The Screen with A Double Personality? - by Abhirami M G

Let's escape from reality for this one, shall we? We all badly need it during these tiring times. We are going to delve into a world that's driven by fantasy and I'm still not quite sure what I should call this world or phenomenon or miracle that I'm going to describe. It's a world that's normal, in every sense, but driven by an anomaly somewhere, in a small city inside a movie theatre. Does the title make sense now? The Screen? Yep, it's a screen at the cinema marked by an oddity that's captivating and frightening at the same time. Creepy, even.

 I want to tell you how I determined I should use my energy to write about this. It has been some time since I scribbled something that asks of my imagination. Habitually, for me, something imaginative involves composing a poem or a short story but never an imaginative article or essay. So, I was at a loss on where to begin. Writer's block, yes. My mind raced: how to make something creative. And then I decided what most of us do when we need inspiration: I went online. And there I found something remarkably amazing: a situation, a phenomenon, a circumstance.

What would it be like if you went to the movie theatre with your family/friends and you see a different movie from what they perceived on the screen? 

Now that would be a little scary to envision. You then ask yourself: Is it me? Am I the problem? And then you glare at the screen of the theatre and you ask "it": Or are you? Are you who's doing this to me? But the screen never responds and you are left in a world where you realise it's up to you to understand this marvel. 

Visualise the first time going for a movie, when you were a kid, with your family and at the end, you casually go, "I loved that scene with the cowboy in space." And your parents stare at you, alarmingly: "There was no cowboy or space." Your mom then pauses to look at you: "You slept off in the theatre, didn't you? You were dreaming." You complain and protest, yes. You are but an eight-year-old, so you might as well have been dreaming. You're unsure of what happened and then you think: Maybe it just happened because you were with your family? So you head out with your friends. And again, you seem to have seen a whole different movie. This time, you know that this could be a possibility, you wait for them to start talking about the movie and you realise, "Alas, it has happened again." Now you know there's no way out of it. The post-movie discussions are vibrant and engaging, but it's silent from your end. Your friends inquire and your disinterest is indisputable and gradually, you stop frequenting the theatres. Your parents have accepted the idea that you go to the theatre to sleep in. So now they've discontinued the habit of taking you to watch movies and that agitates you because even though you don't see what they see, what you saw all these years were ingenious! You almost wish you had written all that down because you'll never see it twice.

 

It's lonely because you'll never relate to others, you can't see what others see. But, there's a lot more you could do. You reflect on many ideas. Maybe I could write these storylines down and create something out of it? I could write a book! That thought, no matter how tempting it sounds, holds you back. That would be unfair to whoever conceived these stories. But who did? 

You feel different because you know you are different. How else could you explain this? You've only seen stuff that boasts of this nature in movies, in books, in fiction. What if this is fiction? What if you're not real but just a character in a fictional tale whose strings are being pulled by an omnipotent author who has a way with words? What if what you are is a development of a figment of imagination that had its origin in a human mind? If that was so, then it would mean your thoughts are not your own but someone else's, who's giving it to you so that you can have a mind, a voice. Your mind whirls. The thought of pondering over the view that you have no control over your life troubles you. Even the feeling of having control is a sensation prescribed as your emotion by someone who is not you. Things escalated a lot there and pretty quickly too, isn't it?

We all love control. Some over themselves while others over everyone around them. We all hate the idea of giving up control. I thought of many reasons which could lead a screen to flaunt a different movie to a "particular" individual. The most cliché question is: Is this individual 'the chosen one'? If he/she is, then chosen for what? Maybe the screen was controlled by someone or something from a different dimension or atmosphere who felt that this individual could aid them or serve their purpose? It could be a possible message from another world or another race, maybe an SOS? You were the chosen one, indeed. 

Thinking of impossible circumstances, and articulating and trying to make sense of it is always an interesting process. It leads us to think beyond the boundaries, ponder over ideas, concepts and theories. It helps us pen something creative, devise a record of our weird and original thoughts. After all, wasn’t that how philosophy was born?

 

Abhirami M G

About Abhirami MG: Abhirami M G is a BA Honours student in English, who is extremely enthusiastic when it comes to classic rock. She enjoys reading and has a penchant for history and science fiction. She hopes to pursue a Masters in Anthropology and is an avid Netflix binge-watcher.