All We Have Is Time, and Hamlet

The first time I noticed Emily was as Ophelia in the school play, Hamlet. 

The rain outside the school theatre windows had started to suspend into a light drizzle. Cars were pulling out of the parking lot, leaving behind that swoosh sound of tires against tarmac. It was our second production of the play and Emily seemed to appear out of the corner of the stage where the lighting is darkest. The left wing off stage is only ever used by a handful of us stagehands, the stage manager and costumer Mrs Harris.    

I’d been standing half-hidden behind a pile of wooden props and a hanger rack of mothball-scented farthingale costumes in the left wing. Watching Brett and Anthony say their lines as Hamlet and Laertes was almost comical. Anthony spoke his lines: “That he, too, has been slain, by his own poisoned sword,” his voice cracking slightly as he pointed a wooden sword, scarred from past performances, at Brett. Just as he raised his sword up, the lights turned out. 

The stage suddenly went dark and the only light was coming from the emergency exit signs behind me. I swallowed hard, thinking that at any moment someone from backstage or Mrs Harris herself would say something and turn the lights back on. But there was nothing. Even the audience, who had been cringing during Anthony’s entire performance, had become too silent. There was no laughter or whispering anymore. I couldn’t hear anything, not the rifling from the other stagehands, not the sounds of footsteps of the other actors entering and exiting the stage. It was as if time stood still in the entire theatre, except for me and the rain failing outside the window. 

“Hello?” I said.

But there was nothing. Nothing but the back of my neck prickling like ants biting at my skin as I stumbled in the dark. In the darkness, I grabbed onto whatever I could feel. The side of a firm wooden prop or the cold metal of the floating hanger rack, which I knew was beside me. I turned to the green glow of the exit sign, the florescent light hitting my eyes, and then I saw her. She was standing under it. Her long, dark hair clung to her face in wet strands, and she was breathing heavily. She was wearing a beige farthingale gown soaked through because of the rain she had come through as she entered the theatre.

“Emily, what’s going on?” I asked. “Why has everyone stopped except for us?” 

Her green eyes widened and her lips parted slightly. “I’m sorry, Liam,” she said, “but I can’t control it.”

“Control what?” I asked, stepping closer to her.

The green florescence cast a shadow of light over her face and her fingers were wet and trembling. I got the feeling that whatever she was about to tell me wasn’t going to be good. 

“Whenever I get close to the stage to say my lines,” she paused, her voice low and conspiratorial, “time just stops.” Water dripped from her hair and fell onto the backstage floor. If this were another night, I’d have to clean it up. 

The air became thick around me. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I wasn’t expecting that answer. I went to the light switch and flicked it on. A glow of light washed over the theatre. The audience were still sitting in their red seats, their stark faces paused in various expressions, no one noticing or blinking. Some were paused in surprise or laughter, but most of them were frozen in confusion. And none of them were moving.

Mrs Harris was standing under the catwalk, frozen like a porcelain mannequin, still carrying a farthingale dress. Brett and Anthony were still holding up their wooden swords to the sky, trapped in a tableau as if someone had pressed the pause button on a remote. The theatre remained strangely silent. 

“You’re saying you did this?” I asked her. 

Emily nodded, unsure how she did it herself. 

“I can’t—” she began, but we were suddenly cut off by the theatre coming alive again, swelling around us. The audience resumed, chattering amongst themselves, the curtain bell chimed, and glass shattered. Toby, the other stagehand, had dropped his glasses onto the floor right in front of me. 

I turned back around to find Emily, but she was gone. 

“Liam!” shouted Mrs Harris, who’d come alive again like everyone else. 

I turned to her. 

“Where’s Emily?” she asked me, whispering. “She’s playing Ophelia and she should be ready to go on stage in two minutes.”

“I’ll find her for you Mrs Harris,” I said, quietly leaving the left wing. 

I walked down all the little halls backstage, looking for Emily. I checked all the rooms that no one from the audience could see. It was like I was a lighthouse keeper and Emily was the passing ship in the dark, where time bends and pauses at her command. I found her dressing room door and knocked twice. 

“Emily?” I said through the doorway. “What’s happening? Are you okay? 

I felt stupid. That was like asking someone on Halloween whether they’re carrying a trick-or-treat bag.

“Come in, Liam,” she said.

She sank into her chair, her hair still wet from the rain. 

“I don’t think I can do this again,” she said. She sounded like she was afraid of her own shadow. 

“Just tell me what happened before out there. Why did everything stop except for you and me?”

“Well, my mum used to call it a pocket of time where you’re being pulled in two directions but only you can feel it and only you can control it. But I can’t control it. I never have.” 

The hairs on my arms pricked up. She seemed to be telling me she could pass through time and pause it for minutes. 

“But why can I notice it, too?” I asked her, pulling out the chair next to hers.  

She brushed her hair over her shoulder. “My mum never told me about that. I guess some people are different.”  

“Different?” I said, trying to understand it.

Emily nodded. A small frown creased her forehead and she pointed her eyes down. Her cheeks were slightly pink. “I guess when I get on stage my chest tingles like pins and needles and then everything goes silent, motionless.”

