Scene 1.

Phone ringing [maybe some specific tune]. Quite a few rings

XX
Sorry, isn’t that your phone?

B
That is my phone.

XX
Are you—-you’re not going to answer?

B
That’s one very strong possibility.

XX
And you’re not going to – most cell phones have silent modes, I mean in case you didn’t know, where you can—

B
And I’m not going to silence it. I’m almost certainly not going to answer it, and more certainly, I’m not going to silence it.

XX
Do you mind if I ask why? Because it’s really pretty irritating to—

B
Because I might answer it. I might answer it. That possibility also remains open. And it can’t remain open if I can’t hear it. I can no longer hang balanced in perfect anguish between those two possibilities. If I turn the ringer off.

(pause. phone continue to ring)

XX
Why isn’t your voicemail picking up?

B
I cancelled the voicemail.

XX
So it could just ring forever.

B
It could.

(pause)

XX
Whoever it is, they really seem to want to reach you.

B
I agree.

XX
What if it’s something important. What if it’s, it could be something like, it could be your mother, she’s sick, she might have fallen, she could barely reach the phone in the first place, and now she’s holding it to her ear, her last hope –

B
My mother died a year ago.

XX
Oh. Well. Sorry.

B
It’s okay. (beat) It’s been a long year.

(Phone ringing)

Katherine Catmull