Projection

by Jo Z. Pierce

Projected on a movie screen, a familiar face reveals your future. Entry in Shilom's Twilight Zone Contest.

You look straight ahead. In front of you is a projection, made up of nothing more than moving images and reflected light. While the actors read through their lines, its the narrator who reveals the future. And if you look long enough, you'll see it's all played out for you, on a thin white screen. It's a screen that separates you from the Twilight Zone.

"Pssst! Wake up!"

A tall boy kicked the seat in front of him, and a muffled voice responded.

"Quit it."

"Pssst! Wake up!"

Rubbing his eyes, a confused teenager tried to focus on his surroundings. He could barely make out the silhouettes all around him, dotted throughout the darkened room. He struggled and sat up straight in his seat. Finally, he twisted his torso around to see who had kicked him just seconds before.

"Why'd you kick me?"

"You snore like a train!"

Embarrassed, he sank down into his seat once more, trying to hide. He realized he must have fallen asleep. It wasn't hard, being rather short to begin with. And at 16, he was one of the shortest boys in his class at Binghamton Central High School.

A movie was showing on a giant screen. He shook his head, not remembering what was playing this week at the Crest Theater.

In fact, he couldn't remember even going to the movies at all.

Looking around, he tried to find some familiar faces. There were none.

He wondered if he had been drinking at some party, and wound up the victim of a practical joke. He imagined being dragged into the theater, drunk and unconscious. The plan, perhaps, was to set him up, to be discovered by a suspicious usher with no sense of humor.

He sniffed his sleeve, but it didn't smell of cheap liquor or cigarette smoke. Perhaps that theory wouldn't hold up after all.

"I believe you're going...my way?"

Distracted by the voice, he looked up at the screen. He didn't recognize either the actor, or the actress. Both seemed… odd. Yet, he couldn't put his finger on what distorted the scene.

"Hey, buddy!" he asked, in a lowered voice, as he twisted around to look at his neighbor. "Did they show the news reels yet?"

The response was delayed, and finally came in the form of a confused look. Slowly moving his lips, the taller boy in the row behind him simply mouthed out the words "News reels."

"The war? Did they show what's going on this week?"

Again, lips on a confused faced moved, this time forming the word "War."

"You know… ?"

Annoyed and confused, the taller boy's lips blew a leak.

"Shhhhhh!"

As the final narration began, a dark haired man appeared on screen. His face was recognizable. He even thought it looked familiar.

"Nan Adams, age twenty-seven. She was driving to California, to Los Angeles. She didn't make it. There was a detour, through the Twilight Zone."

The boy squinted slightly. Puzzled, he wondered what that phrase meant.

"Twilight Zone?" he thought out loud, in a voice that carried. "Where in blazes is that?!"

"Shhhhhh!" This time, the leak was accompanied by another kick to the back of his chair.

"What's your problem?" he asked, annoyed. After all, what harm was another question? The final credits rolled down the screen anyway, escorted off by the last notes of music.

His words were lost, however, in the raging applause from the audience. As the lights slowly came on, he looked around. He was surprised, realizing that he was in his high school auditorium. Since when did Binghamton Central High start showing films?

"And that was Episode 16 of the Twilight Zone called The Hitch-Hiker, which first aired on January 22, 1960…"

He shook his head, listening to the announcer's voice coming from the stage, just in front of the screen. This time, booze did seem like the most likely explanation.

"Hey," he asked, leaning backwards. "Am I dreaming, or did he say 1960?"

"Shhhhhh!"

"After a short intermission, ladies and gentlemen…"

He looked around once more, as the silhouettes turned from black to color, and the crowd got up from their seats. The bodies began shuffling through the aisles of his high school auditorium. The room was right, but the lighting was off. And so were the people…

And somehow even the colors seemed different.

Or perhaps it was the clothing.

"…we'll start begin viewing this year's entries into…"

Or maybe it was the hairstyles.

"…the 2008 Rod Serling Video Festival."

With a jerked reaction, his head whipped around, and he faced straight ahead. He looked at the announcer, as he stumbled down from the stage.

Just a few moments earlier, before he woke in that chair of his high school auditorium, he remembered thinking of the wars. Would we join the Allies? And what was really happening between China and Japan this week?

Then he thought it was all a joke, or perhaps a misspoken date. A film from 1960? From twenty years in the future?

But now, surrounded by men and women and boys and girls dressed in unusual colors and odd cuts of clothes, he could only agree that he was somewhere else. In fact, he was in a new scene, set sixty eight years in the future.

Although surprised at the year, and the absurdity of the thought, he was even more startled by the festival's name.

"The Rod Serling Video Festival?" he asked himself, quietly. He enunciated each word clearly, but with uncertainty.

He looked around once more, and noticed the posters on the wall. There was that same familiar face, of a dark haired announcer. The man on the poster, in a black and white photo, stared out at the colorful auditorium.

He knew the face, almost as well as he knew his own.

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his thin black wallet. In slow motion, he thumbed through a few slips of paper until he found his City of Binghamton Library Card. He pulled out the card and simply stared at the name.

Rodman E. Serling.