The Little Theater of Dreams

For this little theater of dreams, you can only get a one-way ticket. In fact, it is not just a place, but the place. Aren’t we all actors and spectators of each other’s lives?

Let me introduce you to the prima donna, busy beautifying herself in front of a mirror that has never reflected her soul, nor ever will; the protagonist, who’s appeared only for a fleeting instant in the grand play of his life; the comedian, who laughs to forget, as if he were an alcoholic; the one who always dies, everyone’s friend; the walk-ons, ready to backstab you for the feeblest breeze of glory; and the ticket sellers, who’ve never bought a ticket for themselves.

But most important of all, let me introduce you to the cleaning man.

An old fellow, so frail and bent that he envies the proud rigidity of his faithful broom. When the curtains drop, that’s when he appears on stage. You can see him among the rows of seats, sweeping up thousands of emotions, thousands of words that we have thought, produced, consumed, and thrown away. Yet another day, yet another show.

The closet of the cleaning man is a sort of greenroom, packed with cloths, buckets, and black bags. There, in the quiet darkness of his life, he stirs all the scrap paper into a bucket before setting it on fire.

Suddenly, a strange light shines from the depths of the bucket, illuminating the wrinkled face of the old cleaning man. Only when silence reigns does true magic occur.

Now the words and emotions that were carelessly discarded by the crowd—each fragment of life—join with another: intertwining, separating, getting confused with a multitude of other lives. Some stories are born, others die amid the boos of the audience, but still, ladies and gentlemen, the show must go on.

When the sun shining in the depths of the bucket extinguishes its light, when the fire dies out, the cleaning man hangs up his worn uniform and walks out of the closet.

On his way back home, he returns to an infinitesimal reality of life. His tired eyes know this well.

In the night’s darkness, his heart is full of light.

by Jason R. Forbus