the citizen-viewer

…Sitting the classroom one day, the teacher explained that they were going to watch something called a movie, a popular American pastime. Associated words were film, cinema, and theatre. Maly wrote the words as neatly as she could in her composition book before the lights dimmed and the startling music began, grabbing her chest and nearly lifting her out of her seat.

The giant, perfectly sculpted, red-caped man on the screen was called Superman. He was a hero. She felt instantly in love—and immediately betrayed. Devoted to the flicking light in the darkness, she kept wondering, “Why didn’t he save me?”