. The last rays of the evening sun shine through the glass panes and they watch the people walking past, staring at the floor in front of them. Suddenly Paul is seized by a sense that he no longer belongs to the outside world. He takes a step towards Sofia. "What did you actually see?"

She hesitates, looks at her shoes, then back at Paul. "Nothing at first, I was standing on a black surface, there was a white door in the distance and I ran towards it. But the faster I ran, the further away it got from me. Once I was almost there, I reached out to it, then it disappeared and everything was black."

"I have fallen into an abyss."

"Then there was the park where I saw you..." she blushes, covering her face with her hand.

"You were wearing a blue dress, I had a leaf in my hand, I think."

Sofia takes her hand away from her face and widens her eyes. "How can that be, how do they know?"

"I have no idea. I don't care either. All I know is that I don't..."

She puts her hand over his mouth. "Don't say it."

Paul now seems unsettled, realizes that she is more afraid than he is and shakes his head.

"I'm sorry," she says, pulling her hand back and stroking through his black curls. "It's just that I feel like I'm seeing you properly for the first time, as if I've only looked at you through cloudy glass before." Her eyes shine in the warm light of the chandelier on the ceiling. "If you say it and we have to go back, it might be over."

The longer he looks into her eyes, the more he notices about her: the little wrinkles she has when she laughs, the splash of orange in the blue of her eyes. The urge to kiss her grows stronger every second. Sofia says nothing more, just stares at his lips. Even if Paul had never thought of it before, he now pulls Sofia towards him, who drops her hands to his neck and kisses her. Everything around him seems to be non-existent. It's just the two of them. The warm light, the people joining them from the movie theater are unimportant. Sofia's soft lips and the pressure of her body against his are all he notices.

When they break away from each other, the room is full of people talking, laughing, crying and hugging. Sofia's hand strokes his cheek, then she clings to him and begins to cry. For a brief moment, Samuel comes to his mind, then he hugs her tighter. After a wet spot has formed on his sweater, they sit down in silence on one of the brown leather sofas and continue to watch the other people as they also lie in each other's arms, joke with each other and yet gradually leave the hall through a gray door. Some walk through the door with a smile and purposeful, quick steps. Others hesitate, walk towards the exit, turn around again, only to enter the outside world very slowly and with glances back.

Sofia and Paul watch each person and become more and more restless with each one. When the last of them have gone outside, Sofia turns to Paul. "Do you think we'll forget this place?"

Paul straightens up and lets his gaze wander around the room.

"I think so, but I think what he triggered in us remains."

Shortly afterwards, they are also standing in front of the door. Paul pushes the door handle down and the door opens itself. It is raining. They cross the threshold of the building into the street. Drops fall on their skin. They pause for a moment. When they look into each other's eyes, they know they haven't forgotten; they're not just getting wet, they're feeling all the suppressed feelings and emotions. Sofia pulls an umbrella out of her bag, opens it and hooks herself up to Paul. Arm in arm, they walk away from the movie theater. After twenty meters, they turn around. The exit that was open before has disappeared, but the feelings inside them remain. Forever.