She started to breathe harder. “But no one’s ever noticed it before. Only you, Liam.”

“Okay, if this is true, then why did it happen during the play?” I asked. 

The downlights flickered above us. 

She shrugged. “It just happens,” she said. 

What could I do? When you hear something as crazy and insane as that it’s easy to dismiss it. But when you see it happening with your own eyes it’s scary. How could I help her when all I could think about was how terrified she looked? I needed to know more. I needed to see it happen again, exactly as she said.

Leaning in closer to her, I pleaded, “I need you to try again. I need to see it happen again.”

She pulled away from me. “I can’t do it,” she said. “I can’t go out there on that stage again.”

Mrs. Harris stormed into the dressing room like a hurricane. Even the papers on the dressing room table flew into the air. 

“Good, Miss Summers, you’re dressed,” she said to Emily, looking at her gown. “It’s your cue.” Her voice was a note higher than the soft piano music playing through the halls. “Well?” she said when Emily didn’t move, standing there like a warden, her chubby hands resting on her wide hips.

I looked at Emily. “Come on,” I said. “You can do it, Em.”

She walked to the stage, and I followed behind her, keeping to the shadows of the wing. No one noticed me there. I wasn’t at my usual post. I should’ve been at the far end of the right wing, carrying props for the twilight scene or adjusting the courtyard backdrop for the final act.

Emily stepped onto the stage from behind the curtain. Mrs Harris was behind her, urging her to go on. Emily’s lips started trembling. She blinked repeatedly, rubbing her eyes until they were red, and the dried flowers in her hair fell to the floor in pieces. She started breathing fast. From this angle you could see the faces in the audience. They looked like owls staring at a stranger who’d walked into their woods, turning to each other, wondering why she wasn’t saying anything.   

Instead of saying her lines, she turned around and looked right at me. 

Mrs. Harris’ face was red with anger. 

Emily’s eyes were like a deer caught in rushing headlights. 

This time the audience was paused only in confusion. They were silent, but not completely. I heard a cough, a sneeze, whispering, children giggling and clothes shifting. Time hadn’t stopped yet. 

This was supposed to be Ophelia’s mad scene, when she enters the stage in her beige farthingale dress having been driven to madness by her father’s death and Hamlet’s rejection. 

I stepped towards the rear entrance of the stage, the fan blowing bits of my hair to one side, and whispered, “You can do it, Ophelia.”

“I can’t,” she mouthed. “I can’t.”

My words weren’t enough. I had to do something. I had to step onto the stage. 

As I got on stage, the audience were frozen like before. Their faces were hung in surprise, and no one was moving anymore. But Emily was still blinking. We were both still moving. And the rain outside the window was trickling in a soft, steady rhythm. But everyone else was completely still. 

All the hairs on my arms, legs, and neck were standing on edge, sharp as needles. It was cold. As cold as someone’s icy finger’s brushing down my spine. 

“I think you’re doing this,” she said, staring at me. “It’s not me this time.”  

Maybe I was. From behind the stage it was always easier to settle my nerves. I was never in front of a hundred faces staring at me to mess up. 

“I can’t remember my lines,” she said. 

“But you got the part,” I said. “You must have impressed Mrs Harris.”

“I auditioned for only two people.”

“Well, we can learn your lines,” I said. “All we have is time.”

We spent what felt like hours together in the frozen theatre, rehearsing her lines. I found two scripts lying on Mrs Harris’ desk in the backstage hall. I took on the role of King Claudius in the scene with her. 

“Pretty Ophelia,” I began, sounding horrible to my own ears. This wasn’t as easy as it looked from backstage. I went red as much as she did. 

“There’s rosemary,” she said, her voice so steady, “that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember, and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.” Her British accent was perfect. 

“Wow,” I said, breaking character, “you sound really good.”

In front of a hundred frozen people, Emily’s confidence was growing. I started to relax, breathing more deeply until the hairs on my neck flattened.

She was concentrating on being Ophelia as she read her lines. And even when it was my turn to say my lines, I saw her smiling. She was having fun. Her joy was infectious, and when she started to giggle, I started to giggle. That was when I knew that she was ready. All I had to do was leave the stage. Emily got back into position. 

As soon as I stepped off the stage and went back into the darkness of the wing, time started again. The audience’s faces shifted. They moved again.

She read her lines perfectly, just the way we practiced. The audience were silent as a cemetery this time. But when I looked at them, they weren’t frozen in time like before. They were completely enthralled by Emily’s performance. Not one person in the entire theatre gave their attention to anything else but her. Even Mrs Harris was watching her intently.   

With the scene over, she went back to her changing room. The final act commenced with Hamlet and Laertes starting to duel on the stage, but I kept my eyes on the other wing, waiting for her to come out of the changing room. 

Under the sounds of swords thrashing together, I could hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears. I was excited for her but still a little embarrassed about having to read lines with her. This time, I said to myself, when the curtain closes and everyone starts clapping for her and the music fades into silence, I’ll walk over to her and tell her how I feel about her.