Author’s Note: This text serves the actors; not the audience. Do not present this text to a paying audience. It is banal and humdrum.
– So you go long
– You go long
– Don’t come back
– As a small blackbird flies from a nest, leaving his tree to search for food
– Julie leaves her own nest with nothing of note
– Nothing that can identify her later
– She is heading in search of something that she cannot name but knows when she finds it and even when she finds it she still won’t know
– Taking a left on Orwell St, she glimpses the orange light
– We don’t know how she feels, but she smiles
– She could be happy
– She could be sad
– It’s probably the nerves
– She hasn’t been outside in a long time
– Breathing the crisp morning air
– Pulling her jumper tighter round herself
– She coughs
– It’s July but too early to discuss how the weather should be behaving this time of year
– This is an unknown hour where little is said at all
– She takes a right along Glover Terrace
– She walks quickly but not enough for anyone to notice
– There’s no one else to notice her anyway
– Straight along Fencer Avenue
– The clouds are clearing
– The sun is rising
– She crosses the road
– And heads into the woods
– She takes on last look back
– At the long road and the house beyond
– We see her take a breath
– And well
– That’s the last thing
– That’s the last thing we see
– and we don’t hear from her again.
PHILIPPA MANNION 