The cityscape was different after the rain. People were calmer and the noise from the streets was not as rampant as before. Some of the street performers were just setting up their act again while some remained on the side of the streets.
Keanan was not bothered by the fact that he was reincarnated in the place he hated anymore. He was more concerned of the fact that the teenage boy that he possessed might have the same fate as his wife.
"What am I going to do?" Keanan thought to himself. He was walking with Cory and Joe while trying to find a cab. "Does this brain have a tumor?"
The three friends stopped walking. It was all because of Keanan suddenly trying to grasp his new situation. He was wondering if Keanan's body was running out of time.
"Keanan? Are you okay?" Cory asked. "We're just going to get a cab for you."
"And make sure that you don't go to any bars," Joe joked. "Not that we don't trust you. You grew silent after we told you about the doctor thing."
"Yeah. We were concerned about you getting all riled up with your personality change," Cory explained. "But now, we're more worried that you're being so quiet."
"How frequent are my seizures lately?" Keanan asked suddenly. "Are they violent?"
Joe and Cory looked at each other. They were not sure how to answer his question. Even the doctor doesn't have any explanation behind the episodes yet.
"We're not sure, bro. Even the shrink doesn't have anything on the seizures and why you have them," Joe explained.
"But they are not that frequent. Maybe once in two weeks? Right Joe?" Cory said while Joe nodded sincerely.
"There's still no tumor in my brain, right?" Keanan asked frankly.
Both Joe and Cory shook their heads while smiling nervously. They explained that there was no tumor, cancer, or changes in Keanan's body. On his last consultation, the doctor said that it rarely happens to people: seizures that may have physiological triggers but with no underlying causes.
"There is nothing to worry about. The doctor said that there are no causes of concern because you are perfectly healthy," Cory continued.
"She told us to stay vigilant and live healthy. That's all." Joe added. "That's why you have to meditate to relax your mind. Chill kids don't get triggered easily."
Keanan didn't know how to respond. Their explanation might be enough but he wanted to know firsthand. He thought that tomorrow, he will go to his doctor just to make sure.
After a while, Joe and Cory hailed a cab. Before Keanan was about to get in, he asked his friends about his doctor's information. He wanted to go on his own and he did not want to go through someone else's belongings just to find it. Let alone ask the original Keanan's mother for it.
"See you tomorrow?" Cory asked. "We've got quizzes so don't be late!"
"Sir, please deliver the goods safely on this address," Joe gave a card to the cab driver. It was Keanan's complete address. "He is our star so you better watch out! Keanan Riley, don't forget!"
Joe closed the door and the cab driver drove like a madman. While Joe and Cory waved their hands Keanan was trying to convince himself that his seizures might just be a quirk of the body he is possessing. He was fine, he thought repeatedly.
Before the cab driver was about to take a turn toward the address, Keanan asked him for the card that Joe gave. He then tried to persuade the man to drop him somewhere near downtown. He was still not ready to go to the original Keanan's home. He wanted to relax his mind with the presence of street performances nearby and maybe grab a drink somewhere too.
"Joe is going to be so mad at me," Keanan smirked while his driver whined about going downtown. "I'll pay you double. How does that sound?"
It was nine in the evening on downtown New York. Keanan was repeatedly kicked out of bars trying to get a drink. His teenage angst was uncontrollable. Aside from picking fights with bartenders, he even tried to provoke a bouncer.
"Maybe I'll just steal some drinks from a convenience store or something," Keanan thought. "I hate being a teenager."
In order to calm his sober mind, he decided to just walk around aimlessly. He tried to entertain himself with watching performances on the streets. It felt like it was a festival to him. Last time he was in New York, the number of performers on the streets was not this many.
Keanan started to notice that people were tapping on the screens of their mobile phones most of the time. It was like a cultural phenomenon, he thought.
Back in his time, people's heads were turning as they glanced all around, pointing at stuff, and talking to each other organically. Now, almost all of their heads were tilted downwards smirking every once in a while.
