Snap Notts: Broadway Cinema

Stirring
A woman sits at a table
with a peppermint tea
steam unfurling like a spell
she’s stirring in brown sugar
feels eyes exploring her contours
she knows who the eyes belong to
turns her face into the light
to appear coy and to question her morals
she fingers her hair,
then brings the cup to her lips
allows her eyes to meet his
she holds the attention, exhales in it
for a second, before his attention
is snapped back to his girlfriend
who is unaware of her, behind.
The couple sit facing each other
lean in, their fingers touch
the space between them a womb
keeping their words scared.

INT. BAR - EVENING

LONE WOMAN climbs the stairs to the bar. Up here the light is dim and blue from the fizzing sun. The bubbles are tiny, the size of flying insects and float close to the ceiling, making it easier to breathe.

People in the bar are like portraits in a stately home. Eyes follow her but their heads don’t turn. This is interrupted by:

CUT TO

MAN WITH TOO MUCH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE 1

Remember Jeremy? Who had that girlfriend he never married? I shagged her. Didn’t mean to, but I did...This is going back 20 years now.

MAN WITH TOO MUCH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE 2

Thought so. Do you ever see her?

MAN WITH TOO MUCH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE 1

No, don’t want to. She got involved in politics and got prettier as she got older. She had massive boobs, but too floppy...

MAN WITH TOO MUCH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE 2

That’s a real downer when you like someone but then discover a flaw.

MAN WITH TOO MUCH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE 1

I didn’t like her attitude either, too intellectual and ambitious.

MAN WITH TOO MUCH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE 2

So there was nothing you liked about her, apart from being pretty?

CUT TO

There’s a gargantuan battle in the sky. The rain gathers confidence, hurls itself against the windows of the bar. As the sun, feeble and dying, makes one last attempt to shine; throws lights and shadows and makes everything look epic. The speakers scream out Europe’s The Final Countdown and everything sounds epic. The ticking is unbearable.

MAN WITH TOO MUCH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE 2

Was she some sort of working-class revolutionary?

MAN WITH TOO MUCH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE 1

Very middles class, but against institutions. The reason she fell out with him. Well, Jeremy called me tonight,inviting me to dinner after all these years…

MAN WITH TOO MUCH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE 2

Hah. I wonder if he’s found out?After all these years?

MAN WITH TOO MUCH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE 1

...he’s networking, that’s what he’s doing. He’s left his job at local government and wants free consultancy...

LONE WOMAN, tired and losing hope, lifts her head at the battle bursting through the windows. A portal of light cuts through the voices, slows the ticking, creates a conveyor belt of glitter in the air like stars. And, like a hologram, Grace Jones, Una Marson and Amy Garvey float in on the glitter and stand there in front of LONE WOMAN, who can’t really take much more of this day.

LONE WOMAN

Errm... can no one else see this?

GRACE UNA & AMY (in unison)

No. We’re here for you...

UNA MARSON (whispering in LONE WOMAN’S ear)

They will only see or hear you if you’re crazy, naked or arrested.

And then there it was, clear and sharp as tuning fork. It had been a while since she’d heard it, but yes she recognised this sound. The clocks and watches, slow and synchronised, began to follow the rhythm of LONE WOMAN’s heart. The eggs cracked open and a rainbow of hummingbirds to fluttered and danced. No one else could see it and the LONE WOMAN didn’t care.

She’d found it, rising above the bubbles: her own voice.

FADE TO BLACK