Page 8 of The Second Chance Cinema
“Ellie. Did you hear me?”
The cartoon finished with a hard call-to-action to buy popcorn at the snack bar.
Then, the screen turned a vibrant, magnetic black, and a title flashed against it.
TICKET ONE:BABIES
Shortly after the title disappeared, an impossible thing happened, followed by the sound of a belly laugh Ellie didn’t know she had in her. Could this be real? Could it possibly?
“What is this, Ellie?” Drake’s voice, next to her.
The film’s setting was familiar: A condo in the suburbs.
The film’s era was: Well, it must have been the early 1990s. “Is this a prank?” Drake asked.
The film’s star was, somehow, unbelievably: Drake. Baby Drake. Yes, it had to be Baby Drake, wailing inside his crib, balling up his fists—and his mom, Beth, lifting him up into the air, swinging him into the kitchen, and Drake’s dad, Robert, holding a modest square cake lit by a candle in the shape of the number one.
“Seriously,” Drake said. He launched out of his seat.“What …Is this?”
All Ellie knew was that they weren’t watching a regular movie.
By some magic, they were watching his life.
Yes, they really were, she processed. They werewatchinghislife.
Everything Ellie should’ve wondered about—the logistics, why they were seeing these things, how the hell a theater could project their own memories—escaped her. When faced with the surreal and intangible, Ellie dove in headfirst. She physically leaned as close to the screen as possible. Electricity hummed under her skin, her breath fast and thrilled.
Drake was saying something in the seat next to her, but his voice fell away with the rest of the questions, and she gave herself permission to be mesmerized.
After Baby Drake’s parents helped him blow his candle out, the scene moved to a new location. In a mall, Baby Drake was passed to the Easter Bunny, whose ears sagged and fur was pilling. “Smile,” Beth said. Baby Drake wallowed in angst, his face flushed a deep red. A woman with shopping bags in both hands stopped to see what the fuss was about. Beth showed no sign of embarrassment. “It’s fine,” she told the nosy woman. “He’s a baby.” As in,move along, but nicer. A flash went off, capturing Drake midscream with the scary bunny.
The same photo was then hung on a kitchen wall. Drake’s legs thrashed in his high chair as he shouted out a string of babble. Beth bent down to kiss the top of his head.
The memories from Drake’s young life sped forward.
Drake learned to walk on the gray shag carpet of his parents’ bedroom.
Drake belched over Thanksgiving dinner during a long-winded, but well-meaning, speech about gratitude at his grandmother’s tchotchke-lined dining table.
Drake was carried on the hip around a buzzing, small-town hair parlor by his mom.
Then, something fluttered in front of Ellie’s face.
Drake—the adult Drake—was waving his hand to get her attention. Ellie finally glanced up. She had noticed the blur of his shape darting around the aisle as she watched the screen but hadn’t bothered to see what he was doing. Why would she? They were being given the chance to watch his childhood. She didn’t want to miss a single moment.
“So, the movie screen is just, like, a normal screen,” Drake concluded. “There’s a storage area behind it, too, but there’s mostly old junk back there.” He had performed a full audit of the space. How long had they been there? Ellie had lost all concept of time. She was too captivated by the movie.
Then, something happened that caused her to audibly shush Drake as he tried to make sense of it all. The image on the screen was overtaken with fuzzy dots, turning the picture blurry—as if a film strip was being pulled from a projector.
And then, Ellie’s own memories began to play.
Baby Ellie was pushed around a park in her bassinet. Her father was behind it—Dad. A little boy walked at their side. Ellie heard herself gasp. She could feel herself being physically pulled toward the screen, her heart warm in her chest.Ben. He was so young. He looked delighted to trot alongside them, stopping every now and then to grab a stick off the ground or kick at a rock. He was only two years Ellie’s senior—a toddler who was just old enough to say “love you” to her bassinet, then teeter down a woodchip path toward a shiny yellow slide.
“Ellie?” Drake asked as he continued to investigate the theater like a drug-sniffing dog. He moved his search to the floor. “Talk to me. What is this movie? What is going on?”
“Quiet,” Ellie insisted, floating above her chair on a private, cozy hovercraft of happiness. She wasn’t about to let reason bring her back to earth.
Ellie and Ben sat next to each other at a never-ending, candlelit table in matching plaid sweaters.
