Max arrived at the theatre, a little out of breath and pink-cheeked.
He dumped his bike on the nature strip with abandon and walked to the end of the short line that had started to form in front of the ticket booth. He checked his watch for the hundredth time that day and let out the long breath he had been holding when he saw that he still had time to spare. He had momentarily forgotten a crucial point, and hurriedly counted the people in the line ahead of him. He let out an involuntary chuckle at his good, if not unexpected fortune. He was number ten.
Max tried to block out the events of the morning from his mind. He had gotten particularly skilled at this, filling in his time with stories. He couldn’t get enough of that feeling of being transported away into another world, another place, another time, another….life. If his nose was in a book, or his eyes were on the TV, then it was harder to think about the shouting and the bruises and the anger. That morning when he had told them he was using the money Grandma had given him for his birthday on a movie ticket, it was hard to block these things out when his mind put them front and centre, the spit flying from the yelling and the hurt from hands that were never used to hug. But that didn’t matter now. He was here, lucky number ten, in the waning golden glow of the afternoon, ready to get that last, lucky ticket.
Max looked at the ticket booth, eyes scanning for any sign of movement which would signal the sale of the tickets was about to begin. He glanced at the theatre’s security guard who stood to the left side of the booth, impatiently shuffling her balance from left foot to right while looking down at her mobile phone. Max had not seen her look up once to check if everyone and everything was in order, as her job would entail.
He looked at the couple who were first in line. The way they stood so close together that they looked like conjoined twins, and how they held hands, fingers intertwined for maximum contact. This type of obvious affection seemed so alien and strange. His thoughts slipped back to the scene from the morning, and he wondered if they had ever held hands like that when they were young.
“Stop it!” he chided himself, reigning himself in and focusing on what he knew about the movie. As he wondered if what was in his imagination was going to be reflected on the big screen, his thoughts were interrupted by a loud, demanding voice.
“Hello, hello? Excuse me, I need to get a ticket immediately!”
A young man, his face screwed up with impatience strode past Max and the other people in the line, and up to the counter of the ticket booth where he banged his fist.
Max saw the security guard finally break eye contact with her phone and quickly approach the shouting man. Max saw a look of annoyance flash across her face as she pocketed the mobile phone, her jaw set in a hard, stubborn line. It didn’t look like she was in the mood to be patient or understanding.
“Hey, there’s a line for a reason. Get to the back or get lost!” the security guard barked at the yeller.
The young man’s face flushed red, and as he opened his mouth to retaliate a man appeared as if by magic in the ticket booth. He spoke curtly to the security guard.
“This is Christopher Corwell. He is entitled to a ticket”.
Max recognised the man’s surname as that of the female lead in the movie. He wondered how they were related. He looked too young to be her husband.
“Here you are Christopher,” said the ticket salesman, and Max observed the young man snatch the ticket, and stalk towards the theatre entrance as though he didn’t want to waste another second waiting around with the “commoners”.
As the ticket salesman began to take money from the young couple at the front of the line, the colour from Max’s face began to drain. He was number eleven.
He walked over to his bicycle, slowly and shakily like an old man rather than the teenager he was. He picked it up, mounted it and began to pedal away, into the blood red sunset.
