Bright lights. Empty seats. A million specters, wide-eyed and silent. None are present, yet everyone is there. A sea of blue plush chairs where there should be people.
And then, darkness.
A single light illuminates the scene, drawing the eyes of none. Attention flutters in like moths to a flame, giddy and rampant. Swaying in the shadows is a beast, Anticipation, which dares their beating hearts to make even the smallest of sounds.
They don’t.
The curtains slide open noiselessly, rewarding the rapt audience of none with a single color: Blue. Then, joined by Reds and Purples and Greens it moves, leaping through the air to alight in the minds of all who watch.
That is, no one.
Stirred into a frenzy by the dazzling showcase, the great beast Anticipation launches itself into the crowd and tears into the dancing colors with gnashing teeth and glinting claws. Soundless screams rip through the silence, shredding the air with their piercing tones.
They are, inevitably, doomed.
Like a blade the light slices through the air, cleaving Anticipation in two. Agonized, the beast falls to the seats below, where it heaves one final breath.
Inexorably, it dies.
Tattered, bruised, and the lone survivor of its kind, the color Blue alights on the stage, defeated. It mourns the loss of its companions then, in defiance, stands. Singular, it looks out over the deceased form of the great beast Anticipation and decides to forgive.
Forgive, and forget.
The white canvas curtain glides shut on the color Blue. An audience of none rises to its feet and gives a standing ovation, praising both the short-lived Colors and the defeat of Anticipation. They proceed silently out of the doors, none affected, as none attended. An eternity of silence drones on in the space of a single moment, unbroken by neither bated breath nor the batting of an eyelash. None will remember that which they have not seen, and so it will have never happened at all.
Such is the tale of a theater at rest.
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