When the tinkering piano music began and the shadows glimmered before me, I was mesmerized. There were no other patrons in the balcony that late afternoon show, and with the theater lights out there was no one to look at, nothing to see except the sputtering images on the screen, figments of people, hints in shades of gray, living in another world from mine entirely, their words merely expressions or gestures. Their colorlessness made them surreal, abstract. The people onscreen didn’t look tangible, their actions quick-time, too fast and jolt-like. Still, their problems, their loves, their dreams, their quests were more colorful than any I knew in my quiet life. I was awed by the moving figures on the screen, and though I knew I couldn’t reach out and touch them, I allowed myself to believ
