EIGHTEEN

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Our next stop is the building adjacent to the music school, Prometheus Cinema, another stop that we didn’t bother visiting on our Guided Tour. I imagine these small buildings getting boring and overdone for tourists; they want to see uncanny things like abandoned hospitals, empty children's beds and gas masks for babies. There was only so much rubble you could see before it all looked the same.

Exploring this way though, quietly and intentionally, it was easier to feel how these places used to be, despite the destruction. The Cinema is adorned with a similar carved-concrete mural as the music school, a beautiful contrast to the otherwise cold and sometimes described “depressing” architecture of the Soviet buildings. Within the backdrop of the overgrown foliage, the concrete turning green with moss, they just look like structures created by the earth itself. And the art covering them, like cave paintings or hieroglyphics of ancient people who occupied these structures. 

As we enter, we’re greeted by a relatively well kept space this time. The rubble is contained in piles against the walls, and the main floor is almost pristine in many places. In one room, there’s even a wall of gorgeous colored glass blocks made into a mosaic, still fully intact, giving the room a warm, multicolored glow with the sun shining through.

I can only imagine this part of the city being bustling and alive at one point, full of creative minds finding inspiration through beautiful music and entertainment. Surely this cinema was packed to the brim on opening nights, families with their children, couples on dates, teens with their pocket money out for a night on the town. 

The main cinema room is in the center of the building, still almost fully closed off from the light outside, ideal for movie viewing. Unfortunately, the screen itself, a simple white tarp of cotton or canvas, has disintegrated with time, leaving only ragged strips of fabric hanging from the skeleton of the framework. It makes up the entire wall of one end of the room, while the other end slopes upwards slightly, to accommodate numerous patrons in rowed seating just like a modern cinema. 

The few remaining, still intact cinema benches are set up halfway up the slope in the middle of the room, and we all make our way over into the shadows, the only bit of sunlight leaking into the room comes from the entrances at either side of the screen. 

We share a sturdy row of four seats, Lex and Mikey taking either side of me and Nico sitting at the end. And we lean back together and sit in the glimpse of what it was like to maybe experience a movie in this place, decades ago.

“What movies were playing in 1986?” I ask eventually, trying to picture something that someone in this cinema might have seen, before disaster struck.

The boys ponder with me, all of us realizing that it was about ten years earlier than most of us were even born and our movie knowledge was maybe a bit lacking, but eventually some options come to mind.

Mikey offers first. “Alien.”

“Never seen it.” I say, and he gaffs at me in shock.

“Sigourney Weaver being a fucking sexy badass blasting Alien skulls and saving the world. Legendary film.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” I laugh.

“Platoon came out in ‘86.” Lex offers, and Nico gives a hum and nod of approval. 

“That’s a good one.”

I feel ashamed that I haven’t seen that one either, so I offer another instead. “Pretty in Pink?”

The boys all turn up their faces, even Lex, who brings his eyebrows together judgingly.

I can’t help but feel hot around my collar. “What? It’s a classic!”

“It’s a romance.” Mikey says, then rolls his head back as if he’s passed out, mocking snoring.

“Mature.”

“Top Gun,” Nico interrupts, and the others change their tones immediately, all agreeing lively. I roll my eyes at how much of a bunch of boys they were being, but can’t help my laughter as they gush together about the film, taking the game I’d started seriously as if we really could sit down and view this film right now, at this moment. 

So I play along further. “I don’t want to see Tom Cruise flying jet planes for over an hour, please. There’s gotta be something for ‘86 we all like.”

We sit a while longer in silence as we think, the somberness of disappointment setting in while wrecking our brains for another suggestion but not coming up with anything.

Then, I see Lex’s jaw shift with a knowing grin. He looks at me, aware that I noticed, and lets me sit in anticipation for just a second before saying, “Stand By Me.”

Mikey, Nico and me all offer the same approving noise, a nostalgic sigh following as we all settle back in our seats again like we were preparing to actually watch the film.

“That’s a great one,” Mikey says whimsically, folding his arms behind his head and closing his eyes, maybe picturing the movie in his mind. “Good thing the river here doesn’t have leeches.”

“No trains to worry about either,” Lex adds.

“And no bodies. Not yet, at least,” Nico punctuates, and despite the darkness of the implication, I can’t help but keep laughing with them. 

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that one.” I admit, after our giggles have settled.

“You’ll have to watch it again when you go back,” Lex adds, giving me only a side eye to show his taunting. 

I resist rolling my eyes, instead tilting my head up to offer my gaze. When he turns to look at me, I say, “I’d rather see it with you,” then immediately realize what I’ve said, tearing my eyes away from him and correcting myself with embarrassment. “All of you.”

“We can watch it when we all get back to Kyiv.” Mikey comes to my rescue with an offer, adding a playful quip, “that hotel room bed is big enough for the four of us.”

He sends us into giggles again, and I have to cover my face because I’m blushing from what I’d said and his lewd suggestion. Lex responds to Mikey’s crudeness by casually stretching in order to put his arm around me from behind and hit Mikey playfully on the back of his head. Mikey mocks offense, squaring his shoulders like he’s going to fight Lex, but then Nico does the same thing from his other side, and his playful aggression is unleashed on Nico instead, taking the larger boy in a headlock. Mikey and Nico wrestling is comical, because it’s clear Nico could probably throw Mikey off him like a rag doll if he wanted. 

Instead, he balls up a fist, and Mikey retreats immediately, signaling with his hands a T for timeout. 

Nico quotes the film, “You flinched. Two for flinching,” and takes off after Mikey when he flees out of his chair to the other end of the room, dodging behind the dilapidated cinema screen, howling his hyena laugh.