West 54th Street

There wasn’t much in the air that day besides some cigarette smoke. She was walking along the same sidewalk as she did every single day of her life. Watched as the road workers along West 54th Street paved over the same spot a million different times. Nothing was ever different to her on this sidewalk, yet it was like the world was collapsing in other places she went periodically because she chose not to remember them. One might have thought the world to be static on West 54th Street.

The broken theatre, reminiscent of the era of flared pants and pot, had cardboard cutouts lined up along the viewing window. An old burgundy tapestry hung behind them, wishing to mock the cutouts, but that wasn’t the most interesting part about West 54th Street’s theatre. To her, it happened to be the words written where the movie titles would have been in another decade long ago: search for kindness often. 

All lowercase, crooked letters that didn’t seem to fit together. Every evening, she would look up at the phrase and wonder who put it there. She thought about asking the road workers before, since it seemed as though they must have been there when time itself started. However, she never did have the heart to bring it up to them, nor did she ever end up saying hello. That day, she turned the corner and saw a kind of man who might have wished he could play Santa Clause at the family functions instead of his older brother.

He spoke in a rather silver tone and questioned if West 54th was near. Hardly speaking, she shrugged in the direction of where she had come from and moved on. His face had a look of dismissal though and she turned around to see if he took her word for it. Only to find that he had already disappeared around the corner, she followed in pursuit as if her feet had been waiting for this very moment.

Once she turned back onto West 54th, she saw that the road workers were packing up for the day. One stamped out the cigarette he had been smoking, another closed the lid of a cooler holding beers, and yet another laid supplies into the bedding of a pickup truck. It was strange for them to be leaving so early, as the pickup truck always drove by her apartment once daylight had finally gone out. She supposed that West 54th Street had to be subject to change at one point, she just didn’t realize that point would be today.

Briskly walking back down the street, she saw the busted streetlamp from the kids from the nearby high school. Glass was scattered around it freshly, as if the kids had just run through and tossed rocks at it. However, that wouldn’t make sense, since she heard no glass shattering and certainly hadn’t seen kids in the area. It was way past the point of them being released from school anyhow.

She quickly went over to the streetlamp and tried to pick up a few of the larger pieces that might cut someone. Suddenly, a door squeaked as if it was opening. She whipped her head to the sound, which came from the alleyway in between the lamp and the theatre. At a momentary loss at what she could do, she shifted her balance in the squat she was at while holding the glass. This let out the dry noise of crushing glass shards under her shoes. She realized her mistake as the door slammed shut. Hesitantly, she looked behind her to see the pickup truck rolling off of the curb the workers so often parked it on. She hugged her arms to her chest and released a breath of trepidation. 

Slowly standing, she knew it had to have been the man. He was the only one who dented the regular routine, who must have caused the change. She had never been a thoughtless and reckless girl, but something cruel grew strangling in her heart. She found herself standing at the edge of the alley the sound of the door had come from and, with that, an overwhelming feeling of guilt and betrayal for someone who she had only just seen for a brief second. Walking toward what appeared to be the door in the alley from which the sound came, she thrust each foot forward as if she had always been the determined, brave-hearted girl. Although, she had never once in her life been that girl.

Regaining some sensibility, she tried to open the door she had found, but it was locked. Had the man locked it? Was it stuck from being slammed? She searched for an item in the alley that might help her open the door, but it was then she saw that there were other doors in the alley. Almost pouting, she understood her own gullibility and went to check the other doors. There were three others, two more on the same left side as the first door, but only one on the right side. Her curiosity overpowered her rationality and she practically floated toward the newfound door. Once there, she saw there were words on the brick wall next to it: rochten fears of kindness. All lowercase, crooked letters that didn’t seem to fit together.

She took it to mean that the man was named Rochten and that he feared kindness, although she thought it to be a strange thing to fear.

The door was a thin metal sheet with a duct taped screen and there was no knob. Only a hole where the knob might have been some other day she passed by unknowingly, but she would never know if it had once existed or not since she had only discovered the door presently. 

She reached inside the hole and pushed the mechanism that would open the door. It was a small, satisfying click which led into the squeaking she heard before. Peeking inside, she felt uncertain about how far she might take this scandalous adventure. There were steps that gave way to an undisclosed location down in what might also be a basement.

If she were to wait any further, she might have walked out the alley and away from West 54th Street. Fate might have changed and things would go back to being static once more for each passerby. She did not walk to her apartment though, nor anywhere else far away from West 54th like she had the choice to do. With the spirit of some strange, incompetent savior, she opened the door widely and clambered down the stairs; believing herself to actually be capable of being a savior. But there were no railings, no lights, and no hope besides her hope of ridding the world of change on West 54th by her own means.

Her feet clattered against cement stairs and there was a gentle echo throughout. It was like quiet thunder because she was laying in wait for some sort of lightning to strike. 

To her surprise, the steps were ever so endless. Continuing on and on and on and on. Her mind wandered to different ideas, what might be inevitable for her. When her mind finally stopped replaying the scenarios that were haunting, she came to rest at level ground. Not a single step more and she checked thoroughly; stooping down and swiping away at nothingness. 

Feeling around her, she realized she was walled in from the sides, but there was a void in front of her. She happened upon a hallway. One that would take her God knows where, but a hallway nonetheless. 