Joe educated Keanan about these gadgets. They were called 'smartphones'. Aside from having the ability to call, it had a calendar, a phonebook, an alarm clock, a calculator; it can even play music and take photos and videos. It made a lot of things in his time obsolete.
Apparently, almost all basic information was just a tap away. Business meetings were now conducted on a virtual place called Zoom or Teams; people barely use physical cash to pay for stuff anymore.
But what really caught Keanan's attention was the 'application' called 'Youtube', where videos of live performances, music videos, and even film documentaries can be watched for free. Even pirating films was endemic to the new world.
"The internet is crazy. I never thought it would progress this much," Keanan thought. "Twenty five years is a short time for a technology to advance like this. Indeed, the future is now."
Keanan recalled the basics of using a smartphone. It was Joe who taught him how. He was excited to know more about the modern world with just a touch of the finger. But he wanted to do it on the confines of a room.
Joe also told Keanan that he had a personal computer at home. He was more accustomed with that machine since he had experience using it in his time.
So while Keanan was still outside, he decided to enjoy the smell of the city and try to observe the changes made by the internet for over twenty five years.
But the truth is, Keanan was actually still not ready to meet the parents of the original owner of his body.
"I wonder what the internet did to the theatres. I hope nothing changed," Keanan thought to himself as he tried to forget about confronting the parents of the original Keanan.
"Opera, comical skits, plays; they were made to be watched in person. You have to be there to feel the tension in the air," Keanan continued to wonder.
Keanan decided to go to Broadway but didn't think his money was enough for a show. He doesn't know how to pay with virtual money yet but that didn't stop him from going there.
By the time Keanan arrived, he expected the lights on the billboards to be less bright and expected the absence of people lining up.
Considering how Youtube can easily provide videos of live performances for free and how lazy people are today, it was only natural for the industry to struggle. But he was wrong.
Keanan saw that the billboards were brighter and more colorful than what he remembered in his time and there were still people lining up. He thanked god that humans did not abandon the true nature of this industry, which was to experience art as it unfolds on stage.
"John Dalton. What a surprise to see you here," a teenager as old as Keanan asked loudly. "If only you kept your head intact, you could have been one of the greats."
Without thinking, Keanan rushed towards the kid wondering how someone recognized him. But as he approached him, the kid was just looking at a poster of a play that John Dalton has both written and directed.
"He was too young back then," the kid continued. "Such a shame. All he had to do was move on, 'The John Dalton way', as he calls it. Or better yet, used his anguish and despair of losing his wife and transformed it to something beautiful. Like Van Gogh."
The kid was talking to someone and his explanation almost sounded like he was showing off.
Keanan wanted to tell the kid how wrong he was. It was not easy to just treat emotion as a catalyst for creating something beautiful out of it. It's a painstaking process that doesn't guarantee anything worthwhile.
But Keanan restrained himself. He knew that it wouldn't matter if he tried to talk the kid out of his impression of John Dalton. Twenty five years was enough to dumb down the image of his greatness.
"Keanan? Keanan is that you?" the kid recognized the kid while he went near him. "What are you doing here? How was the Junior Division auditions?"
"Uhm, what?" Keanan was taken aback. Not only was he not expecting to be recognized by the kid. He has no idea how to respond. "The audition went well. I didn't get the part."
The two teens looked at each other with eyebrows raised high. "Sorry. I guess you forgot about me. I was one of your seniors about a year ago. I'm Daniel. We went to film class together!"
Keanan thanked the gods that they were so friendly they introduced themselves. So he decided to ride along with it.
"And this is Julio, my college friend." Daniel continued as he introduced the other guy. He certainly did not look like they were friends, Keanan thought. "He is one of the chosen few scholars on a Johnson film grant. How amazing is that?"
Julio tried to stop Daniel. He was a bit embarrassed. Keanan never knew that the grant still exists. He was actually a scholar of the same grant himself back in college. He thought that maybe these guys will be a good addition to his alliance since he knew they were like minded.
