Kattar headed upwards, the soreness of his body kicking in, his ankle jangling against hard concrete steps. Past several floors, no point trying those doors for access, they were never for him without special permission, the hospitality floors, the showcase facade. Painted wood beam railings jackknifed to the heavens, black pointers a guiding thread weaving to the top. He grasped a slick palm on them, thankfully not the injured one, and hurried in his ascent to the floors above, his regular haunts, where his face went about unquestioned and he could float like a boring phantom.
The climb took more out of him than normal, although all he carried was his bag, and he’d conquered this route countless times with equipment many percentages heavier. He remembered his lungs and how the pain had struck him down, the rumours of poison in the atmosphere, and the fatigue for the body and mind in aftereffect. Screw work today, how could they dare penalise him for taking off as soon as he could? He foresaw the battle with his bosses because he expected the beast to bash him always, then calmed himself from caring too much. Worst case he’d lose this forsaken job. He’d take the first EXIT and sleep until the consequences.
Several floors up, the door to office space would see him right, to find different steps, a back way out. He rounded the final corner, the stairwell dreary light-falls hampering his attempts to see clearly. Echoes of his rasping breaths sunk downstairs. The door he expected had changed. A brocade curtain, heavy and ornate, hung in its place, gently swinging as a warm stream of soft air brushed its bottom tassels. Kattar stopped, looked the curtain up and down. Edged with elaborate black stitching, it covered the doorway in a dark velvet sheen, the low light sometimes caught on swirling patterns impressed into the material, silver threads in constant flux forming and disassembling images too fleeting to comprehend but instilling menace all the same. He glanced down the stairwell behind him and then stepped to admire the straight drop to the bottom. The way back had been cut off and meant no way out. Freaky day. He frowned and stood, instinctual half-shakes this way and that, on autopilot, as he unconsciously considered his options. This was beyond him, he’d managed to work that out at least.
The pull of the EXIT saw him approach the curtain and poke at it with his little finger, the one he’d least mind losing. The material swung forcefully, and came away from the doorframe in brief flourishes to show the blackness beyond. Slowly, he swept the curtain aside and the silver thread morphed and transformed, pulsating on his forearm as he came into contact with it. He saw nothing ahead and entered.
He bumped into the curved wooden backs of a row of chairs, unseen in the darkness. A stage lit up below him revealing a small theatre, and him stood behind the back row of concavely placed seating. Relaxed steps descended to both sides of him toward a shadowy orchestra pit. A head moved to his left—a couple sat a few rows down in the far left section, the woman turning her head, eyes filled with night pupils.
The light illuminated the stage dingily, creating a fluctuating effect, fuzzy like static. Great scarlet curtains striated in large folds in a frame, and arced overhead in muscular sweeps fastened with fancy ligaments. The stage floor glistened coldly, sanded pepsi shine, scratched and scoured. Kattar scanned the dark edges of the theatre for a lit EXIT sign but all was black.
The woman, black eyes unblinking, raised her hand and drew a graceful and pale finger silently to her lips, telling him to be quiet though neither of them had made a sound. He strafed the chairs, and took a seat to the upper right of the middle section. The woman’s head had returned to face the stage, her, and her companion’s, features turned away from him.
Dull footsteps plagued the rear of the stage, the low shuffling and sliding of the movement of scenery emitting from behind a blank wall at the back made of chipboard painted charcoal.
A man walked onto the stage, dressed like a builder, can of booze in hand. He raised his free hand flat to meet his brow and peeped from underneath it out to the audience. “Sorry folks,” he said, “We’ve run over.” He walked a few paces, then paused, took a hard swig. “There is somebody out there, isn’t there?” Kattar froze. The builder straightened his baseball cap, and then caught sight of the couple to the left. “Thought we’d have this all ready for you but, unfortunately, due to some unforeseen delays, which always happen but are never accounted for, the show will not be going on today.” He flexed the aluminium of his can, sloppy liquid sound and metallic crackling. The auditorium thronged with the silence of him up there, onstage, gazing quizzically over the pit to the heads, so few they didn’t matter anyway. How many heads would’ve been needed for the audience to matter? “You’re those zeitgeisty folks, ain’t ya?” The stench of alcohol flew from the stage to infuse the place, carried in the diminishing light. “I work in construction, always have, in the blood. I saw what it did to my father, haggard and bent over with destroyed bones before he was old, and I thought, well, might as well sign up for that. Pays regular. Folks like you will always need guys like me to build the scenery.”
The woman’s companion snorted.
“Hey, don’t you get derisive with me sir. I’m just the messenger. Nothing I say is what you don’t know already, so let’s not pretend otherwise.” The builder took off his cap and frisbeed it into the blackness. “Fetch.”
The woman sniggered. Her companion straightened his back in his seat, his head rising to poke above hers in black in the murkiness. “I’d leave this be if I were you. I could easily get you fired, you know?” the companion said, nasally.
The builder stifled a wry chuckle and took some careless glugs. “No, you’re right. I apologise. There’s no reason to get shirty. You understand, I’ve been here, on this job, a little too long I think. It hurts me that we didn’t make it on time, that you folks have to suffer so, stuck not knowing when, or if, what you’ve come to see will be occurring or not. You’ve maybe travelled a long way, or this is a special occasion you’ve been looking forward to. I made assumptions, forgive me.” He sat down at the edge of the stage and dangled his legs into the pit. “Think of all the wonderful music created right here. Some of it must remain, recorded in the walls somehow, the residue of all those beauteous melodies playing somewhere for eternity. I’m getting sentimental now, indulge me for a time. Once this job is over I shan’t be coming back here, you see. It’s just not my thing to buy a ticket.”
The companion started reciting a tune, “La, la, laaa, la, la, le, la, lee, laa.” Dismissive, mocking, growing in contempt with volume, “Leee, le, la, lala, laa, boom, boom.”
Tears ran down the builder’s face, streaking salted pathways through the grey dust that covered him. He went to tip the remaining booze into his mouth but hesitated, examined the can, lifted his eyes, and hurled the can at the companion’s face with full ferocity.
The can impacted with a forceful slapping sound. The companion cried out gutturally, holding his alpha tones through the agony, clasping his face, trying not to be a squirmer.
Muzzy light haloed the builder.
With fists coming out of the darkness, stained in his own blood, the companion yanked the builder from the stage, dragging him by his clothes, messing up his day, striking him with knuckles, coughing incensed breath in his face, teaching him the class. The builder struggled within the onslaught, never a chance of breaking free of it, but wrestling and wrestling against. The companion dragged the construction worker around the vacant pit, their faces sometimes coming into the dull light, bleak stills of the encounter, getting rusty and redder. The woman stood at her seat watching them both, horrified black eyes powerless. She turned to Kattar and lifted her shuddering finger to her lips.