The curtain parts on smoke and silence. A broken chandelier glints in the ghost light. Torn flyers from a long-closed show curl at the edges of a lobby wall, colors…
The iron gate is half rust, half memory. Paint clings to its scrolls in thin flakes, like the last bits of costume on an exhausted actor. Behind it, an old…
The paint smells faintly of linseed and damp plaster. A ladder leans against a raw brick wall. Somewhere outside, a bread line is shuffling forward in the cold, but inside…
A face appears from the dark backstage, half-finished. One eye circled in chalky white, the cheek streaked with vermilion, the lips only outlined. Overhead, a naked bulb hums and flickers,…
It begins as a rustle. Fabric against fabric. A cough caught in the throat. A moment where the air holds its breath. Then someone rises. A chair scrapes. Another body…