Prompt:
the boy sits on the swing. afraid to fly. the girl watches him. afraid to push. a dog appears.-Caridad Svich, playwright, translator, songwriter, lyricist and editor
Response:
SUSAN, 39, in an apron, puts dinner on the table.
ROY, 35, sits by the window, in his wheelchair, looking out.
ROY
Those kids are gone.
SUSAN
You seem obsessed with them.
ROY
Why can’t they play in their own yard?
SUSAN
It’s a public park, Roy.
ROY
It was a vacant lot. A perfectly good vacant lot.
SUSAN
It was not a perfectly good vacant lot. You used to complain about the trash, the weeds...
ROY
I thought they’d build a house, not a public nuisances. Swings! What were they thinking?!
SUSAN
That children would enjoy swings?
ROY
I never enjoyed swings.
SUSAN
Don’t I know it.
ROY
What?!
SUSAN
Nobody knows better than I do how much you hated swings as a boy.
ROY
How do you know?
SUSAN
You don’t remember?
ROY
No.
SUSAN
You were about five. I must have been nine.
ROY
We lived over on Anderson.
SUSAN
Dad bought us, bought you, a backyard swing set.
ROY
I hated that thing.
SUSAN
After Dad put it up, you and I went out to play on it. You did not want to swing. I remember you sat on the swing and I came up behind you. I was going to give you a little push. You freaked out.
ROY
I didn’t ask you to push me!
SUSAN
You made that perfectly clear with a punch to my gut.
ROY
(sheepish)
Sorry.
SUSAN
I was never tempted to push you again. I was afraid to push you.
Roy looks back out the window.
ROY
There’s that damned dog again.
(Roy opens the window and shouts at the dog)
Hey! Get away from there!
Curtain.
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