Bad Movie
We’d met the night before at a Meetup group for shy people. She told me she was Nigerian, just passing through, wanting to escape the punishing heat of her hometown and a family trauma.
by Tim Frank
Esther appeared on the escalator steps - rising like an ethereal being, immaculately decked out in a long purple coat, knee-high boots, applying red lipstick with a compact mirror.
We’d met the night before at a Meetup group for shy people. She told me she was Nigerian, just passing through, wanting to escape the punishing heat of her hometown and a family trauma.
She agreed to meet me on the afternoon before her flight back to Lagos. I felt out of my depth - she was very beautiful, and very quiet. I was reserved too - quick to blush, but with a rotten temper and weary outlook on life.
I had been a member of the shy group for several years yet my social skills still stank, my love life was a mess, and memories of being bullied at high school still haunted me. Maybe Esther and I could forget our sorrows and fall in love, like a romantic movie made for lonesome saps.
I decided I needed to impress her and so I gave her the tour of the big city in all its glory; the London Eye, the river Thames. Then we went to Leicester Square, to see a film in one of the giant cinemas where tickets sold for a small fortune - about the price of a decent steak, bloody as hell.
I bought Esther popcorn, opened doors for her, tried to make small talk about Breaking Bad and her beloved German Shepherd. I felt things were rolling along nicely. Once we took our seats Esther asked whether the film, Blind Kills, was supposed to be any good.
I said, “I think any movie about a blind serial killer is going to be pretty trashy. But still, it could be fun.”
Esther smiled and went back to texting her sister in Nigeria.
The film opened with a grisly beheading and some spine chilling screams, but all I noticed was Esther’s heady perfume and the warmth of her arm next to mine. Then I heard the sound of feet patter around us – some whispers and the rustling of sweet packets - but I thought nothing of it.
It was when I felt my seat being thumped from behind and rowdy laughter ringing around the largely empty theatre, I was confronted with one of my biggest fears: standing up for myself in public. When I saw Esther’s seat being rocked back and forth and the distress upon her face, I knew I had to make a stand.
I placed my jumbo ice drink in the cup holder beside me and got to my feet. I climbed over my seat and stood on the row behind me. Expecting to face a few hardened twenty-year-olds, I felt my legs almost buckle beneath me in fear. But I needn’t have worried – the dull light from the movie illuminated a row of prepubescent twelve-year-old boys and girls, and I suddenly felt reassured.
“I paid good money to see this movie!” I raged. “Try and think of others for once, okay?! And if you can’t be quiet, we’ll have to take it outside and I’ll show you what it’s all about!”
Another victim was slaughtered on the screen. Blood gushing, tearing of flesh. The kids, bordering on tears, were just having a laugh, I guess, seeking some cheap thrills at a sleazy movie. But I told myself they deserved the hairdryer treatment - they’d messed with me on the wrong day.
My pride was short-lived, however, when I returned to my seat and saw Esther’s expression.
“How could you?” she whispered in disgust. “They’re just children.”
“Well…” I stammered, lost for words.
On the train home, after a prolonged silence, I tried to wrestle a word out of Esther. I said the director did well to stitch a movie together where a blind man could kill over ten people without getting caught. She said it made her feel sick and she didn’t approve of torture porn. I then gave a pathetic apology for the way I had lost my temper in the screening, but my voice was lost in the blare of the underground as we powered through a tunnel.
Actually, I didn’t care, I was proud of making a stand for once, like a barbarian king defending a fine young maiden in a timeless fairy tale.I can’t deny it, I had hopes for us somehow, but our paths had crossed for only a few random hours, and maybe because we were raised in different worlds, or our stars weren’t aligned, we simply weren’t made for each other - couldn’t be lovers, let alone friends. We didn’t stand a chance, in fact, and whether the reasons were profound or mundane, I wasn’t surprised at all.
Tim Frank’s short stories have been published in Bourbon Penn, Eunoia Review, The Metaworker, Brilliant Flash Fiction, Menacing Hedge, Maudlin House and elsewhere. He is the associate fiction editor for Able Muse Literary Journal.
