The Cinema of Life

I awoke with a jolt. The room I was in was completely foreign to me.

Mere moments ago, I had been on my daily commute home from work. Next, I was in a Victorian theatre. My memories of the moments before a blur. Instinctively, I turned to my right. The man who sat next to me shocked me to my core. I didn’t know how to explain it, but he looked familiar. Then it suddenly clicked, that man looked just like me. Though “I” was wearing a loosely fitted floral shirt and linen silk pants. It was almost comical how this person matched the stereotype of a 1960s hipster.

Before I could comment on my predicament, memories flashed into my mind. Flashes of light, brakes squealing to a halt and a little girl standing in the road.

My confusion immediately turned to horror. “I crashed... I’m dead...” I muttered to myself, suddenly thinking about the fate of the little girl. “Shushh mann,” the hippie interjected with all the stereotypical exaggerated slur of a hippie . “Movie’s starting!” he exclaimed, kicking his feet into the air.

To call the film that played a movie would be a stretch. For one, it was forty eight years long. Secondly, it was from my point of view. All forty eight years, played from the moment I opened my eyes to that final flash of light. Every embarrassing situation, every birthday celebration, every silly mistake and every moment of loss was captured.

I was never focussed. My mind raced thinking about what happened to that little girl. My anxious breakdown was only interrupted by the hippie’s exaggerated reactions to my life. When I broke my arm in primary five, he let out guttural yelp. When my first girlfriend dumped me he buried his face into his hands. The man to his right seemed equally exasperated with the hippie. Another clone of me. Though this one seemed to wear an expensive looking black suit. The man was noticeably chubbier than myself, a large cigar hanging loosely from his lips. “This guy...” he complained in a thick New Jersey accent, staring daggers at the hippie. “Still can’t believe this nut job is my reincarnation.”

Reincarnation? I wondered to myself. I caught myself quickly, forcing my mind back to the girl. I could have killed her and now I’m sitting here wondering about reincarnation. “What happened to the little girl?” I blurted out. “Keep watching,” the businessman replied coldly.

And so I stayed in my seat. For what somehow seemed like both an eternity and a blink of an eye, the three of us sat in silence, watching every moment of my life.. The two of them sat through the whole thing without a single complaint. I guessed that they were used to it by now. My other incarnations were shrouded in darkness, only appearing in glimpses and murmurs.

Finally, we reached my final day. In all honesty, that day was not one to be proud of. I had just been fired from my job. In a moment of weakness, I drove to my local pub. For some reason, I thought I was in any condition to drive. Maybe it was because my life had seemed so pointless. My wife of 5 years had just left me and the job I had slaved away for my entire working life evaporated. I knew the full extent of my mistake. My fingers clawed deep into the armrests next to me. A fixed expression of horror eclipsed my face. Along with the visual and audio, the movie played my innermost soliloquy. The dark thoughts that filled my head in those moments began to swell up. A cacophony of hatred and shame spilled out as I pressed on the accelerator. The same hatred and shame filled me once again, this time directed at myself. My eyes were fixed on the screen, staring intently at my final moments. Just as the girl’s fate was about to be revealed, the movie faded to black, a cartoonish text appeared in its place. “That's all folks!”

The businessman and hippie turned to me. “Sooo?” the hippie asked, a cartoonish grin erupting on his face. My knuckles tight with a flush of frustration and self-loathing. “I screwed everything up,” I managed to croak. “Calm down boy,” the businessman interjected. “None of us lived perfectly either.” he continued. “Perfectly? I killed someone!” I spat out, with all the venom and rage I could muster. “I caused the death of thousands,” the businessman replied, a solemn expression covering his face. “I was so greedy, selfish. I spent my whole life accumulating wealth. By the time I died I built an empire extorting people. I grew arrogant and fat. ” “But when I died, I realised how empty my life was. There was barely an uninterrupted hour spent with those I loved.” The businessman grew quiet. “Mine wasn't that great either,” the hippie continued. “Spent so much time doing whatever I wanted. Just lived for the sake of me, y’know?” “Overdosed alone in some field…” he finished. “You lived twice the life we did.” I stared blankly at the cartoonish doppelgangers. The circumstances began to dawn on me. These were all my past lives. Their lives were as much mine as they were their own. I had written them off as mere stereotypes, paper mache people. Oh how wrong I was…

Memories of time spent with family and friends rushed back into my mind. Not every memory was rosy. Some left me stinging with embarrassment and some left a comforting warmth deep in my soul. I had lived. Though it did not feel like it, I had truly lived a full life. A life wrought with suffering and missed opportunity. But at the same time, I had experienced love and support. That still left the question, what happened to

the little girl? Afterall, how could I call my life full after committing such an atrocity. “ I need to know. What happened to her?”

“She lived.” a voice boomed. I took a moment to steady myself, the news leaving me slack jawed. I tilted my head in the direction of the voice. I expected a god, a being of pure energy and creation. Though what stood in front of me was somewhat of an anti-climax. Another clone of me. I couldn’t help but feel reverence in his presence. The clean shaven, balding man dressed in a simple suit before me. He and I looked exactly alike, no gimmicks, no archetypal costume. “How would you know?” I interrogated, setting aside my reverence in a bid to find the truth.

“Well, for one, I’m the first iteration of you. Spend a couple eons watching your reincarnations and you start noticing trends. Trust me, I’ve gotten pretty good at ‘knowing things’.”

I turn to face the hippie and the businessman. Their faces eclipsed with shock. “I been ere for a hunnid years… I’ve never met that man…” The businessman grimaced. In a mix between suspicion and fear.

Did he say ‘couple eons’? There was no way that could have been true. The original looked annoyed. “Fine, I’ll prove it to you all.” He said. With that, the theatre’s screen rushed to our faces, transporting us back to the realm of the living.

In front of me was the portrait of my death. A mangled metal sculpture wrapped in flames. On the opposite side of the road, a little girl, tears rolling down her face, uninjured.

I fell to my knees. My anxiety began to subside. Tranquility filling its vacuum. The original kneeled before me.

“Out of the billions of lives I watched, every single one of them was unique. Each and every one of them. Yours included. No life has no meaning. Mundanity isn’t the absence of meaning. In fact, it is the essence of joy. So, perhaps your life wasn’t so meaningless after all?”