"Where are you guys going, anyway?" Keanan asked.
"We're going to the Bungalow. It's a haven for millennials like us, and Gen Zs like you," Daniel said excitingly. "It's right around the block! You wanna come with?"
"Uhm, yes!" Keanan responded without thinking. It's best to avoid the whole meet the family extravaganza for as long as it takes, he thought.
Julio, Daniel, and Keanan went to the Bungalow Cafe. It was somewhere at the outskirts of Manhattan Island. The three of them entered the café and they were welcomed by light chatter and the aroma of brewing coffee and baked muffins.
It was a perfect place to focus, Keanan thought. The base color was cream and milk with streaks of black and gold that outline the café's edges: wall corners, ceiling joints, and stair steps.
The three of them seated at one of the tables. The moment the waiter arrived, Keanan wanted to order some wine but the two other guys did not allow him. They said that he was still a minor. They ordered coffees instead, the ones with the really long list of customizations.
"So, I heard that you, Joe, and Cory shot their shot at the old Brooklyn theatre?" Dan asked eagerly. "I heard that Ja Hanello was one of the jurors and I heard that his script was used for the auditions. How exciting, right?"
"I did not get the part," Keanan just repeated this line so he can respond. "But I was able to shed a tear for them. I saved it for that audition."
"Really? You did a tear? Why" Dan was surprised. "Who taught you that? Was it someone from twitter?"
"Twitter?" Keanan remembered something like it from Joe.
"Or is it from some other sources that I don't know of like Russian websites?" Dan continued.
Keanan felt a bit comfortable around Daniel. He almost felt like he was talking to one of his friends back in the day. Maybe it was because of the comment he made earlier about John Dalton.
Julio, on the other hand, was still a mystery to him. But if he tagged along with someone like Daniel in the middle of the night in Broadway, it was safe to say that they were like minded, Keanan thought.
The night grew kinder on Keanan. The place that he was in and the people he was with. He recalled many nights bantering with his friends back in his day: which scene is better or whether they should scrap the entire script or if they should hire more extras.
But the conversation he was having on that night was far gentler, but did not lack interest or rigor.
Until, Daniel continued his commentary about John Dalton. They were about to enter a theatre where a John Dalton play was being performed.
"I was actually excited to see one. He was never really a playwright. I think he was just trying it out." Daniel explained.
"I heard he only made a dozen, half of which were recycled from his college years." Julio continued. "I think California Straights is one of them. The one we were about to watch."
Keanan remembered that title. It was about two straight guys in a gay bar who wanted to surprise their gay friend on his birthday. It was a comedy but playwriting was never his forte.
The only reason Keanan pursued them was because Melissa persuaded him. She said that he had a knack for it.
"What do you think of him? John Dalton?" Keanan was curious. He wondered if they had a different comment on him than Joe and Cory."
"If he didn't die, he would probably be one of the best ones out there." Daniel said.
"Agreed. He was not afraid to try new things. That defines an artist," Julio explained. "The best part of him is that every time he did try something, he had his way around it. That's why almost all of his films were a hit. He was definitely a genius in his time."
"But the people don't like him. He was all over the place most of the time especially in parties," Daniel continued. "I watched this documentary about him. They said that most people that hated him still went to see his movies. Just proves how great he was."
It was at that moment that Keanan knew, not everyone can appreciate him. At least his works were loved, he thought. Most of his hard work and time were spent on them anyway. He treats his films like they were his babies.
Keanan looked at both Daniel and Julio talking about John Dalton and can't help but feel captivated. As soon as the coffees arrived, Keanan also ordered the old classic brewed coffee with no sugar. He was not a fan cafe but wanted to stay a bit more.
Just as he was about to lose his sanity, he was thankful that he was able to meet Daniel and Julio.
A/N
Any suggestions on how we should proceed with the story?
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