Issue 1 - Gallant by Jessica Lindsey

The man set about his daily business of aligning film reels, selling tickets and watching over the little theater. About a quarter past noon on Sunday the patrons started filing in, mostly mothers with their children. Amongst the chatter of young voices a young lady appeared, poised with her student identification card in hand. The man denied her card and let her in for one dollar. It was a children’s film, she mostly slept through it in the back of the theater in one of its plush leather seats.

That morning she felt she must escape the day and slip into the little theater she had passed so frequently. Her blouse was crumpled as she exited her seat wiping sleep from the corners of her mouth.

“Ma’am you’ve left this.” The man came from behind the ticket station and placed an envelope in her hand as she jilted into the days shine on the cobblestone street. With sleepy mortification she turned her heels and clicked down the street where she rested on a bench examining the envelope. The envelope contained her student card, some flyers for a show at the theater on Thursdays and an invitation to the show. On Thursdays he projected films he made accompanied by a live music performance by himself and company.

She had never taken an invitation from a strange man before. She went for lunch a few streets from the theater and blushed as she sipped her coffee and tore bits of bread. She perspired as she returned to the theater to thank the man for being so kind. He was tearing the last of the tickets for the next film.
He put his finger to the air.

“I am sorry, I must go start the film, one second.”

She waited, shifting her weight foot to foot, examining each film poster tacked up inside.

“Yes,” he said. “I wasn’t sure you would return, you seemed so nervous and shy.”

“Yes,” she said. “But I couldn’t live with myself if I did not return to thank you for the invitation.”

“Please it is my pleasure to welcome you to the theater.”

They chatted awhile. He wrote an address on a torn piece of paper. They would meet tomorrow around two in the afternoon.