Chapter
4 – On the Opposite Side of Charity
Even after having three days off
from being at the theatre, there’s a part of Dario that blames himself for the
deaths of Renzo and Delia. He doesn’t blame Carlo despite him playing an
indirect role in their beliefs and he appreciates the constant affection and
help that Adelina has been giving him. His parents also lend him support by
giving him fewer responsibilities until he feels better and giving him advice
about his concerns. Dario doesn’t mention the theatre to his parents, but they
still understand what’s bothering him despite talking around it, since they
know the struggles of helping people who don’t want to be helped.
A woman from a larger charity walks
into the building with her parents. The parents approach Dario’s parents while
their daughter walks up to Dario. This woman has light blue eyes, dark pink
hair, light skin, and wears a red dress with short sleeves.
“Hello, my name is Dario. Do you
need any help?” Dario asks.
“Nice to meet you. My name is Elda,
and no, I don’t need any help. In fact, it is my parents and our organization
that will be helping you. Our parents are discussing a deal that will merge our
charities.”
“I’ve seen you online and on TV
before and know about your organization. It’s one of the biggest in the
country, but I also know you and your parents live in luxury.” Adelina sees
Dario talking to Elda, so she runs over to him and holds his arm as if making
it known that Dario is hers. “What is it, Adelina? Everything is fine.”
Adelina grunts and stares down Elda
like a fierce mother does when protecting her child.
“Everything is fine. You and your
parents will receive a generous deal though some of your fellow employees may
be fired and replaced,” Elda says.
“What? You can’t just fire them.”
“We can when the deal goes through.
You’ll want our more experienced employees anyway even though you’ll have fewer
people working with you. It’s all for the good cause of helping the poor and
needy, right?”
“You don’t do that by corporatizing
and cutting people out of the job they want to work. It’s not right to hurt
others so other people can be helped.”
“Workers come and go. It’s the
nature of business.”
“This is a charity. Not a
business.”
“That’s right. You should listen to
him and leave,” Adelina growls.
Suddenly, Dario and Elda find
themselves in the theatre and on Elda’s stage. Her mask closely resembles her
face and her body is mostly together except for her center, which is sorely
empty and in pieces. After Dario explains what this place is and what its
purpose is, Elda wonders why she’s here.
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” she
says with a grin as if pretending to be innocent. “I help run one of the
biggest charities in the country, as you said. Thousands if not hundreds of thousands
of people are helped by me.”
Many examples of Elda’s charity
show on the walls, ceiling, and floors, however, they are soon overshadowed by
scenes of her cruelty by firing people, cutting their pay, cutting hours,
giving overwhelming responsibilities to a person without a pay raise, and more.
“People are also hurt by you,” Dario
says while pointing at the scenes around them.
“So, what if a few people are hurt
so many more can be helped?”
“Because you’re supposed to help
people! You’re part of a charity! If you actually did care about helping more
than showing how ‘charitable’ you are, then maybe I’d respect you, but I don’t.
You’re a hypocrite, a devil with the appearance of an angel.”
The scenes all stop and the room
turns dark.
“How dare you!” Elda says while approaching
Dario. “You don’t know anything about me, what I have to sacrifice for others! The
many should be helped if only a few suffer because of it!”
Edla’s words are echoed by scenes
of her on the walls showing her pushing away people she once called friends
because they didn’t agree with her way of doing things. Inside Elda’s hollow
body, Dario sees the mischievous swimming around.
“Haha! There’s so much room in here
that I could fit two of me in here,” the technician says.
“I know what I’m doing is wrong,
but it’s what I have to do to help the world,” Elda says with the technician’s
voice mixed in with hers and lights start shining from her eyes. “Those people
who I fired and pushed away will understand. No, they should be thankful
because someone was helped because of the sacrifice that I made for them. They
should all be thankful to me for doing what needs to be done!”
Hundreds of people start pouring
into the room like the waters of a flood and Dario struggles to stay above
them. Some shower Elda with praise while a few of the voices criticize her for
her choices. She argues with them as she struggles to stay afloat and is being
dragged down by her critics. In the chaos, Dario finds a scene of Elda crying
and apologizing on a small mirror. He takes this small mirror, swims against
the crowd, and shows it to Elda while shielding her against her critics.
“There’s no such thing as doing
evil to do good. You know that. It’s okay to admit you’re wrong, but what’s not
is refusing to. That only makes things worse,” Dario says.
Elda starts to cry as she says, “But
if I stop now, I won’t be able to help as many people. They’ll be left to
suffer by themselves with no one to help them.”
