ScriptWorks 30/60/90 - 12 August 2013

Prompt:
During the play a person loses and regains the use of one of their senses. 
-Steve Moore, playwright/director/producer 

Response:

A woman, CYNTHIA, 57, sits in a easy chair on stage looking at an old photo.  An open hard cover book sits on her lap.
MARGARET, 35, Cynthia’s daughter enters.

MARGARET
Whatcha lookin’ at, mom?

CYNTHIA
(wistful)
Old photo.

MARGARET
Oh yea?  A picture of Dad or one of us kids when we were little.

CYNTHIA
No.  It’s older than that.

MARGARET
Picture of grandpa and grandma, or one of you sisters.

CYNTHIA
Nope.

MARGARET
(slightly annoyed)
Well, who is it then?

CYNTHIA
A long lost love.

Margaret quickly goes behind Cynthia’s chair and peaks at the photo.  Cynthia hides it.

MARGARET
Was he good looking?

Cynthia after a moment shows the picture to Margaret.

MARGARET
Hey...
(taking the picture from Cynthia)
...he’s cute.

CYNTHIA
He hated being called cute.  I can see him like it was yesterday.  He was cute and he had these legs.  And he was such a goof.  Always jokin’, makin’ me laugh.

MARGARET
Sounds like you still love him.

CYNTHIA
I think I do.  I think if I was 17, I would leave my mother and father and go with him.

MARGARET
Seems like you’ve lost your sense of perspective here.

Cynthia sighs and takes the picture from her daughter.  She looks at it longingly one more time and puts it back in the book and closes it.

CYNTHIA
Every time I open that book and look at that picture...

Silence.

MARGARET
What happened?

CYNTHIA
Nothing.  We were kids and we were thousands of miles apart and there was no internet, just the postal service and the phone company.

Cynthia stands and puts the book down on the chair and turns to her daughter.

CYNTHIA
And I have a great life... here.  Now.

Cynthia hugs her daughter.

MARGARET
But sometimes you wonder...

CYNTHIA
Sometimes you wonder.

Curtain.