She liked the Elizabethans, but she did not like King Lear.
She was stimulated by the Greek plays, but she could not bear Oedipus Rex.
She did not like The Miracle Worker, nor The Light That Failed.
She wore tinted glasses, but not dark ones. She did not carry a cane.
On a certain night, before the curtain went up for the final act, a spotlight pierced the darkness. A man stepped into the hole it made and asked, "Is there a doctor in the house?"
No one answered.
"It is an emergency," he said. "If there is a doctor here, will you please visit the office in the main lobby, immediately?"
He looked around the theater as he spoke, but no one moved.
"Thank you," he said, and left the stage.
Her head had jerked toward the circle of light when it appeared.
After the announcement, the curtain was rung up and the movement and the voices began again.
She waited, listening. Then she stood and moved up the aisle, brushing the wall with her fingertips.
When she reached the lobby she stopped and stood there.
"May I help you, Miss?"
"Yes, I'm looking for the office."
"It's right there, to your left.
She turned and moved to her left, her hand extended slightly before her.
When she touched the wall she moved her hands quickly until they struck a door jamb.
She knocked upon the door and waited.
"Yes?" It opened.
"You need a doctor?"
"You're a doctor?"
"That's right."
"Quick! This way!"
She followed the man's footsteps inside and up a corridor that paralleled the aisles.
Then she heard him climb seven stairs and she followed him up them.
They came to a dressing room and she followed him inside.
"Here he is."
She followed the voice.
"What happened?" she asked, reaching out.
She touched a man's body.
There was a gurgling rasp and a series of breathless coughs.
"Stagehand," said the man. "I think he's choking on a piece of taffy. He's always chewing the stuff. There seems to be something back up in his throat. Can't get at it, though."
"Have you sent for an ambulance?"
"Yes. But look at him—he's turning blue! I don't know if they'll be here in time."
She dropped the wrist, forced the head backwards. She felt down along the inside of the throat.
"Yes, there is some sort of obstruction. I can't get at it either. Get me a short, sharp knife—a sterile one—fast!"
"Yes, ma'am, right away!"
He left her there alone.
She felt the pulses of the carotids. She placed her hands on the heaving chest. She pushed the head further backwards and reached down the throat again.
A minute went by, and part of another.
There came a sound of hurrying footsteps.
"Here you are... We washed the blade in alcohol..."
She took the knife in her hands. In the distance there was the sound of an ambulance siren. She could not be sure though, that they would make it in time.
So she examined the blade with her fingertips. Then she explored the man's neck.
She turned, slightly, toward the presence she felt beside her
"I don't think you had better watch this," she stated. "I am going to do an emergency tracheotomy. It's not a pretty sight"
"Okay. I'll wait outside."
Footsteps, going away . ..
She cut
There was a sigh. There was a rushing of air.
There was wetness ... a bubbling sound.
She moved the head. When the ambulance arrived at the stage door, her hands were steady again, because she knew that the man was going to live.
"... Shallot," she told the doctor, "Eileen Shallot, State Psych."
"I've heard of you. Aren't you ...?"
"Yes, I am, but it's easier to read people than Braille."
"I see—yes. Then we can get in touch with you at State?"
"Yes."
"Thank you, Doctor. Thank you," said the manager.
She returned to her seat for the rest of the play.
After the final curtain, she sat there until the theater was emptied.
Sitting there, she still sensed the stage.
To her, the stage was a focal point of sound, rhythm, the sense of movement, some nuances of light and dark— but not of color: It was the center of a special kind of briliance for her: It was the place of the pathema-mathema-poeima pulse, of the convulsion of life through the cycle of passions and perceptions; the place where those capable of noble suffering suffered nobly, the place where the clever Frenchmen wove their comedies of gossamer among the pillars of Idea; the place where the black poetry of the nihilists whored itself for the price of admission from those it mocked, the place where blood was spilt and cries were uttered and songs were sung, and where Apollo and Dionysius smirked from the wings, where Arlecchino perpetually tricked Capitano Spezzafer out of his trousers. It was the place where any action could be imitated, but where there were really only two things behind all actions: the happy and the sad, the comic and the tragic—that is, love and death—the two things which named the human condition; it was the place of the heroes and the less-than-heroes; it was the place that she loved, and she saw there the only man whose face she knew, walking, symbol-studded, upon its surface. ... To take up arms against a sea of troubles, ill-met by moonlight, and by opposing end them—who hath called forth the mutinous winds, and 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault set roaring war—for those are pearls that were his eyes... . What a piece of work is a man! Infinite in faculty, in form and in moving!
She knew him in all his roles, who could not exist without an audience. He was Life.
He was the Shaper...
He was the Maker and the Mover.
He was greater than heroes.
A mind may hold many things. It learns. It cannot teach itself not to think, though.
Emotions remain the same, qualitatively, throughout life; the stimuli to which they respond are subject to quantitative variations, but the feelings are stock in trade.
This why the theater survives: it is cross-cultural; it contains the North Pole and the South Pole of the human condition; the emotions fall like iron filings within its field.
A mind cannot teach itself not to think, but feelings fall into destined patterns.
He was her theater ...
He was the poles of the world.
He was all actions.
He was not the imitation of actions, but the actions themselves.
She knew he was a very capable man named Charles Render.
She felt he was the Shaper.
A mind may hold many things.
But he was more than any one thing:
He was every.
... She felt it.
When she stood to leave, her heels made echoes across the emptied dark.
As she moved up the aisle, the sounds returned to her and returned to her.
She was walking through an emptied theater, away from an emptied stage. She was alone.
At the head of the aisle, she stopped.
Like distant laughter, ended by a sudden slap, there was silence.
She was neither audience nor player now. She was alone in a dark theater.
She had cut a throat and saved a life.
She had listened tonight, felt tonight, applauded tonight.
Now, again, it was all gone away, and she was alone in a dark theater.
She was afraid.
The man continued to walk along the highway until he reached a certain tree. He stood, hands in his pockets, and
stared at it for a long while. Then he turned and headed back in the direction from which he had come. Tomorrow was another day.