“There are plenty of people in the
world to help them such as myself, my parents, and the charity we run. We can
help the people that you can’t get to, so you don’t need to overextend yourselves,
fire those who want to work for you, and overwork those who are as dedicated as
you are to helping the needy. We can do this together. How about we have a
partnership rather than a merger?”
The flood of people disappears into
thin air, leaving the two alone in a quiet room.
“Okay…let’s do that.”
Dario and Elda are back in reality
again. As they smile at one another, Adelina notices the shift in mood towards
one another and looks at Elda with even more hostility.
“Did you two just go to the
theatre? What did you two do?” Adelina asks.
“Nothing. Dario just helped me
understand something I already knew and didn’t want to acknowledge,” Edla says.
“I’ll convince my parents to partner up with your charity so we can help each
other. Can we meet up sometime so we can talk more?”
“Talk?” Adelina says suspiciously.
“About business and the nature of
helping people. I won’t take your boyfriend away from you though…I do want time
with him.”
“Yeah, we can talk again next time.”
“I look forward to it,” Elda says
with a wink.
Elda walks to her parents to
convince them to agree to a partnership rather than a merger to which her
parents reluctantly agree since Dario’s parents are stubborn in their decision
to stay independent. Dario’s parents, Elda, and her parents then walk to an
office to finalize their agreement. Meanwhile, Adelina grabs Dario’s face and
closely examines it.
“What?” Dario asks.
“She didn’t kiss you, did she?” Adelina
asks.
“No, why? You keep acting like you’re
my girlfriend when you’re not.”
“Well…I want to be…is that okay
with you?”
Dario hardly thinks for a second
before saying, “Yes, it’s okay with me.”
“Good,” Adelina says before kissing
Dario on the lips. “I would’ve cried until you said yes.”
Dario and Adelina hug each other
and then go back to their daily duties helping people.
“Ah, yes. I knew this setup I
created would pay off and they would make the right decisions,” I say to
myself. “Dario is truly a good servant for my theatre and will be a guiding
light to the truth and helpful hand for many, just as all who serve others
rather than themselves should.”
The End
Chapter
3 – Parroting for Comfort
With their new hire and potential
daughter-in-law, Dario’s parents make it a point to have them working together
so they can grow closer. Just as Adelina gives Dario a good morning hug, he is
transported to the theatre he’s almost forgotten about.
“I was wondering if I ever was
going to come back here,” Dario says to me.
“This isn’t a nine-to-five. You’ll
be back here when you’re needed and since Adelina needed so much time with you,
you needed to stay with her,” I say.
“Can you tell me if she’s the one
who’s meant to be my girlfriend and wife-to-be?”
“What does your heart say?” Dario
searches for the answer within himself as I fly him to the stage he’s meant to
be on today. “You’ll be helping two people today, both of which have the same
problem of being too worldly. They feed off each other’s ignorance as an excuse
to keep acting as they do.”
“Wait, what?”
“The man’s name is Renzo and the
woman’s name is Delia. You can handle them, Dario.”
Before Dario can say another word,
he is thrust into the room where the two people are. Their stage consists of a
place full of every popular item, movie, game, show, and sayings of the times
all of which fade away and keep being replaced by new things. Renzo has a fiery
orange and black mask that has red eyes with a silly expression on its face
that covers half his face. He has blue eyes, short black hair, and most of his
body is missing. As for Delia, she has green eyes, black hair, and most of her
body is missing as well. Her mask that covers half of her face is upside down
and is trying to hold back her tears while smiling with both mouths.
The two are going from place to
place on their stage like children in a candy shop with a sugar rush, trying
out every new trend until it goes sour, and then being invested in another.
Every face attached to an advertisement and person they see is a variation of
the mischievous lighting technician who keeps shifting his face with the
trends, and at one point, has two faces at once to talk to Renzo and Delia at
the same time.
“Stop all this noise and flashing
lights! It’s giving me a headache,” Dario says to the technician.
“Haha! Why should I? These are the
sights and sounds of the world! Better keep up or you’ll be left behind,” the
technician says.
Seeing that he has no luck with the
technician, Dario walks up the wall to Renzo.
“Renzo! Don’t you think this is all
too much?” Dario asks.
“How can it be? This is amazing!”
Renzo says before getting into an orange sports car and driving off.
The floor of Renzo’s stage becomes
like that of a treadmill as Dario runs on it to keep up with him.
“You’ll get tired of following the
times and eventually fall behind!” Dario says.
“Nah, not me. My followers and
coworkers keep me up to date with everything that’s going on in the world,”
Renzo says and then moves on to running on a literal treadmill in a gym with
various political news outlets reporting on the goings on and telling people
what they should think.
