Jess Zlotnick

SCENE 4

Jamie’s backyard, afternoon. She sits on a recliner beside the pool, reading over her essay. A knock on the fence. Jamie looks over: Alex pops their head over.

ALEX
Hey.

JAMIE
Hi. Did you get water?

ALEX
Fifty dollars.

JAMIE
What?

ALEX
They wanted to charge fifty dollars for a litre.

JAMIE
What? That’s insane.

ALEX
Dad bargained them back down to twenty but it got pretty heated. He’s lying down now, I think the stress of standing up for himself nearly killed him. That or the dehydration.

Alex looks at the pool.

ALEX
You want some company?

JAMIE
Um, sure. Yeah.

Alex climbs the fence. Takes the reclining chair beside Jamie, reclines.

ALEX
Your pool is nice.

JAMIE
“And not a drop to drink.”

ALEX
What? I’m not talking about drinking-

JAMIE
-sorry, sorry; it’s a quote from a thing. “Water water all around and not a drop to drink” - I wasn’t accusing you of wanting to drink… it’s chlorinated anyway, it’d make you sick…

ALEX
What’s it a quote from?

JAMIE
Sorry?

ALEX
The thing, that you’re quoting. What is it?

JAMIE
‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It’s a poem. About a sailor, who shoots an albatross.

ALEX
Why does he shoot the albatross?

JAMIE
Not sure. Maybe no reason. It’s not really about why he shot the albatross.

ALEX
What’s it about?

JAMIE
Sin, maybe. Or nature.

ALEX
I think you’ve got the wording wrong.

JAMIE
What?

ALEX
I think you’ve got the popularised phrasing, but it’s actually “Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink.”

JAMIE
You’ve read it?

ALEX
Yeah. Dad’s a good English teacher. And Science Teacher. Shit Maths Teacher though.

JAMIE
Why did you ask me about it then?

ALEX
I wanted to know if you figured out why he shot the albatross.

JAMIE
That’s not really the point-

ALEX
-so the point is Christian allegories and sin and penitence and man’s relationship to the natural world?

JAMIE
I mean, yeah.

ALEX
I’m way more interested in why he shot the albatross.

JAMIE
Yeah well I’m way more interested in how he talks about the ocean.

ALEX
Why?

JAMIE
I dunno. I like the ocean. I guess.

ALEX
You guess.

JAMIE
I really like the ocean. A lot. I think about it all the time. I’m writing my scholarship essay about it even though it’s probably stupid and makes me sound like I’m crazy and I probably won’t get the scholarship because all they’ll be thinking about is how boring it is that the only thing I’ve never seen that I could dredge up to write about is the ocean.

ALEX
You’ve never seen the ocean?

JAMIE
No.

ALEX
What you’ve never been to the beach?

JAMIE
No. I grew up here.

ALEX
That’s amazing.

JAMIE
Growing up here?

ALEX
No, it’s just; I grew up on the beaches so everyone I knew was down at the beach on the weekend during Summer, and when I was doing school for PE they’d take us down to the beach and we’d do beach drills on the sand and then go swimming. I guess it’s just like, taken for granted to me that the beach is just this commonplace thing that is everywhere and everyone knows about and has been to.

JAMIE
Yeah. Not me.

ALEX
That’s so interesting.

JAMIE
It really isn’t.

ALEX
So… why are you writing about the ocean, then?

JAMIE
I dunno.

ALEX
Is it… the salt?

JAMIE
No.

ALEX
The colour?

JAMIE
No.

ALEX
Okay it’s got to be the waves, they are really cool. When you grow up by the beach they teach you how to dive under the waves as they’re crashing so you don’t get tumbled and you get to watch it rolling and crashing above you like this moving warping glass roof.

JAMIE
That’s awesome, but, no. Not that. I feel a bit like… I belong there.

ALEX
By the ocean?

