Closed Aren’t You Glad You Came?

[Monty Pendleton]

As a rule, Monty didn’t set aside much time for fiction; the books that filled his shelves were all but half a dozen factual, and the novels he did own gathered more dust than fingerprints. Of course he appreciated a well-written story, but there were only so many hours in a day, and only so many days in a week, and so on; and since his reading list was ordered such that fact took priority over fiction, and continually added to and re-ordered thus, he simply never got around to reading anything else.

Theatre, on the other hand, could be enjoyed independently of the numerous projects fighting for monopoly of his desk and therefore appealed to him a more convenient form of entertainment. Yet he had not crossed the doors of a theatre for almost ten years. There were few places that activated more of his anxieties all at once. Being hot, trapped, and surrounded by people, as one was guaranteed to be at the theatre, described the basic premise of half of his nightmares. But he was resolved to confront these fears; and the announcement of a new magical production, Chronicle, inspired him to purchase two tickets for the opening night. Unfortunately, nobody that he invited was able to come, and so he returned the next day and handed the spare to the person at the back of the queue.

He kept the other. Introspective by nature, he was equally happy to go alone as with a friend, and in fact felt some relief at the removal of obligation to a second person. If he wanted to leave half way through the first act, he only had to worry about getting to an exit, and not about disappointing his company.

As it turned out, he did strongly consider leaving during the first act, but not because of anxiety. The show was, to put it politely, rather uninspiring. It began with an account of the trials of Quellings, the struggling editor of a fictional wizarding newspaper called The Daily Chronicle, and lumbered awkwardly into various conflicts between the staff, a rival newspaper editor, and a disgruntled seer. The story had potential but the writing was clumsy and trite. On several occasions Monty realised he had stopped paying attention to the show and started thinking about what he was going to do when he got home.

At a lull he pulled out his pocket watch to check the time. As he did so, he inadvertently nudged the lady beside him with his elbow. “Sorry,” he said benignly. Not for the first time, it made an impression on his mind that this was the lady from the queue. He had been feeling gradually more sorry for inflicting his spare ticket upon her. But perhaps she was enjoying herself? He attempted to catch her eye - to search, with some hope, for that look - the look of a person who had paid nothing for their ticket and still wanted their money back.

 

[Violet Bellamy]

Violet was trying to pull it together. She wasn't exactly succeeding in any sort of hurry, but she was certainly trying. Approaching fifty was the right time to start living, wasn't it? The way the wizarding community seemed to work, she feared she'd left it thirty years too late and being seventeen really was supposed to be the peak of her life, with everything downhill from there. Which was pretty pathetic, if it was true. Seventeen year olds, she had learned, knew absolutely nothing and thought they knew everything. And Hogwarts didn't help. No one who graduated from Hogwarts suddenly miraculously knew how to be an adult. The idea was simply laughable.

In spite of that, she figured she ought to at least try and embrace the magical world once more, as much as she'd shunned it. And at least, despite the lack of television and internet, their forms of entertainment were vaguely social. The theatre. It felt so quaint, but it was at least worth a shot. A nice gentleman had been so kind as to give out a spare ticket, presumably stood up or something. She'd wondered if she looked so miserable as to be a charity case, but she wasn't exactly rolling in galleons. Currency conversion was such a pain, and the majority of her money was in dollars, not galleons. Perhaps magical people weren't so bad, and maybe the entertainment was at least made with love and care.

Or, it was utter drivel, like this was. Despite attempting to look engaged, she found her eyes glazing over, desperately trying to hold back a smirk of bemusement. At least her neighbour nudging her gave her a reason to tear her eyes from the car crash on stage, and attempted to give him a small smile, as though to say 'no harm done'. It certainly came out as more of a wry smirk. "Better emoting than the actors," Violet offered in a hushed whisper, realizing a second too late that maybe he'd given her a ticket because he was related to one of the actors, or something, and she was inadvertently offending him. She gave an almost pained smile, shrugging her shoulders and trying desperately to look engaged.

 

[Monty Pendleton]

There it is. Monty looked away, his mouth contorting with the effort not to grin. Of course he meant no disrespect to the actors. A great deal of time, passion, and money had gone into this production, and the cast were doing their best with the lines they'd been suffered with. But if he didn't laugh soon, he was going to start losing brain cells, and he couldn't afford to let the last half-dozen go.

Don't say it. Control yourself. The show was, if nothing else, rich with hilariously awful lines of dialogue that Monty was sure he would be quoting for weeks. One such line was so appropriate to his and his neighbour's sentiments that, in spite of his best efforts, he simply could not resist repeating it. "'Could this be... could this be the end?'"

 

[Violet Bellamy]

((have you seen this woman's muse??? aaa sorry))

Violet shoved her hand up against her mouth, feeling for all the world like a schoolgirl who was making naughty comments at the back of an assembly. She didn't want to disturb the actors, who were certainly...well, trying, at least. Even if one of them clearly had their lines written down on the stage and hadn't learned them all yet. Or the other guests - doubtless someone would come out of the production in raptures. But it was, frankly, terrible, and she was glad she wasn't alone in that assessment. She forced back a snort of laughter, quickly turning it into a cough, eyes gleaming with mirth. "Now, now, I'm sure the poor dear was very proud of his delivery," she started, but had to cover her laughter with a wheezing cough once more. "No...I must! The world needs news!" she quoted, lips contorting oddly as she forced them closed to hold back.