“It’s not right to change your
beliefs every year or so because of today’s politics. Shouldn’t you believe in
something more solid and unchanging?”
“That’s for people who are too
stringent and dogmatic. Nothing is true and right can become wrong given the
circumstances. That’s what I believe.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
Again, Renzo’s stage changes and
Dario finds himself on the ceiling skydiving from it. Several TVs are falling
along with him each of which shows static screens of Renzo making apology
videos only to go back and do what he apologized for, ganging up on people for
their beliefs, and hitting close friends and family of his over disagreements
while he was drunk.
“You’ll come crashing down
eventually. No celebrity stays a star for long,” Dario says.
“If I’m going to crash, it’s going
to be in a blaze of glory baby! Woah!” Renzo says as he plummets towards the
ground.
Both Renzo and Dario crash to the
floor, however, neither is hurt, especially Renzo who immediately gets up and
races toward the halls of a loud sports stadium. Tired from having to deal with
him, Dario shifts his attention toward Delia who is drinking at the bar in a
casino with illusions of her friends, all of which have the distorted face of
the mischievous lighting technician.
Dario catches his breath and then
says, “Delia-”
“Who are you? Another admirer?” she
asks in a pompous tone.
“A what? No, I’m not.”
“Then you’re not worth my time.”
Dozens of people start crowding
around Delia as everything starts becoming nothing more than migraine-inducing
lights and noise. Dario stumbles back onto a large slot machine that starts
running and forces him to run on it until he falls forward and is flung into a
river of alcohol that leads to a whirlpool that he is sucked into. He then
falls into a dark void filled with scenes of Delia’s streams such as her
gambling, shopping, and trauma dump streams. By the time he reaches the bottom,
his ears are ringing and he doesn’t hear much until he sees Delia crying by
herself in the dark.
“No, please pay attention to me. I
need to see your compliments, be the center of your attention, and hear about
my struggles. Don’t leave me alone,” Delia says while tapping at her phone and
computer.
Dario walks to her with a hand
reached out and says, “Delia, you don’t need everyone’s love and attention.
Please stop working, partying, and streaming so much. Give it a break and enjoy
the quiet.”
As Dario reaches Delia, spotlights
from above come on, and the constant chatter resumes.
“She needs all the light and
attention she deserves! She’s a hard worker after all!” the mischievous
lighting technician says.
“Don’t listen to this kid, Delia,”
Renzo says as he pushes Dario aside and hugs Delia. Now that they’re together,
Dario sees that the colorful strings that comprise both of their bodies are
colors that the other has.
“You’re right, Renzo. Let’s go have
fun while we’re still young and rich,” Delia says.
“Wait! You can’t keep being so
irresponsible with your lives! It’s not going to end well,” Dario says before
Renzo throws a pamphlet at his face.
Looking at it, Dario sees that it’s
one of Carlo’s old pamphlets that has tips on living a consistently happy life.
He stops himself from cursing since he’s told Carlo to stop printing these or
to at least change the advice on them.
“Give that a read if you want to
stop being such a killjoy,” Renzo says.
“Stop and listen to me for a
second!”
Scenes of Renzo’s and Delia’s many
love interests pass by Dario, many of which end in fights both verbal and
physical, but they usually keep ending up together even after cheating and
breaking up with one another time and time again. Dario rips apart the pamphlet
and is about to run after the two until he finds himself back in normal reality
and Adelina’s arms again.
Noticing the sudden jolt to his
movement and the tired look on his face, Adelina says, “Did you just go to the
theatre?”
“Yeah…” Dario says as he gently
holds her and looks away.
“Is everything okay? You look
defeated.”
“Well, I wasn’t able to change the
minds of the two people I was talking to. I don’t even know why I was kicked
back into reality.”
“Don’t worry about it. The Stage
Master had some purpose in you being there and will probably do the rest of the
job himself or with another person.”
“Yeah…I guess so…” Adelina squeezes
Dario with a big hug. “Ow! What?”
“Stop feeling so bad! That’s my
job! You’re supposed to be the most positive between the two of us, so you
better stop feeling bad or else I’ll start feeling worse.”
“Okay, okay. Thank you, Adelina.”
“Shut up and start smiling again.”
A day of work passes until Dario
hears news of a car crash the next morning. Having a bad feeling that he should
look at it, Dario looks into what happened and is shocked to read that Renzo
and Delia were the ones who were killed in the crash after a night of drinking
and partying. He sits dumbfounded and blankly staring at the news until he
finds himself back in the theatre. His eyes look up at me and there’s an
expression on his face that I have the answer to.
“Renzo and Delia didn’t want to
hear the truth. They didn’t want to change, and because of that, they sealed
their fate. You didn’t do anything wrong and there was nothing more you
could’ve done,” I say to him before snapping him back to reality.
