The Husband and the Wife. A couch. The light of a television hits them.
THE WIFE
I want to take a trip.
THE HUSBAND
Huh?
THE WIFE
Trip.
THE HUSBAND
Trip what?
THE WIFE
I want to take one. I want us to take a trip somewhere.
THE HUSBAND
Where do you want to go?
THE WIFE
Somewhere. Some place we haven't seen before.
THE HUSBAND
There are a lot of places we haven't seen before.
THE WIFE
I know.
THE HUSBAND
There are places down our street we haven't seen before.
THE WIFE
That's not what I meant.
THE HUSBAND
If you want to take a trip to the Brennan's garage three doors down, I'd be happy to arrange it for the weekend.
THE WIFE
You know what I meant. Don't make fun of me.
THE HUSBAND
I wasn't...
THE WIFE
Don't make fun of the things I want.
THE HUSBAND
I'm sorry.
A silence falls. Just the flicker of the TV. The muffled sound of a documentary narration.
A man appears behind the couch. A nature photographer. He's in full adventurer regalia. He's very quiet. He peeks up, rises slowly, and snaps a picture of the couple on the couch. Then he descends again, out of sight.
The Husband and Wife are none the wiser.
THE HUSBAND
You watching this?
THE WIFE
Sort of.
THE HUSBAND
It's amazing.
THE WIFE
I think it's sordid.
The Husband turns up the volume with the remote. We hear this part clearly.
DOCUMENTARY NARRATION
"... are stark portraits of what photographer Jake Madden calls "Human Chasms," the gulfs between people, no matter how close they are. Madden says:"
JAKE MADDEN
"Everyone thinks it's just dead air. But it's not. The photographs show. The space is like a cave of wonders."
THE HUSBAND
I love that he calls it a "Cave of Wonders."
THE WIFE
You can't take pictures of that.
THE HUSBAND
He says he can.
DOCUMENTARY NARRATION
"Madden atrributes the glorious complexity of his work to the complexity of its subject. Madden says it takes a lot of neglect, anger, frustration, compromise, failure, and deception to create the most beautiful of his portraits. But he says, it's worth it."
THE WIFE
Funny how that one looks like our living room.
JAKE MADDEN
"This is my favorite. Look at the swirl of colors."
THE HUSBAND
She has the exact same shoes as you do, honey.
The photographer rises and sneaks out of the room.
THE WIFE
I wish we could go to a place that beautiful.
THE HUSBAND
I doubt we could afford it. It's got to be in Europe somewhere.
Silence as they contemplate themselves.
The lights go out.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment