In a sleepy corner of the Graceland museum complex, I found myself in a convention hall-sized room with an audience-worth of chairs set up facing a screen at one end. There wasn’t a single person there. The movie played to the empty seats, echoing in the cavernous chamber.
It was unnerving.
Made me think of the concept of “liminal spaces” which are places in transition that often have an unnerving quality because they seem out of place or slightly “wrong” somehow. Like an empty airport late in the wee hours of the morning. Or your friend’s house at night when everyone is asleep. Or a deserted intersection in Twin Peaks with the stoplight transitioning from one color to the next with no traffic in sight.
Liminal spaces are pregnant with dread.