Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Scenes From Single Life

Setting: Four women live together in a house on the edge of a small city.

Scene I: The Hallway
The office door is open in the upstairs hallway, casting a rectangle of light into the dark hall. Keyboard tapping is audible, as the first young woman walks up the stairs. She stops in front of the open door to exclaim some news of the day to the occupant. In a few moments, the young woman sits down, and in the office doorway, another young woman, the keyboard-tapping one, leans out. A few minutes of animated conversation pass, and a third young woman joins the two. The orchestra's decrescendo leaves traces of a conversation, "...on NPR today," "...no, not next August, this August!" "...he actually did say that, I promise" before swelling again. Lights darken.

Scene II: The Kitchen
A young woman with a messy pony tail, dressed in professional clothing, enters the shared house. She is clearly withered from the day. She hangs up her coat laboriously, takes off her boots laboriously. Beyond, the light of the kitchen is visible, and laughter between two, now three people erupts from there. The messy-pony-tail woman perks up and joins the kitchen to make four. Pans fly on and off the stove, burners are turned on with a click. The sink is filled and emptied, filled and emptied with dishes: clattering into the sink, running water, steam from a hot pan searing parts of primary and secondary conversations. Two chairs are occupied by rotation at the table; one woman stands and moves about, another sits for a moment on the stair, another gets up to continue the heating of foodstuff; for a moment, all are holding dishes of supper, and seated in various comfortable poses. Then, one must go; two, three. The young woman with the messy pony tail is last at the sink, leaving dishes in the drying rack, hanging up the dishcloth, turning out the sink light with a smile.

Scene III: Cleaning House
A black and white cat is chasing an imaginary thing up and down the stairs. In the bathroom, a young woman in a ragged band t-shirt is spraying cleaner and wiping surfaces. The black and white cat bolts downstairs, scared by nothing, or something, perhaps. The cat's reception is met with no fanfare beyond a harsh eyelock from a young woman wielding a broom and dustpan, tending to the corners and frames of the downstairs.  

Onward travels the cat, into the kitchen, to find a third young woman who, rag and bucket in hand, is giggling to a voice on the radio. This woman appears neither to see nor hear the skiddish cat now skirting the edge of the basement door, descending with speed into its dark depths.

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