Left alone to her own devises she gives up the moment. She hesitates. She creeps forward by sideways steps.
(Empty hall: the dust stirs in slow motion)
He hands her his cap. He says… “go to it”
It’s at this moment she despises him the most.
(A windowsill. Paint flaking. Knotted grain)
A parental moment.
Flutter of alarm…
All the while, the little girl goes “weeeeee!”
(Sink of dishes. Buzzing flies. A spoon, precariously balanced, finally drops. Dripping honey).
He leaves a twenty-cent piece on the arm of his lounge chair.
He then pushes himself back, settles, and stairs at it absently for the next 15 mins.
(a television flickering in a deserted room. On the wall a framed picture of a man in plastic trunks holding a fish).
The young man turns to his companion and says:
“The afternoon is folding. I can feel it fold”
The woman sitting next to him realizes that the disease has progressed rapidly
(The pages of a newspaper curl and blacken individually: The embers take turns dancing above the flames. Then, slowly float away).
She looked up just in time to see the rusty old sign be pushed over by the wind. She was glad to have witnessed it. She found it reassuring that this could happen.
(A chequered red and white handkerchief half buried in the earth: weather worn and frayed.)