Now, Dario feels slightly better,
and yet, still longs for a better answer, but he knows better. The truth can
sometimes be hard to accept, shallow, unbelievable, and make you feel empty.
Adelina comes across him staring at the news and asks him about it.
After telling her about it, she hugs him and says, “Don’t be upset. Remember what you said to me a few days ago? Well, you are my joy, and now, it’s my time to be yours, so let me help you move on.”
She then kisses him and holds him
tighter as he cries.
Chapter
2 – Uncaring Emptiness
A hard day’s work passes for Dario
until he enters the theatre, which he almost forgets to look forward to. He
enters it just as he sits down on a chair to catch his breath and finds himself
sitting on the floor.
“Ow! You could’ve made that
transition easier so I wouldn’t slam my butt down on the floor,” Dario says to
me.
“I need you in a particular mood
for the next person you’ll see. Her name is Adelina and she needs some cheering
up from her miserable and tired state,” I say before taking Dario to her stage.
“Please be patient with her.”
“I will,” Dario says.
When he enters Adelina’s room, he
finds that her stage is colored in various shades of grey with not much around
her. She sits in the middle of the room looking down and humming herself a
song. Her appearance is a disjointed one, not one part of it is normal because
it is nothing but a series of grey lines with spikes on her shoulders and a
shriveling grey thing in the center that must be her heart. The mask on her
face covers most of it except for the side of it and her black hair. As for the
design of her mask, it’s plain just as she is with four bits of hair on it and
a strangely content look on its face.
Going up to her, Dario says, “You
must be Adelina. How are you doing?”
“Fine, and you?” she says.
“A bit tired from all the work I
did today, but good.” A deafening silence in the room fills the room as Dario
is unsure of how to continue and is put off guard by how strange this all is,
even by the theatre’s standards. “What troubles you?”
“Nothing does. I’m perfectly fine
as I am.”
“You wouldn’t be here if that was
the case.”
“I know. I’ve been here many times
before and heard from many people like you.”
“People are brought here more than
once if they need more help.”
“Or if that Stage Master wants you
to be here. It’s not like we have a choice.”
“Well, it’s a good thing that we
are brought here. I got a lot of help from him and am enjoying helping others
like you.”
“If you say so. Maybe the reason
why so many are brought here time and time again is because the help doesn’t
truly work. I mean, in the real world, no one remembers the theatre, and most
that do just remember it as a dream. If it were more important, it’d be
remembered and more people would be actively searching it out.”
Dario thinks about Adelina’s words
and back on his conversation with Carlo and how Carlo still thinks that the
theatre was a dream. To Carlo, they’re only collaborating because he believes
that dreams tell you a lot about reality and what you should be doing.
“I make a lot of the same
mistakes,” Dario admits. “Back at the charity I work at, I sometimes put stock
in the wrong area, bring the wrong stuff to a person, or tell someone to deal
with a difficult patient that I don’t want to bother with. Even now, I have to
remember that not everyone is perfect and we can be made better through trial
and error.”
“I get it,” Adelina coldly says.
“Can you tell me why you keep
coming back here?”
“I don’t know why. There’s nothing
wrong with me. All I do is keep to myself and not bother anyone.”
“There has to be more to it than
that.”
“There isn’t. I don’t care to be in
anyone’s business nor do I care about myself.”
“That’s it then. Your uncaringness
towards yourself and others.”
“What’s so wrong about it? I don’t
bother anyone.”
Images of Adelina flicker on the
walls around them, showing her being distant towards others and secluding
herself.
“Seclusion isn’t good for you.”
“Why isn’t it? No one is hurt by
it.”
“You are and the people who you
could help by being around them.”
“No, that’s not true and I told you
I’m fine.”
“You’re lying to yourself.”
Now, videos of Adelina show her
longingly and jealously looking at gatherings of people.
“I wish I could be like them,” she
says in the videos. “This is fine. Why can’t I make any friends? Who cares? I
don’t care. They aren’t good people anyway. I’m not that interesting of a
person. I couldn’t be friends with them. Life is stressful enough alone.
Keeping up with family on holidays and special events is all I need. There are
more important things to do.”
“I care, Adelina,” Dario says to
break up the constant noise.
“I’ve heard that many times before
and nothing has come of it.”
“Today, that changes. Can I see
your real face? Your mask hides too much of it.”
“Sure, if you can.”
Dario slightly moves aside
Adelina’s mask to reveal that there’s only the outline of a face on hers with
no features to it, which shocks him a bit.
“There’s nothing to me. Nothing
special or worth getting invested in,” Adelina says.
