One of the best things to come out of the popularity of post-credit scenes---other than, of course, the post-credit scenes, themselves---is that so many of us now linger in the theatre after the film has ended. Even when we suspect that the movie we've just watched won't have a post-credit scene, we still sit and wait just in case.

And as we sit in the dark, watching the credits scroll and listening to the last unspooling threads of the soundtrack, the film lets us go. Or perhaps we let it go. We may be eager and hopeful for that last sliver of story, but even as we wait, the film settles into memory, the characters lose a little of their vividness, and the real world seeps in, easing us gently home after our time away.

When at last the credits end---and the screen resumes its cycle of advertisements and announcements---stepping out into the brightness of the lobby seems natural. A blinking out of daydream rather than the wrenching awake from deep, velvet sleep. We carry the stories with us rather than feeling as though we've left half ourselves behind in the stories.