Darcy after hours

I came to the cinema that day just for fun. Well, “fun” might have been slightly ambitious. Mostly, I came to fight the loneliness. There are days when going home feels too quiet. When you don't necessarily want company, on those days, I go to the cinema. I don't even care what is playing. A good film, a bad film, some ridiculous blockbuster involving explosions, impossible physics and a man saving the world while maintaining suspiciously perfect hair, it doesn't matter. Once the lights go down, the city disappears. No traffic. No messages. No obligations. Just darkness and somebody else's problems for two hours. Exactly what I needed. So I bought a small popcorn and a Cola Zero, because apparently I believe removing the sugar from the Cola somehow neutralizes the popcorn, and disappeared into the enormous chair. The film started:

Something exploded, someone shouted, another thing exploded, peace washed over me, I became relaxed. Too relaxed, as it turned out, for my own good. It was a late showing, and there weren't many people in the cinema anyway. I remember shifting lower into the chair and thinking I would close my eyes for a second. Just a second. Just to rest them. You already know where this is going.

I slept, I know. How dramatic can one person possibly be?

I didn't doze off for five minutes either. No. I committed to it. Proper sleep. Deep, irresponsible, socially unacceptable sleep in a public cinema. When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was my phone.

1:11 a.m.

I stared at it.

“Oh, brilliant.”

My voice echoed through the auditorium. That was when I realized how quiet it was. The film was over and the screen was black. I sat completely alone in the middle of an abandoned cinema with a half-empty box of popcorn on the floor and my Cola Zero lying beneath the chair like evidence from a crime scene.

“How could I sleep through an entire film? And the credits? Not one person thought, perhaps we should wake the unconscious woman before locking the building?”

I stood, collected what remained of my dignity and checked my phone.

Three percent battery, of course. I switched on the flashlight and walked toward the exit. Locked.

“Perfect.”

For a moment, I simply stood there and then I started laughing.

Because honestly, what else was there to do?

“Wonderful, Nino. Absolutely wonderful. Other women go out on Friday nights and meet interesting men. You get locked inside a multiplex.”

I returned to my seat. There was no point panicking. Someone would come in the morning. Worst-case scenario, I would spend a few hours here and emerge with a stiff neck and a deeply embarrassing story.

I pulled my coat around myself and looked at the enormous black screen.

“Well,” I muttered. “At least give me something decent to watch.”

The screen flickered, I froze, a thin white line appeared across the darkness.

The projector hummed somewhere behind me, light spilled across the screen, not the blockbuster.

A lake, green countryside, a grand English estate in the distance.

I knew that landscape, immediately.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”

A figure appeared, dark coat, white shirt, sideburns.

That expression of permanent emotional constipation that had somehow ruined an entire generation of women for normal men.

Mr. Darcy. Not just any Mr. Darcy. Colin Firth's Mr. Darcy.

I sank slowly back into my chair. “Fine,” I whispered. “I've finally lost my mind.”

Darcy was walking across the screen and then he stopped turned and looked directly at me.

I stopped breathing when his eyes followed me.

Not Elizabeth. Me. I leaned slightly to the left, his gaze moved left.

I leaned right, his gaze followed.

Then he spoke: “You are making this rather difficult.”

I stared at the screen: “Excuse me?”

Darcy sighed: “You have spent the last thirty seconds moving from side to side.”

I was having a massive shock: “Are you talking to me?”

“I had hoped that was obvious.”

I pointed at myself.

“To me?”

“There is no one else here.”

“That's unnecessarily hurtful.”

Something shifted in his expression, almost a smile.

I stood.

“This is a dream.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

“How convenient.”

“Very.”

“And do you frequently dream of cinemas?”

“No.”

“Of me?”

I opened my mouth and closed it.

He waited, the audacity though.

“That,” I said finally, “is none of your business. And Don't look pleased with yourself.”

“I assure you, I am rarely pleased with myself.”

“Oh, believe me. I know.”

His brow furrowed.

“You know?”

“I've watched you suffer through approximately six hours of romantic misunderstandings.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“And frankly, half of them could have been avoided with one honest conversation.”

He looked offended.

“I communicate perfectly well.”

I laughed so loudly it echoed around the empty auditorium.

Darcy stared at me.

“You find that amusing?”

“Mr. Darcy, you proposed to a woman while simultaneously explaining why marrying her would be socially humiliating.”

Silence.

“That was not my finest moment.”

“No.”

“I was nervous.”

“You insulted her entire family.”

“I said I was nervous.”

I covered my mouth, laughing.

Mr. Darcy actually laughed: not the polite little smile but a proper laugh.

I stared at him.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You are staring.”

“I've never seen you do that.”

“Laugh?”

“Yes.”

“I laugh.”

“Not enough.”

His eyes held mine.

“Perhaps I have lacked suitable company.”

Oh, that was smooth and I narrowed my eyes.

“Did Jane Austen write that?” - I aksed.

“Who?”

“Never mind.”

I sat back down.

Darcy remained close to whatever invisible boundary separated his world from mine.

Then he smiled and called me “impertinent.”

“I've been called worse.”

“I don't doubt it.”

I threw a piece of popcorn at the screen which bounced uselessly off the bottom.

Darcy looked down.

“Did you just throw something at me?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Popcorn.”

“What is popcorn?”

I stared at him.

And smiled.

“Oh, Darcy. We have so much work to do.”