“That’s not true. You just need to
find yourself.”
“It is true!” the mischievous
lighting technician says as he pops out of Adelina’s head. “There’s hardly
anything in here!”
Dario swipes away at the technician
as the man pops in and out of Adelina like a game of whack-a-mole while saying,
“Don’t listen to him! Everyone feels like a blank slate, at first.”
“I’m not a blank slate. I know my
purpose in life, and that’s just to work, eat, and sleep alone until the day I
die. That’s all I’m worth and I’ll ever be.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is. There’s nothing you
can say to convince me otherwise. I’ve already heard how things could always
get better and there’s joy to be found in the mundane, but neither answer has
brought me peace. It’s never brought me out of the loneliness I find myself
in.”
“I’ll be your friend,” Dario says with
a hand on Adelina’s shoulder.
She looks to the side and thinks to
herself as if the concept of a friend is foreign to her.
“How can you be? After we leave
here, we’ll be far apart.”
“Where do you live?”
Adelina tells Dario the city she
lives in, a city that so happens to be the same one he is in as well. They
exchange addresses and realize they only live two blocks away from one another.
“I’ll take the time to visit you.
We’ll talk and I’ll help you become the person you’re meant to be,” Dario
confidently says.
Adelina smiles for the first time
in what feels like years to her before frowning again.
“When do you want to see each
other? Tomorrow? Next week? Next month? I’ve tried making arrangements to be
with others, but they always ghost me in the end. Prove to me that you want to
help me by seeing me sooner rather than later.”
“Okay. How about tonight? My
parents should be making dinner now and it’ll be ready by the time I meet you
at your house.”
“Ah…um…”
“This is proof that I want to help
you, isn’t it?”
“It is. Um…okay. I’ll see you soon
then.”
Dario blinks and sees that he’s
back home. He immediately gets up and tells his parents that a friend in need
is coming over for dinner and he’s going to walk her over.
“Who’s coming over?” his mom asks.
“A girl named Adelina. We just
met,” Dario says.
“Oh, if that’s the case, well get
dinner ready as soon as possible. We have to make a good first impression,”
Dario’s dad says.
Dario rolls his eyes at the
implication that his dad thinks he may fall in love with Adelina and walks out
the door. When he gets to Adelina’s apartment, he rings the doorbell and doesn’t
have to wait long for her to answer her. The sight of her is a bit surprising to
Dario, and not, at the same time. She has a disheveled appearance that suggests
she was rushing to do her best to hide her many imperfections such as her messy
hair and sunken eyes. It’s also apparent that she’s about Dario’s age and hasn’t
showered for days since she smells like perfume and the stink of work. Adelina
is also blocking the door and shifting around to hide the mess that is her home.
“Um, hi, Dario. I’m glad you
actually came,” she awkwardly says.
“The pleasure is mine. Are you
ready to go?” Dario asks.
“Ye-yeah. Let’s.”
Adelina walks with Dario back to his
house where they enjoy a nice together with Dario’s parents. For the next week,
Dario makes time to see Adelina to help her find herself and enjoyment in life.
To his surprise, he doesn’t enter the theatre during any of the days, but the
most surprising thing he finds is that Adelina enjoys helping people at the
charity with him, especially caring for the sick and homeless. At one moment,
she catches him smiling at him.
“What?” she shyly asks.
“Nothing. I’m just happy to see you
smiling and happy,” he says, making her smile even more and blush.
By the end of the last day on Saturday
when Dario is walking Adelina home, he says, “It looks like I’ve finally
managed to get you to change for the better.”
“Yeah, but this doesn’t mean that
we’ll stop seeing each other, right?” Adelina asks.
“No, of course not. You’re welcome
to work with my family and me at the charity full-time if you want.”
“That’s good. I don’t know what I would
do without you.” Adelina hugs and then kisses Dario on the cheek. “Thank you
for everything. See you tomorrow.”
Adelina then walks into her apartment
while leaving Dario stunned and blushing. His shocked and blushed expression is
stuck on his face even as he arrives back home and tries to hide it. Seeing him
all red makes his parents ask what happened, and when he tells them, they’re
excited that he has a new girlfriend. Even though he denies it, Dario wonders
if Adelina kissed him just because he’s been such a big help to her or if she
actually does love him and he also begins wondering why he feels like he wants
her to love him.
Chapter
1 – Blinded by the Light
Since yesterday, Dario has been
wary about every door he goes through. He expects that each door could be the
one taking him to the theatre, and yet none of them do. He tries to relax and
keep his focus on his work at the charity so he doesn’t mess up. However, after
he walks through a doorless doorway, he finds himself in the theatre and is
immediately caught off guard.
