THE LAST SCREENING

Nobody remembers who closed the Salón García that night. That is the first thing that haunts me now, so many years later.

I was in charge of the last shift. Not a real projectionist —that figure no longer existed—, just a temporary technician hired to cover the closing after a classic horror retrospective. The festival had ended. The people had left. That thick silence that settles on buildings when they stop fulfilling their purpose had remained in the room.

I turned off the lights in the stalls one by one. The sound of each switch lingered longer than usual, as if the space were resisting accepting that everything had come to an end.

Then I heard something.

It came from the technical area: a low, irregular hum, similar to the startup of a digital system without a prior command. I recognized it instantly and, for that very reason, I knew it shouldn’t be happening. The projection system was off. I had checked it myself minutes before.

I moved along the side corridor leading to the technical control. My footsteps sounded alien in that empty space, as if the building were amplifying any presence so as not to be left alone.

Inside, the equipment showed activity.

The central server remained inactive, as did the usual control system. Only the auxiliary projector, used for tests and setups, was on. The interface marked an irregular cadence. The fans were spinning without projecting any image.

In the room, the screen became a perfect black surface.

It wasn’t a lack of projection, but something more compact: a dense presence, like a liquid sheet that absorbed the gaze and returned something else.

I understood then that it was not directed at us. It came from somewhere else.

The sea burst into the room.

The sound of the waves filled the enclosed space. A pungent smell, a mixture of saltpeter and decomposing organic matter, made the air unbreathable. It felt as if the estuary had found a crack to enter through.

Something moved on the canvas.

Nothing defined. No stable form. Shadows moving beneath that dark surface, pressing, testing, as if searching for a weak point.

I thought about turning off the system. Leaving. Acting as if that wasn’t happening.

Then the reflection appeared.

It didn’t come from a glass, but from the turned-off screen itself, which no longer returned the image of the room, but something different.

Behind me, there was someone.

A thin man, dressed in clothes impossible to place in a specific era. His face never quite fixed itself in reality. His hands were stained with a dark substance that was neither grease nor dust.

“Don’t stop,” he said.

His lips didn’t move. The sentence formed directly in my head, like a foreign thought.

“As long as the screen stays alive, they sleep.”

I knew who he was without the need for explanations. The First Operator. The custodian. The first to understand that cinema was not a show, but a barrier.

The equipment reacted with a deep vibration, not as a technical failure, but as a response. The shadows struck the black surface from within. The entire building emitted a long creak, like a structure subjected to a pressure it wasn’t meant to hold.

“And when does the festival end?” I asked, without knowing why.

The reflection did something like a smile.

“Never.”

Then I understood the truth that no one explains in the programs or official presentations: Curtas Festival do Imaxinario does not open the Threshold. It keeps it closed.

Every screening, every projection, every spectator sitting in the darkness without knowing why they feel uneasy is part of the same ancient gesture: lulling to sleep that which dreams beneath the estuary.

The system shut down on its own.

The canvas regained its usual whiteness. The air cleared.

When I turned around, the room was empty. The equipment, inert. As if nothing had happened.

I closed the Salón García. I turned the key. I didn’t look back.

The next day, no one could explain to me why the internal log recorded one more screening than those scheduled.

Since then, every time I pass in front of the building during the festival, I am certain that something is watching from beneath the floor. Something patient. Something that waits.

And I pray —even if I don’t believe in anything— that the light never fails.

Because if the screen goes out completely, Vilagarcía will not wake up the same way.