Seven A
7.a.
museum.
Christa and James.
Unbelievably upbeat.
At a cafeteria, outside the gift shop, in a museum.
JAMES: I love this!
CHRISTA: Me too!
JAMES: We should do this more often!
CHRISTA: CULTURE!
JAMES: ART!
CHRISTA: HISTORY!
JAMES: Something to say about history!
CHRISTA: And culture!
JAMES: Hell yes, Culture! We can’t forget about culture.
CHRISTA: I love the smell of the cafeteria!
JAMES: Like fishsticks!
CHRISTA: No!
JAMES: Let me finish
…
And other stuff!
CHRISTA: Yeah! Other stuff!
JAMES: Like pizza!
CHRISTA: Sort of!
JAMES: What do you think it smells like?!
CHRISTA: Like a public pool!
JAMES: Yeah!
Like a pool!
CHRISTA: Chlorine!
JAMES: Sterile!
CHRISTA: SOOOOO STERILE!
JAMES: YEAH!
CHRISTA: I LOVE THAT SMELL!
JAMES: Me too.
Me too…
…
I feel bad for our friends who are missing out on all of this.
CHRISTA: I feel like a treasure hunter.
JAMES: they’re all sitting at home, watching football, or seeing movies with space aliens and slasher flicks with chainsaw-wielding murderers.
CHRISTA: I walk around the entire museum looking for that one place where I feel good…at home… right…. It’s that one place in the museum I have to search for… my “favorite place.”
JAMES: And we’re here getting culture. And history. And art. And the faint sent of chlorinated pizza.
A long pause.
CHRISTA: That’s always weird.
JAMES: What?
CHRISTA: That sort of quick silence.
JAMES: I read about that somewhere.
CHRISTA: I read about that, too. It’s apparently an evolutionary thing. It’s people listening out for predators. It’s back from the times when there were predators attacking us on a regular basis and so now when a group of us go silent, it’s like this unconscious predator check. It’s an eerie moment of forced and unnecessary community.
A long long pause.
JAMES: That’s not what I read.
CHRISTA: Oh?
JAMES: I read that in order to get silence from a large group of people, raising the index sign to closed lips will get it. So will holding two fingers up in the air if you’re a third grade teacher or the like.
…
I’m sorry. Yours was more interesting.
A pause.
CHRISTA: Who is your favorite artist?
JAMES: I’m not sure.
You?
CHRISTA: I like post-reformation, dramatic sculptures.
JAMES: I like those.
CHRISTA: What’s your favorite?
JAMES: I like neo-post-romantic-post-chocolate-brownie-industrialism.
CHRISTA: I like those too.
a pause.
JAMES: I feel like I should admit something to you.
CHRISTA: Oh?
JAMES: I just made that up.
CHRISTA: I know.
JAMES: I don’t know much about art.
CHRISTA: Neither do I.
JAMES: I like watching football, or seeing movies with space aliens and slasher flicks with chainsaw-wielding murderers.
CHRISTA: I like those things too.
JAMES: What if we did those things instead.
CHRISTA: Instead?
JAMES: Instead of the museum.
CHRISTA: I like the museum.
JAMES: I like the museum too.
Just not all the time.
CHRISTA: Maybe once a year.
JAMES: Once a year! Exactly! One day to look back.
CHRISTA: And 364 days to look forward!
JAMES: 365 on a leap year!
CHRISTA: Fuck leap years!
JAMES: FUCK LEAP YEARS!
CHRISTA: FUCK LEAP YEARS!
JAMES AND CHRISTA: FUCK LEAP YEARS!
CHRISTA: Hi, I’m Christa!
JAMES: James, how are you.
Blackout.
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