I appear in front of him in a
firework and say, “Good afternoon, Dario! How are you doing?”
“Fine that I’m finally here. I was
in suspense all day wondering what door would bring me here,” Dario says.
“You don’t need to go through a
door to get here. I can bring you here if you were on a plane, in the ocean, in
a fight, or simply lying on your bed.”
“Really? Since we’re on the topic,
what happens outside the theatre when I’m in here?”
“Absolutely nothing. This place is
outside of time, and as such, you can spend years here, and not a second would
pass in the normal reality.”
“That’s…impossibly amazing.”
“Anything is possible for me. I am
the Stage Master and all of reality is my stage. As for you, you will be
helping a man named Carlo on his stage. He has the issue of being too positive.
It’s clouded his conscience as he only cares about being happy and directing others
to do the same.”
“I see. Will you be with me while I
try to convince him to change?”
“I’ll be with you in spirit and
helping you to say what you need to. Other than that, it’s all you.”
“Okay. I think I got this.”
“I know you do. Now, let me show
you to Carlo’s stage.”
Dario is lifted into the air by the
invisible force of my power and flies through the many halls of the theatre
until we reach Carlo’s stage. He laughs and mentions how fun that was and then
enters the room. In it, blinding lights that mostly consist of shades of yellow
and gold immediately come on.
“Could you turn down the
brightness?” Dario asks.
“Haha, can’t do that. Carlo wants
them to be as bright as possible. Who doesn’t want their life to be bright all
the time anyway?” the mischievous lighting technician says.
With his eyes squinted and hands
giving him some shade, Dario makes his way through the blinding light until he
sees Carlo who is sitting on a beach looking out at the horizon. His real
body is barely there as he only has his half torso that wears golden chains and
a light blue shirt and lacks arms and legs while every other part of his body is comprised of various shades of blue strings. Half of his face shows his brown
eyes and blonde air and the other has his mask that has banana-like pieces of
hair coming out of his head, crescent eyes, eyebrows, and nose, and a smile showing his golden teeth that stretch his face so much that it threatens to
tear his face.
“Carlo?” Dario asks.
“Hello there! Are you here to bask
in this wonderful day with me? What’s your name boy?” Carlo asks.
“Kind of. My name is Dario and I’m
here to help you change your life.”
“Ah, a coworker in the same
profession. Thank you for offering, but I’m fine as I am. I see joy and
happiness in my everyday life even if things go wrong during them.”
“That’s the problem right there.
You’re viewing it a bit too positively.”
One of the lights breaks, causing a
dark spot in Carlo’s bright day.
“What do you mean, Dario? There’s
no such thing as being too positive.”
“There can be when it blinds you to
everything else in your life.”
“Explain more and look at this.”
The beach scene changes to show Carlo’s many talks to the positivity groups he
manages. “These are the many groups I manage where I spread messages of positivity
and happy living. What’s so wrong about this?”
“You’re focusing on being happy and
treating it as the goal of your life when you shouldn’t.”
Another light breaks and the scene
changes, this time showing Carlo breaking off family connections, quitting
jobs, and begging his followers for money.
“Of course, I had to do these
things. They kept me from being happy. Again, what’s wrong with this?”
“Can’t you see the answer? You
broke your family’s heart and are leaning on your followers so you don’t have to
work a job to support yourself. You’re making others miserable so you can be
happy.”
“Those people deserved it because
they kept me from doing what I wanted just like you are now. You don’t help people
by making them feel miserable.”
“What’s making you feel miserable
is your conscience, your guilt. That feeling of misery will help you confess
that what you’re doing is wrong and live a better life.”
“But…but if I stop what I’m doing,
then the people who follow me will think I’m a phony, stop paying me to give
lessons, and go back to being sad.”
“Then you should help each other
after confessing. Don’t be afraid of the consequences of your actions. It’s
better to be true than to lie to yourself every day. I’m sure your followers
will understand.”
“No…I don’t think they will.”
Two more lights break and the scene
changes this time to show Carlo helping a woman who can’t find anything in life
that makes her happy.
“Please, no,” Carlo says while
looking away from the scene.
“I don’t know what to do,” the
woman said. “Nothing makes me happy. I’ve tried gambling, sports, traveling, focusing
on work, hanging out with family and friends, none of it makes me happy.”
With a grim look on his face, Carlo
said, “I don’t know what to tell you. If I couldn’t find anything happy to live
for, then I’d stop living.”
“I didn’t mean to say it that way!”
“But it’s what you felt,” Dario
says. “It’s what you believe, that if you’re not happy every day of your life,
then you shouldn’t keep living.”
