Have you ever finished a movie that made you cry? Sobbing so wickedly you turn blue in the face. You assess the last sixty odd minutes, and realize that before this wondrous ending, you may have felt simply bored. Sat impatiently, popcorn bowl in hand, as the next gruesome hours started. There is no notice to the time that slips away, because all too soon, end credits tell you it’s over. Now, not all films may finish and be totally enthralling, though boring films with great endings enlighten me so. A film I recall with great reverence to have begun with little interest, yet left me with a weeping heart and serene smile, was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The character Benjamin Button ages in reverse, a peculiar situation explained to the audience in the only way Benjamin himself can understand. “Can’t really say, I’m always looking out of my own eyes.” Benjamin isn’t different to himself, and just like everyone else, he can be bored.
This movie started like a tasking bore. A family of five resided in Erie for a wedding. They bummed in an empty apartment for three nights. They sleep behind forgettably brown walls of an equally boring building borrowed from their landlord friend. On a day they had the free time, the family went out to a colossally grey slab claiming to be a retail store. The kind of store in which four year olds enthusiastically trip past strangers while running. Every tall shelf touches bulbs that burn so bright you can feel them on your taste buds. A store that with all of its chemical smells and branded shelves, is nothing but a boring retail store.
A bored family of five, three kids and two adults, passed through this alarmingly towering constructed dwelling. They browsed the ceaseless right side for several minutes, then filled off to the other. Snaking through packed shelves in a repeated pattern. They waltzed out the lanes into a more open corridor where household appliances were displayed with senseless fashion. Vacuum cleaners hung by discount price signs, and ugly bleach white washing machines lined adjacent. Absolutely none of it crossed the families attention. Their focus was steady on deftly
shuffling off with their son and eighteen month old daughter. Though, lagging behind, a four year old girl was craning her neck towards the demanding presence of flat tv screens stacked onto each other in a display for a laundry detergent advertisement. The ad played on loop, where a woman held a bottle perfectly towards the screen. She had a pure white smile, amber brown hair, and clean clothes. A plain dark table stuck in the middle of the screens with a single scented bottle open for sampling. The adulation that struck the girl kept her still. Relentless looping ads and stunning appearance forcing her to a halt for only a moment. A single moment somehow long enough to keep the girl from recognizing her entire family had already walked off ahead.
When her eyes skittered from the screen, she spun in three unbalanced circles. At the time, she did not know what fear was. The girl played all day, slept all evening, and existed without ever uttering a single sentence of fear. Spoiled, rotten by all the love that caring parents could supply. This was the first time the girl’s heart ever sank. Dazed and suddenly conscious, she walked down an aisle that had red labeled canned foods. In hope, she journeys to find her departed family down this path. That was when a man in blue approached from around a corner. He was muscular but stout with a square face and blond hair. Curious yet delicate words fell from him first.
“Hello there. Are you lost?”
There was no response; instead she turned her head down and avoided eye contact. This was it, the end of a wonderfully sugar coated life. A goner, as plain as daylight, the girl could see she had been doomed. He might not have spoken again, but like predator approaches prey, the shrinking distance frightened a shrivel voice from her.
“My parents told me not to talk to strangers.” Clever, she believed it to have been enough to shake him off and save her life. Yet this man was relentless,
“It’s okay, I work here, I can help you find your parents.”
As her trust grew, she’d soon began to stagger behind him. Then he went straight down an aisle towards the nearing entrance. With those automatic moving doors in sight, her already wary trail stuttered more. He extended his arm and then pointed. It led them straight to a side room just to the left of the entrance. The girl’s eyes became tight in an attempt of avoidance as they took the dip into the room. Awkwardly gray walls encased the corner room. Purple painted a side background, and strangers stood static around chairs placed against the walls. None of the strangers hid their stares. The blue shirt man whispered to a lady who was invisible behind a stone gray counter. She took a glance in the girl’s direction, then leaned over with a scowl. Her voice, piercing and flat, demanded from the girl a name. By instinct she faltered to answer the question. With all her stuttering, nothing was said. Fiercely the woman interrupted.
“Do you not know your own name?”
Her harshness had cut hard enough to finally relieve a gasp of a name from the girl. Not done with her interrogation, the sharp toothed woman’s voice came out loud and clear a second time.
“Do you know your parents’ name?”
Somehow, this was enough to confuse the girl even worse than before. Parents’ names? They’re just her parents, dad and mom. Mom and dad. So that was the answer.
“I just call them mom and dad.“
The woman huffed annoyingly. “That doesn’t help me.”
Then the grimacing lady dipped down from facing the blue shirt employee behind her stone wall. At some point, with what little sense there was left, the girl carried herself over to a chair and sat defeatedly. The wait was not cruel, and soon her parents had arrived by the entrance. The family reunited, and the parents were sure to hold their three children closely to their sides.
After my parents’ friends were wed, we went back home. Life moved on with little patience, and soon my parents welcomed a younger brother into our family. Our golden retriever
would die, then we would adopt two cats. We moved homes, and I would start school. I learned to draw. I learned to write. I learned to make friends. I failed quizzes, but I won scholarships. I acted in plays, then acted as a graduate. Time didn’t pass so suddenly without any blinks or hiccups, yet none of it ever seemed out of place to me. Always watching from my own eyes, I never notice the difference until it has been presented to me. Though, after the first time I ever got lost in a retail store my most accomplished thought to date was conceived. Don’t you just love boring?
