I found this thing. Let's call it a play. Read it with someone for fun.

I did some writing for a friend’s cool podcast years back, and I just rediscovered it. The baby teeth piece was from then, and I think we also did some writing in response to my friend’s songs. It was fun and we recorded it in the empty space when we were building out Secret Studio. I never write play type things, it’s just a start of something, but I thought I would share.

Dive bar, afternoon. A man and a woman sit at the bar. It is 4:30pm on a Tuesday. Outside you can see the bright sun blasting, inside the walls are slowly being nuzzled by light.

WOMAN: I need to love you like this. You know, the kind of lust and love they write about in songs. Every good book. I want to be your Jack Kerouac baby, do you want to role play in bed tonight? I can be Gore Vidal, you know he fucked Jack once?

MAN: (tries not to laugh, his face scrunching up) Really?

WOMAN: I can be anyone you want. But can we pretend it's not right now? That things are different?

MAN: (touches her hand) Yeah we can do that.

WOMAN: (laughs, showing all her teeth) Did you know all swans in England belong to the queen? Did you know I love you? Against all better judgement. Please get me another drink? Three lemons, two limes.

MAN: I don't know what's wrong with you. I mean, I enjoy this part of you immensely. You're like a parade. All drunk in the daytime But you should be at work. You're like a character in a movie. Baby, I want to talk about important things.

WOMAN: I don't want to talk. I want you to bite my lip.

Lights dim slightly. WOMAN turns toward the audience.

WOMAN: (to audience) And there was a time when I did not know you. Or maybe I did. It's very hazy these memories of us. I seem to recall you in a bar surrounded by mutual friends a long time ago and then you were sitting beside me eating macaroni salad in the sun at a neighborhood barbeque. Only I didn't know you really then either. We talked about the weather and the heat. Oppressive I said. I told you that inside of my shirt on my back and down into my underwear slipped a long river of sweat. You laughed nervously. Basically, you could hear my throat swallowing beer after that. Until a bee buzzed by the table and a little kid screamed and screamed. I did not see you again for three years.

Lights return to normal.

WOMAN: (spinning on barstool) Did you know that at any one time about 0.7% of the world's population is drunk? But like, how drunk? Sometimes everyone around me seems a little drunk. They seem lost.

MAN: Come home with me.

WOMAN: (to audience) I think it's odd how you can know someone for a very long time, but not know them well, like only know what they do, who their partner is, what car they drive maybe, who their friends are and perhaps what side dishes they like at summer parties. And then like witchcraft you can be kissing them years later. Like up against a wall in a dive bar. Like with all the passion that you squashed down and thought you had forgotten in your 30s. Like this is normal and you can be fine with choices that alter history. Your history. His-story. Her-story.

---

Outside on Chestnut Street. They have just exited an Uber.

WOMAN: Listen, I'm the one who took you in a dark room with Wint-o-Green Lifesavers and blew your mind. Nobody ever did that to you before. So, you belong to me. Put your phone away and let's pretend it's the 90s. (pulls her dress up over her head like a toddler)

MAN: (bends at the waist and laughs)

WOMAN: (to audience) It feels frenetic when you are doing bad stuff you know. Like jazz or something. Jazzercise. Badercise. I'm a naughty girl. My mouth gives you strong verbs and sticky nouns and loud music comes around whenever I come around. It threatens to make you nod your head even when you want to stay still. Even when you want to be so serious. It's love that fucking does that. Gets into you like a thorn, like someone stuck a fork into your stomach. Ouch.

WOMAN: Did you know that the average mid-life crisis last about 3–10 years for men and 2–5 years for women? You're screwed. I will be better soon. Give me another year.

MAN: (puts his hand up to his face like he's horrified and shakes his head) I want to be with you.

WOMAN: It's well documented that in the middle of life everyone goes crazy. You have made me crazy.

MAN: I want to kiss you and shake you at the same time sometimes.

WOMAN: It's like this, basically no one knows what they are doing, so they fake it and none of that crap your guidance counselor told you way back then like, fake it till you make it is true. It's really not, it's like you are actually faking it. All of it. Work. Life. Love. Parenthood. And then one day, around 40 years old. That's about 14,600 days of faking it. You just give up. You give in. You come home to your fraud. We are fraudsters.

MAN: (puts his fingers on her cheek, right at the temple, her throat makes noise) Yeah, you're probably right. You are righter than anyone I have ever known. Where have you been?

WOMAN: You are my watershed. I have always wanted to say that and fucking mean it.

WOMAN: I want you to sing 90s songs to me in my ear. No, I just want the lyrics. Whispered in my ear.

MAN: (leans into her ear, licks her neck) Ok. Ok, you wild woman.

WOMAN: (to audience) You softly give me some Depeche mode. You give me some sad words lined up like love. You hold my throat and I do not breathe.

MAN: Come on, come on just love me for now. Right now.

WOMAN: Maybe forever. It might not be that long. We could be dead soon. Sorry.

WOMAN: Did you know that barn owls can will themselves to death after their mate dies? Maybe I was put here on earth to give you this. Maybe this is the only time in your life that you would be able to take it. I'm a portal.

MAN: (holds out his arms) Stop with the truth. Come here.

WOMAN: You are so happy I can tell. You are smiling like a dickhead. I don't know why people say that but it's so true. Dickhead.

MAN: (his hands move to his mouth) Come on. Come on. Now. Just love me. Don't think so much. Why do you think so much?

WOMAN: Did you know that messages from the human brain travel along nerves at up to 200 miles an hour? I am a dragster in your body when I look at you. I tell you the truth. I make things go so fast. I blow your hair back Did you know that?

MAN: Come on, come on. I know everything matters right now.

Lights fade.

ilysm

xo
Amy

If you read this you should try to write something weird.
Unfamiliar.
Stretch.
Step out on a skinny branch, bb.