More lights break until the room is
in complete darkness except for one light that shows a news report about the
same woman Carlo was talking to killing herself.
“I’m sorry…” Carlo says as he
starts to cry. Every light in the room turns on again and points itself at
Carlo. “I have to keep being happy and making them feel that way so no one ends
up like her.”
“No, someone will end up like her
if you do. She killed herself because she couldn’t be happy, so you need to
tell people that there’s more to life than happiness.”
“What? If we don’t live to make ourselves
and others happy, then what’s there to live for?”
“We can live to improve the lives
of others and ourselves through hard work and determination. I work at a
charity where I do nothing but run around helping the sick, hungry, and needy.
It’s backbreaking and intense work. Not everyone I help becomes happy, but they
are thankful and are able to continue living.”
“But life is full of so much pain
and misery. Sometimes I just want it to end so I never feel the harshness of it
again.”
“Life can make you feel that way.
Even though I’m not happy every day and sometimes miserable for one reason or
another, I find peace knowing that I did the right thing for the day, that
someone was helped by my actions, and hope to do more and better the next day.”
“Yeah…yeah, you’re right, kid. Do
you think I can do the same as you?”
Dario walks over to Carlo and hugs
him.
“I think you can.” The darkness
lights up and reveals all the people that Carlo made happy. “Remember that you made dozens of people
happy. You’re an inspiration to them. You just need to orient them in the right
direction, and if they leave you or you mess up, then pick yourself up and try
better next time. That’s all you have to do.”
“Right. You’re right! Thank you so
much, Dario. Maybe we can collaborate on a project together to help others.
What do you say?”
“I’d like that.”
Carlo and Dario shake hands. In the
blink of an eye, Dario finds himself back at the charity. After work, he looks
up Carlo online and messages him to follow up on what Carlo offered. Even
though Carlo hardly remembers Dario, he accepts and they arrange to meet each
other one day to plan their collaboration, a day that Dario happily looks
forward to.
Prologue – Training for the Role
There is a place, a theatre, that
everyone visits more than once in their life. Most don’t remember it and even
fewer remember it as nothing more than a dream or nightmare. It is a place of
learning and understanding, happiness and delight, fear and dread, but most
importantly, it is a place of pure persuasive truth to challenge how a person
views the world so that they can see it in the correct light and improve their
lives. Of the few who remember the theatre as it was, even fewer want to help
in its mission. That small minority of helpers is a special lot, one of whom is
about to face a challenge of his own today.
The young man’s name is Dario, the
son of a couple who manages a charity for the homeless who cannot care for
themselves. His mother handles the business and office side of things while his
father is a doctor and cook. Dario is responsible for running around the
building to deliver mail and news, helping with stock, and caring for the
patients. It’s what his parents did in their youth, so he does the same, except
he doesn’t know which of his parent’s positions he’ll take over and prays that
he knows in due time. As he runs in and out of rooms, he unexpectedly finds
himself in the theatre.
“Woah! How did I get here?” Dario
wonders out loud.
The part of the theatre that Dario
finds himself in is the guest hall, a large spiraling room whose ceiling cannot
be seen filled with lights of all colors, stagehands going about their
business, and a seemingly infinite amount of halls and rooms each decorated
differently to suit every purpose. An usher with a smile that spirals around
his face takes Dario to the auditorium he is meant to go to where his questions
will be answered. Along the way, Dario sees other strange people who have
abnormalities such as one person having wings for arms, feet, and a head with
eyes on their body, another person who has the face of a lion, lamb, and human
all in one, and another who manifests from the shadows and turns into many
kinds of birds to carry all kinds of luggage around.
Once they get to Dario’s
auditorium, the usher bows his head and says, “Please, enjoy your stay.”
Dario tepidly walks into the
auditorium whose doors close behind him. The lights turn on and focus on a
figure that manifests itself out of the light and dark on the stage. This
figure turns into an image of a man with white skin and whose clothes and hat
are colored red, grey, and gold just like the circles in his eyes. He wears a
long coat and outfit that looks similar to that of a circus master.
“Who are you?” Dario asks.
“I am the Stage Master, and you, my
dear Dario, are here for the opportunity of a lifetime,” I say with a smile.
“What do you mean?”
I explain to him what this place is
and then elaborate on his purpose here. “You are here to help yourself so you
can better help others. On this stage, how you view reality will manifest and
your troubles and woes will be laid bare so you can deal with them.”
“You can help me help others
better? You’re an answer to my prayers then.”
“My boy, I answer all prayers. Now,
let me reveal your troubles and view on reality, so you may become the man you
are meant to be.”
The walls, ceiling, and floor
disappear into particulars of light, and each corner of the room contains each
part of the building where Dario works. In each part, he sees a familiar face.