So, she continued down the hallway. Her footsteps more silent than her breath. The space was quite narrow, however, so she could trace her fingertips on the walls as she walked. As luck would have it, she found a light switch. Flipping it the other direction, a single bulb billowed out a very vulnerable light that looked susceptible to blinking out at the sight of a gnat. 

She had a deep set frown as she saw she stopped before the hallway made a sharp turn. On the wall in front of her were wires that trailed around the bend; red, green, and blue wires marked for stage lights. Messy tape with smudged permanent marker saying, “L2.” Running her hand along it, she turned the corner to see a built-in ladder leading to a trapdoor. 

With determination and drive, she climbed the ladder and pushed against the trapdoor. She burst through and the door fell against the other side with a clamorous bang. She smiled despite the pain in her shoulder indicating a large bruise. In fact, she thought herself mighty and not shaken. 

Hopping out of the entrance, she took in her surroundings. She was on a dimly lit stage and there looked to be about 500 seats, which were all empty. Dimly lit because the wires were shredded halfway onto the stage and the light fixture they were detached from was broken into a million different pieces. Two other lights still were intact though, thankfully. If it happened to be the same man, he must like to break light fixtures. Unless he had an absurd excuse for the damaging of property that wasn’t his.

She left the stage and went up the red-carpeted aisle in the center of the room that stretched through the seats. She went all the way to the end and tried to open the large, extravagant doors that must have been a sight in the glory days of this theatre. The doors were either too heavy or they were stuck, so she was incapable of getting out as it would seem. She kept tugging and pulling at the rings attached on the doors, but they wouldn’t budge.

Then, she heard something like a whispering laugh and another light fixture fell. She could only let out a gasp before she saw the whole stage go up in flames. They licked across every inch of the old wooden surface. This was a lot more smoke than the cigarette smoke from the workers she passed by; she started violently coughing and looking for a place to save herself. She knew that above her head, where the laugh came from, was the only option. It was the walkway that allowed for the light, sound, and backdrops to be controlled or put onto the stage. It was old and unsafe, but could offer a fire escape or just a safe area until the fire settled or completely burnt all the wood.

She ran to the side of the auditorium and climbed the ladder up to the walkway. When she arrived at the top, she knew there was no time for hesitation. She sprinted across the black pathway in the direction which led to the extravagant doors because surely going towards the direction of the stage might lead to her death. Once she found herself at the very end, there was a door, which already happened to be opened. On the front of it was a phrase that seemed incomplete: sense of fear nd kitns roch. All lowercase, crooked letters that didn’t seem to fit together. She didn’t have time to think though and tossed herself through the door as soon as she could and slammed it shut behind her.

Immediately she closed her eyes and rested against the door. Not even daring to look where she had ended up. Still, her safety was at risk because the fire could spread. She couldn’t rest, not yet at least.

Opening her eyes, there was the man she had passed on the street. He was sitting in a chair with a blank expression on his face. His eyes mindlessly glued on her every move.

And when he began to talk, it was like the voice wasn’t his. As if, the silver tone might be automated and he was only a messenger.

“Do you wonder why?”

“Why what?” She spoke softly in return, staring at the painting in front of him. Designs of new cardboard cutouts it looked like.

“Why you step onto West 54th Street every single day. Do you wonder?” He asked again, very gently, this time cautiously meeting my glance.

“I- I walk the same path to get to my apartment… and then,” she stopped, not able to go on for a brief moment, then continued, “and then I watch the world in other places and do it all over again.”

The man had a smile creep onto his face in an achingly slow manner.

“What salvation could you possibly bring? I know you think of yourself as someone who can help West 54th Street. This is not the case though, nor will it ever be the case. You have a limited vocabulary and limited action choices. Limited times to arrive and see others also arrive or depart. Why do you think the same phrase is seen in different arrangements with the same ridiculous lowercase and crooked letters? You are limited, my dear. Limited.”

“I don’t understand? You- you own the theatre or something?” She choked on a couple words, the smoke creeping into her lungs from under the door.

“Yes, I own the theatre. I built it and I built West 54th Street. I also own you. I own everything.”

She only shook her head and pressed up against the door further, surveying her shoes.

“Ultimately,” he looked through his paintbrushes, “you will leave this room and never remember this moment. Or, and this would be a lot more fun for me, we could have you do this all over again some other day. When you conveniently choose the right scenarios, again, of course.”

At this point, she began to collapse on the ground, seizing her chest and trying to catch her breath.

“Would you like that?”

She was fighting for her life and looked up at him, “No.”

“That’s alright. It is what you say every time we do this,” he laughed bitterly, “because I created you to want to be a savior since I saw you under the stage lights that night; certainly you believed you could actually be one at one point earlier on too. How incredibly simpleminded I must have made you because the same stage lights always draw you to me every time you choose these events to occur. Your incessant need to change someone’s life and be appreciated and adored always suppresses you in the end. I am so thankful for it.”

She continued to say no until she could no longer talk at all. Until all the air had left her lungs and she was forced to swallow her last remaining breath of life.

She last saw the man painting her walking past the cardboard cutouts in the theatre window. In the same image, she saw him pencil in the workmen and the awful road and the teenagers tossing stones at the street lamp.

And then there was a pause in time.

There wasn’t much in the air the next day besides some cigarette smoke. She was walking along the same sidewalk as she did every single day of her life. Watched as the road workers along West 54th Street paved over the same spot a million different times. Nothing was ever different to her on this sidewalk, yet it was like the world was collapsing in other places she went periodically because she chose not to remember them. One might have thought the world to be static on West 54th Street.