The Husband and The Wife – only this time they’re from the turn of the century and they’re in shades of sepia. They’re posed for a wedding photograph.
A Photographer is apart, ready to take their picture.
THE WIFE
Don’t let him take our picture.
THE HUSBAND
Why? This is our wedding photograph.
THE WIFE
Don’t let him take it.
THE HUSBAND
You’re being ridiculous.
THE WIFE
We’ll be preserved. Forever. This moment in time.
THE HUSBAND
I want to remember this moment.
THE WIFE
But we might not manage it.
THE HUSBAND
Manage what?
THE WIFE
Surviving this photograph. The expectation of it. What it preserves.
THE HUSBAND
Smile. He’s ready to take the photograph.
THE WIFE
We’ll just be sepia-toned smiling faces, and a hundred years from now, people will think we were happy.
THE HUSBAND
We are happy.
THE WIFE
Right now. But what about tomorrow? Next year? Ten years?
THE HUSBAND
He’s ready to take the photograph.
THE WIFE
They will look at this picture and they will construct a life for us in their heads. One that might not be ours. We’ll be dead, and all that will remain is this fragment left behind, fading around the edges, a couple smiling out at the world as if nothing could ever go wrong.
THE HUSBAND
Smile.
THE WIFE
At what?
THE HUSBAND
The photographer is waiting.
A moment. She smiles. He smiles. The Photograph is taken. The Wife rises.
THE WIFE
Everything will fall apart.
She walks away. The lights go down.
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1 comment:
this is good. I very much like it.
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