“Mom! Dad!” he says to them.
“They can’t hear you. These are
merely projections of them. I know your parents are great role models in your
life and fulfill the role I’ve given them well. They are servants after my own
heart, serving others while expecting nothing in return as all who work for
others should,” I say.
“My only worry in life is not
living up to their expectations of me.”
Versions of Dario appear in each
room, messing up, and causing people pain in the worst scenarios. The lighting
in the room distorts and changes as Dario’s parents harshly scold him in an
out-of-character way causing the real Dario to become upset.
“Stop doing that!” I say to one of
the lighting technicians far above us.
This technician’s head is the only
thing visible. He looks down at us with his gold and grey eyes. His golden
hair, though long, hardly hides his face and mischievous smile.
“Haha, sorry. I just thought he
should see that,” the technician says dishonestly.
“Watch out for people like him,” I
say to Dario while pointing up at the lights. “Even if they appear to make
sense or be like angels, don’t listen to them if they tell you something that
goes against what is true and right. Now, focus on this reflection of yourself.
What do you see?”
Dario looks at himself in the
mirror on the wall and is astonished. Half of him is his usual green-eyed, brown-haired
self while the other wears a mask and whose body is made of disjointed lines of
color. His mask mirrors Dario’s strong face, has golden eyes, has and a star on
its forehead. As for the rest of his body, it’s all various kinds of colors and
frilly like the outfit of a fat circus clown.
“What is that? Why does part of me
look like that?” Dario asks.
“You are divided between the true
idea of yourself and your view of yourself. One part sees you as you truly are
while the other sees you as nothing more than a strong-faced clown that
pretends to be a great helper,” I say.
“Well…I do act like a clown that’s
only pretending to be a shoulder to lean on sometimes.”
“But that’s only sometimes. You
pick yourself up after you fall every time. Don’t let the failures of your past
define your future.”
“If you answer all prayers, could
you answer one that I’ve been praying for so long and every night?”
“No, I cannot make you perfect. You
will only receive that at the end of your life.”
“Why? I thought I was supposed to
be someone to rely on, not someone who messes up and gets things wrong.”
“Your mistakes keep you humble, relatable,
and human. They push you to become better than you are, keep you praying, and
close to me. That is why you can never be perfect in this life.”
Dario looks around at his view of reality
around him. He focuses on his many faults until waving away at them as if he
could push them away with his hand. He then looks at the times he made people
smile and when he made his parents proud. One moment in particular catches his
attention. It was when his dad accidentally broke two family heirlooms by
knocking them to the ground. After he picked up the pieces and got yelled at, he
began constructing something new piece by piece every night since then.
Dario approached his dad and asked,
“Are you and mom going to be okay?”
“Yes, we are. Why?”
“She asked really talked to you for
days.”
“I don’t blame her. This is a
special family heirloom that’s been passed down for generations, but she just
needs time to get over it and I need to make up for what I did.”
“How can you do that? The two glass
birds are beyond repair.”
“Beyond repair, yes, but not completely
useless. See?”
Dario’s dad reveals to him the finished
results of his month-long project, a glass statue of a family of birds made
from the shattered remains of what he broke.
“Wow! That’s amazing!” Dario said.
“It is. Always remember this statue
when you feel like your life is broken or that you’ve messed up and can never
recover because the worst mistakes can become the start of a beautiful end.”
Once the finishing touches were
done, Dario and his dad presented the statue to his mom who was overjoyed at
the reconstructed statue. Dario pulls his mind out of the memory and smiles.
“Okay. I accept that,” he confidently
says.
“I am overjoyed to hear that!” I
say as I hug Dario then present to him a new image on his stage. “Many of the people
who work here are people like you who want others to accept the truth about
reality and make their lives better as a result. You could be doing what I was
just doing for you, but only if you accept.”
Dario thinks it over for a second
before accepting.
Again, I hug Dario and then say, “Thank
you, so much! I knew you wouldn’t disappoint me.”
“So, when do I start?”
“You can start tomorrow. For now,
rest up and return to your responsibilities at the charity. You have a big day
ahead of you.”
The floor opens up like a door. After
he falls through it, Dario finds himself exiting the room he was once in at the
charity as if everything he went through happened in the blink of an eye. He
looks around in disbelief and starts to wonder if what he just went through was
actually real until he sees a card in his hand that he was unknowingly holding.
It says, “See you again soon!” in colorful letters and has my face on it. Comforted
with proof of past events, Dario smiles, puts the card in his pocket, and runs
off to continue in his duties with a lighter heart and a happy hope for the
next day and what may come next.