JAMIE
In the ocean. I dunno. If I could do one thing, just one single thing without the constraints of physics or logic or anything. If I could do one thing. I would just start to walk.

ALEX
Where?

JAMIE
It doesn’t really matter where, I’d just walk. I would get up from here, walk through my house, the hallway, out the front door, and go. Just go. I would walk down Main Street, past all the people, the shops, the eyes and the mouths and walk with my back to them, nothing but the desert out in front of me. And I would walk until when I turned around this town was nothing but a speck on the horizon, and then I’d walk some more until even that speck was gone. And I’d be alone in the desert with nothing but the sand and the sky. And I’d keep walking because no distance could ever be enough. And I wouldn’t sleep, I wouldn’t eat or drink. Because this is my wish and there’s no physics or logic or nothing making me hungry or thirsty or tired. This is my wish and I don’t need any of that any more. So I could just keep walking.

ALEX
And you’d never stop you’d just keep walking yeah I get it

JAMIE
No. I wouldn’t just keep walking. My wish isn’t to just walk forever.

ALEX
So…

JAMIE
So I would walk and walk until the desert turned to cliff turned to beach turned to water. And I would stop at the water’s edge and look out at the great expanse of water before me. And I would keep walking. I would walk into the water, past my ankles my thighs my waist my neck. And when the water would cover the top of my head, I would open my eyes. And this is my wish. So I don’t need to breathe, same as I don’t need to eat drink or sleep. And so I would walk. Walk down the slope of the sand into the water. And I would walk until when I looked back I couldn’t see the shore, couldn’t see anywhere where sand gave way to sky.

She swallows.

JAMIE
And I’d stop there. In this great undersea desert. In this vast plain of clear blue shining on the shifting sand beneath my feet, streaks of gold shooting down from the surface. And I’d look up and see the rippling waves rolling above my head and I’d wonder how I’d ever thought there was a world above it, how there could be more than just this moment this place this desert here and now beneath the water.

The dry buzz of insects.

JAMIE
And then I’d keep walking. Because I wouldn’t be done.
I would walk until in the distance I’d see this speck, this small dark speck of something approaching, and I’d walk till that speck became a town. A town with a Main Street, with people and eyes and mouths, and I’d walk all the way down their Main Street till I reached a house not unlike mine. And I’d knock at the door. And a girl would answer. And she wouldn’t look unlike me. Same limbs, same ribcage, not moving with breath same as mine. Only where her fingers meet she’d have webbing, and even though I wouldn’t be able to see it with her shoes on I’d know she had that same webbing on her feet. And just below her ears, side of her neck, she’d have gills. Small, moving ever so slightly with the flow of water in and out of her. And she’d see me, same as her, and she’d know that if I was here she could go, she could move on to whatever place she’d go if she could escape logic and physics and everything. Maybe to a town in the depths of the earth’s core, on a rock floating in space maybe. To a girl who doesn’t look unlike her, just with skin made from glass to withstand the heat of earth or the cold of space. And she’d start to walk. And I’d watch her disappear into the horizon. And when her speck finally disappeared I’d know she’d left for good and her life was mine.

ALEX
And then?

JAMIE
Then?

ALEX
Would you find the person who doesn’t look unlike me just with gills and webbed hands?

JAMIE
Well, I mean, there is no person who doesn’t look unlike you.

ALEX
What do you mean?

JAMIE
I wouldn’t find the person who doesn’t look unlike you because they don’t exist.

ALEX
So. What. I don’t-

JAMIE
-I would sit on the edge of town and watch the horizon. I would wait for a speck to appear. Because you wouldn’t have followed me until you were certain I wouldn’t see you coming on the horizon, so you’re a few days behind, but sure enough a speck would appear there, in the distance, slowly turning into a figure, and slowly turning into you. There is no person who doesn’t look unlike you because there is no one like you. There could be a billion girls who don’t look unlike me out there. It wouldn’t surprise me. But there’s only one you.