Adam

Adam was working his late-night shift at the cinema, along with a few other folks. Mop in hand, he was mopping the entire popcorn area. A few of his team members started to leave and one of them asked, "hey, you good to close up tonight?" Adam nodded his head and waved goodbye.

He put his earphones in, started listening to music, and mopping floors. Pin drop silence all around, as opposed to the chatter a couple of hours ago. The only sound was the music blaring in Adam's ears. He was looking forward to ending his shift and getting some sleep.

He quickly changed the song to something upbeat — "I Wanna Dance with Somebody," Whitney Houston. If the lobby was going to be this empty, at least the music didn't have to be.

He kept mopping. Row by row, the way he always did, starting at the concession stand and working backward toward the doors. It was mindless work, the kind that let his brain wander off somewhere else while his hands did the job on autopilot. Tonight his brain kept wandering back to nothing in particular — just the quiet, and how loud quiet could get when there was nobody around to fill it. His smartwatch read "3:34 am."

Some popcorn-like things appeared on the floor he had just cleaned. Adam saw it from afar. Fuming, he ran towards the floor and stood there.

Frozen. Numb. Unable to move.

"FOLLOW THE SIGNS," the popcorn read, clearly.

Then, there was a yellow arrow on the wall, signaling for him to go right.

He clenched the mop tighter, thinking this was some sort of a sick prank, and decided to follow the signs and catch the culprit. Someone from the day shift, probably. Kevin, maybe. Kevin thought he was funny.

In small, quiet steps, he moved from one arrow to another. They were placed cleanly on each wall, at exactly eye level, like someone had measured. Auditorium 10, 11, 12, 13… 14, he kept crossing auditoriums, following the signs. Odd to see no movie name next to any auditorium sign. Part of him thought about turning back, going to find the manager's number, calling this in like a normal person would. But another part of him — the part still gripping the mop like it might actually be useful for something — wanted to know. Wanted to see this through, whatever it was, rather than spend the rest of the night wondering. So he kept walking. He walked past Auditorium 15 and saw Auditorium 16 at the end of the hall, where the carpet always smelled faintly of old butter.

The sign read "Enter." He looked up to glance at the title of the movie.

The title read "Adam."

Palms sweaty, shivering, nervous. He took a deep breath and went inside.

It was pitch dark. He could see tiny particles floating in the air, lit up by the projector's beam on the screen. Commercials were playing, same as always, the same tired jingle he'd heard a thousand times through these walls while sweeping the hallway outside.

"Have you tried this drink yet??? WE LOVE IT, go try today."

"Get 50 Percent off on your next purchase. Offer valid until end of October."

He took a seat right next to the exit and held on tighter to his mop, laying it across his lap like a rifle. Just in case. In case of what, he didn't let himself finish the thought.

Commercials, new movie trailers, he sat through it all. It felt like a normal movie-going experience, except he was hypervigilant, flinching at every cut, waiting for someone to jump out of a side door and yell surprise, or worse, not yell anything at all.

All of a sudden, the screen went blank. His stomach dropped along with it.

Then, sounds of kids playing. A visual started to show, and he took a while to recognize what was happening. Then he saw himself — tiny Adam, maybe seven years old, playing with his friends and his brother in someone's backyard, a sprinkler going, someone's dog running circles around all of them. Mom and some other ladies appeared too, sitting on plastic chairs, laughing about something he couldn't hear. Everyone seemed to be having a good time.

More videos of his childhood showed up, one after another, like somebody had gone through a box of tapes and joined them together. Get-togethers with a whole table of people. A camping trip where his brother accidentally started a fire. He seemed like a different person up there on the screen. Happy. Friendly. Having a community. Having people who called just to talk, who showed up on birthdays without being asked twice.

He watched himself get older on the screen, watched the crowd in the videos get smaller and smaller without ever noticing the exact moment it thinned out — until it was just him, alone, in frame, and then not even that, just an empty hallway.

He lived alone now, in a shared apartment with a roommate he barely speaks to. Nobody waiting up.

He looked down at the mop, still clenched in his hands. He didn't want to let go of it. He threw it to the floor. Then picked it up and threw it at the screen. It hit with a dull thud and slumped down the fabric, landing back on the carpet.

He stood there a moment, chest heaving, staring at the mop now on the carpet, half expecting the screen to say something back to him. It didn't. It just went dark, quietly, like it had said everything it came to say.

He walked out of Auditorium 16 without looking back at the sign, past 15, past 14, back down the long hallway where every showtime frame was still empty, until he reached the lobby.

Rays of the sun crept through the glass doors. It was 6 a.m. A coworker walked in for the morning shift, saw him standing there, and smiled.

"Hey, Adam. Happy birthday."

Adam looked down at his smartwatch. October 16.

Thirty-four.