Participants:
| Scene Title | No Coming Back |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Everyone has a role to play. |
| Date | February 10, 2020 |
He could end it all, right here, right now.
Listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise
The woods are dark, stickbare trees taller than the light, and the fire’s glow dim.
Running in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lies
She is sleeping on her side, hands folded under her head on the bare ground.
And if, you don't love me now
He is sitting right beside the girl, her head in his lap.
You will never love me again
One twist, snap her neck. It’s all over.
I can still hear you saying
But he doesn’t.
You would never break the chain (Never break the chain)
His weathered old hand sits in her hair, fingertips gently stroking her scalp.
And if you don't love me now
Curiosity hasn’t even overcome him. Not now, not in a long time.
You will never love me again
A small, battery powered radio plays softly beside them.
I can still hear you saying
“I’m afraid of the dark,” she had told him. A child’s innocence.
You would never break the chain
All that power, and she was afraid of the dark.
Listen to the wind blow, down comes the night
He isn’t sure if she’s sleeping, isn’t sure she needs to.
Running in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lies
Maybe she dreams, or maybe it’s only then she’s really awake and we’re all—
Break the silence, damn the dark, damn the light
He snorts. No, that’s stupid.
And if you don't love me now
She seems so small, curled up as she is. She seems her age.
You will never love me again
The girl is weary, tired, and alone.
I can still hear you saying
She’s made so many promises
You would never break the chain
that he isn’t sure he wants her to keep.
And if you don't love me now
But he stays.
You will never love me again
Because she’s alone.
I can still hear you s—
And he knows what that’s like.
The Catskills Mountains
Shandaken, NY
February 10th
2:17 am
Her eyes open the moment the battery on the radio dies. Golden rings reflecting the same light as a burning fire. She shifts in Samson’s lap, looking up at him with an unblinking and unfixed stare. He lifts a weathered hand to brush her bangs from her face.
“Batteries died,” Samson explains with a look to the radio. She follows his stare, then looks back with furrowed brows and uncertainty. He doesn’t press the issue. The girl doesn’t look tired anymore, slowly rising up from Samson’s lap and yawning, threading a lock of coppery-brown hair behind one ear as she does.
“Where’s Pete?” Samson’s been wanting to ask for a while now. It felt like the opportune time. “He hasn’t come back in weeks.” She sits forward, pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs. The girl stares into the fire, brows knit in a difficult to discern expression.
“He isn’t.”
Samson bristles at that, uncrossing his legs with some effort and a discomforted groan. “What d’you mean, he’s not? Don’t we have— ” He cuts himself off when she turns to fix a gold-eyed stare at him.
There is a moment of silence between the two. The fire pops, owls hoot in the distance, the wind rustles through the boughs. He feels all of that is part of her answer, as if the world and the winds were part of her voice.
“He’s doing what he was born to do,” the girl explains without really explaining, which is her way. Samson grunts softly, standing up to try and work some of the kinks out of his back. He’s never one thought she was being disingenuous with him. It isn’t that she’s withholding information, this is simply the best she’s got. He understands broken things.
She’s very broken.
“What now, then? We just sit out here in the woods until the wolves come?” Samson says with a ruefully-feigned smile. The girl cranes her neck to look up at him, that lock of hair she’d tucked behind one ear falling loose and hanging in front of her face again.
“No,” is again the best answer she can give. “But the wolves are nearby. They’re coming no matter what we do. Howling. Mad. They want to bite, to rip, to tear. They will behave as wolves do, because they do not know any other way to be.”
Samson is silent at her answer. The longer-worded ones were always the hardest to make sense of, to puzzle out like a rebus of action and reaction. “Then, what?”
“Aren’t you tired?” She asks, regarding Samson over the curve of her shoulder. He makes a small noise in the back of his throat, then looks into the fire. “Why are you with me, Samson?” Her question cuts like a knife through his heart. He also doesn’t have a good answer.
“Reasons.” Samson tries to lie to her.
“Which ones?” It doesn’t work.
Samson snorts, looking from the fire to the girl with eyes of fire. “I made a promise,” he says with a rough voice. “To her.” You, he means. But he also knows that isn’t the truth.
“I’m not her,” the girl says. But she doesn’t mean Eileen. She doesn’t mean Sibyl either. “I could bring her back… if that’s what you want.”
Samson’s throat tightens, and he looks away in shame. “She’d remember what I did,” he says in a shaky voice.
“And what if she didn’t?” The girl asks in return, honestly and without pretense.
“Then it wouldn’t be her,” Samson strains. “All we are’s our memories.”
The girl looks into the fire. It was his turn to wound her with words. Even though unintentional. “We are,” she agrees.
“I just wish I knew…” she adds after a moment of silence.
“…who I was.”