here’s experimental fiction mixing dialogue with script stage direction. meant to evoke those cut scenes in films where characters have hours-long distance conversation spliced into a few spare minutes. there’s a sparseness to it.
after, she replays the terms of dialogue in her head.
incoherent; words roll off the tongue, but it’s all wrong. bent out of shape, malformed from the start. should not be here, out in the open.
this is a bloodless thing. pink drains from her face.
“hi. sorry to keep you waiting.” looks down at his phone screen. verifies the stopwatch has started, that a few seconds have elapsed into the call. veritable signs it is real.
“don’t worry about it.” she worries about it still. says one thing, but a natural liar. modern conversations are a waiting game, goods waiting for an expiration date. timestamps to signal a mutually agreed-upon ending.
“i broke a plate. and had to sweep it up.” reality from a long day. most of the ceramic is in the garbage bin. a few shards lurk among the hardwood floorboards. begins pacing his kitchen floor. curls his toes to make his footprint smaller, avoids the sharp bits.
“are you okay?” asks about risk of physical injury, but not really. not what she wants to know.
“i wonder if they’ll miss me.” doesn’t have a long telephone cord to wind over her fingers. wishes she had the indents tightly-coiled spirals. settles for twisting the fabric of her skirt instead. gathers them in the small of her palm, swirls, lets the folds loose.
“i’m sure we will.” truths fall out easily, readily.
“but i won’t know. if i’m not there.” thinks about how people want so much these days. various flavours of attention and devotion and recognition and occasionally absolution. she wants that unmeasurable, schrödinger thing. notice. after a lifetime of escaping notice.
“what does it mean to miss something, you think? to know something was there, once? to have less than before?” he knows he can feel absence. cannot tell if that is the same as what’s amiss. attempts to visualize it, finds uninhabited spaces and half-filled shells. shriveling away from the edges, no longer the full picture.
“we don’t like to lose what belongs to us.” lost an earring two weeks ago, a sock in the last load of laundry. her sanity is a deadline, due next week. her belongings.
“i think i should go to sleep. sleep would be good.” muffled yawn. conversation rolling to a natural end, squeaks to a halt.
“sleep is good.” does not say good night. does not insist there will be a good morning.
the line clicks. screen blinks black, returns to a roster of outbounds and missed calls.
forgot to say sweet dreams; to keep the nightmares away. dreaming could make herself smaller, more solid. congeal the depravities of the day. milk left out to curdle.