The+Audience,+by+Sally+S

The phone silently vibrated inside my left pocket, alarming my senses during a very suspenseful scene in a horror movie. I was pretty sure I had turned off my phone before the movie had started. Many thoughts were going through my mind until I realized the phone was still silently vibrating. I slowly reached for it and checked the caller ID. It was just my brother, probably wanting to ask me if I had some spare money somewhere in my desk for him to borrow. I decided not to pick up the phone and I ignored it. I slid the phone into my bag, and reached for the last pack of Sour Patches that my uncle brought me all the way from the United States.

I was at the movie theater near my house with my friends and we were watching one of the horror movies that just came out. Everything was so quiet in the theater, which made everything seem so real and scary. It was freezing cold inside and I was trying to cover every part of my body with the thin jacket I had brought with me.

I opened up the Sour Patches packet, not realizing that I was making so much noise. I noticed the people who were sitting in front of us turned around to stare at me for at least five minutes. They were making me feel uncomfortable. //If looks could kill, I would have been in great danger//. The looks on their faces showed everything and I was tempted to throw a few of my sour patches in their faces, and then laugh loudly enough for everybody else in the theater to hear. Just as I was aiming the piece of candy at them, they suddenly stood up. They walked quickly across the row of seats and they sat right behind me. I couldn’t look back to stare at them just the way they stared at me. So, I stayed still in my seat, focusing on what was going on in the movie.

Suddenly, I felt them roughly put their feet up on my seat. Their nasty feet were barely touching my head, and I could feel their feet gently shaking. I decided to look right at them and ask them nicely to put down their feet. I turned around to face them, and they seemed surprised.

“Could you please put your nauseating feet down and away from my seat?” I asked sternly, waiting impatiently for their answer.

“No. It’s okay…,” they giggled, as if they thought they were as funny as a well known comedian like Russell Peters. This time, I was really disgusted by their behavior. I shoved their feet away, hoping that they would give up after that. As I expected, their feet were up on my chair again and they continued to irk me. My friends turned around too, showing some interest in what the people behind us were doing to me. I guess my friends must have given the people in the back a dirty look, because my friends ended up with bunch of feet up on their seats too. Their actions infuriated me. I stood up to confront them and threaten them.

“I swear, if you don’t stop, I will call the security guards and they will drag you out of this theatre! Stop what you are doing or you will regret it!” I yelled at them, as I held almost everyone’s attention in the theater. They were shocked at what I had said to them. I realized that all this time, I hadn’t recognized who they were. The darkness in the theater hid their identities. Although I had threatened them harshly, they continued to keep their feet up on our seats. I instantaneously called for the security guards, without giving them any more chances. The security guards came running down to where we were located and after all the complaining, the people sitting behind us were soon dragged out of the theater.

I realized that with them gone, I was in a serene environment where I could watch the movie peacefully. As I sat on my seat, with my jacket around me, the movie ended. The screen started to show the credits. I was disappointed that I had wasted my money just to watch the beginning of a movie and that I had wasted my time trying to stop a couple of oafs from annoying me continuously. I didn’t even recognize their faces, so I couldn’t seek revenge on them either.

We walked out of the theater with our heads down, wondering what the whole movie was really about.

As the bright lights from outside blinded my eyes for a second, I spotted couple of older kids leaning against the wall right outside of the exit. We ignored them and walked away like couple of prisoners returning back to their cells. It was too early to go back home, so we decided to watch the same horror movie since we missed everything. As I got the tickets, I noticed the same older kids that we saw right outside of the theater, standing right behind me in the line to get the movie tickets too. I lingered around that area, acting like I was buying popcorn.

“Seven tickets for The Messengers, please." All at the same time, their quiet voices asked for the tickets for the same horror movie we were about to watch. I ignored them and ran to my friends as if I was being chased.

We entered the pitch black movie theater once again and tried to find our seats. We settled ourselves within a few moments and waited for the movie to begin. As I looked around the theater, I saw seven people sitting right behind us.

If I was correct, their feet would soon be on top of our seats any second now.