Short Short
She would lie quietly. Still. Beautiful. Stillbeautiful. Ethereal. Yes. That’s it. Ethereal in Egyptian cotton. In a bed as big as Russia. Dreaming of the men she has kissed and the men she would like to kiss but who have left her. By the side of her bed are wilted roses in white and a book of Neruda’s poetry, in Spanish, which is tear stained and smells of faded perfume and sad thumbs and disappointment.
The light outside pushes bolshy-like through a slit in the curtain throwing a shard of day over our heroine’s face.
She stirs.
A violin begins to play something that was once used in an advert to sell chocolate or sofas or dreams or bleach. Or all of the above.
In her half awaked-ness, she tries to make sense of the moment and hour and day and life in which she lies.
And lies.
An over fondness of compound words has meant that it is the way in which she sees the world. Everything stuck together. Connected. But not. Connectedbutnot.
At some point in her notquitedream, she runs, out of breath or steam or money or the will to live before the crescendo in the incidental music which should accompany her tumbling down a dune carefree and attached to the strong hand of a man who is her Destiny. She knows in her bones that she bolted too soon. Like an itch she will never scratch. If only she had listened to the music which hinted, everso, at a happy ending.
The scene changes to a field in the sunshine or something that is suitably metaphoric. Or meteoric. Or rhetoric. Or all of the above.
Suddenly there is running. And tears. And a balloon in the air floating towards Abercwmboi or Berlin or the moon. And the Badboy who is always there scowling, looks forlornly towards heaven hinting that there is more to him than his bad haircut would suggest. ‘Such is life’ he will think, before accepting his fate and probable demise into depression and alcoholism. What nobody knows, not even he, is that he has the talent and ear of a concert pianist. If only he had been born into money or next door to a piano teacher who would have recognized his brilliance and sold her own kidney to get him to the Conservatoire in Paris. But alas, there will be no Billy Elliot ending to his untuned tale.
Cue a flute or a man playing a ukelele in a Hawaiian shirt. Either will do. A piano, too predictable.
Shot of balloon further away.
Cut back to field.
Back to the bed.
Back to the roses more wilted.
Back to her back. She has not moved.
Is she dead? She thinks she might be.
And what does it all mean?
Who knows?
Let’s listen to the incidental music for a clue.
The end.
Roll credits.