I’m not sure whether she likes me or not, I mean, she made love to me on the living room floor, but she might have just been being polite.

We wake up next to each other, sprawled out and overlapping like we’re each in bed alone, warm but not too hot. I roll over and your hand’s on my back. It’s eleven already. We kiss and I get up to fix you breakfast: Choco-Shreddies swimming in milk. I bring the bowls up, and cups of tea, on the tray with the oil-painted fruit on it. Your hair’s tousled and you get some chocolate on the corner of your mouth. I wipe it away with my thumb. We stream some cartoons on my PC, like we used to watch when we were kids, our knees bent up together like mountains under the duvet. Then we get dressed. You straighten your hair like you like it, even though I prefer your bed-hair. While you’re doing that I take the tray back down and go clean my teeth. When I come back I smooth out the duvet and we’re ready to leave.

I lock the door behind us, noticing as I hold back the handle so it shuts properly, that cracks of naked wood are beginning to show through the faded blue paint. I think maybe I’ll paint it tomorrow. We start walking towards town. The sky’s overcast and the air’s cold. You’re wrapped up in the red-brown scarf and hat and gloves I bought you last Christmas, and your black coat, but you still walk close by me for warmth, and squeeze my arm when a sharp breeze cuts across us and makes the leaves pitter-patter along the pavement.

(more…)

Hey, can I come in? So you know how your girlfriend just broke up with you? Well I figure you probably got some condoms left over, yeah? Do you think I could nick a couple? Thing is it’s going great with Hannah and me and I’m thinking… y’know, and she doesn’t want to wait for me to run down to the shop, I mean, talk about eager, and I don’t really want to go down anyway at this time just to buy some… you’ve got some, yeah? Ah, cheers mate, I owe you one.

Oh, by the way, you might want to turn your music up for the next hour or so, just saying, you know what I get like, could get a bit loud, y’know, through the wall, what you listening to anyway? Coldplay? Nice one. Well, anyway, cheers again, that’s my night sorted, see you in the morning.

SCENE FIVE

Harry enters hesitantly from SR and looks around.

HARRY: (To himself) I’m pretty sure I didn’t write anything about Lucy running off crying. What happened? Guess I’d better set up the next scene.

Harry drags TABLE 2 over to CSR and places it on its side to represent Esmerelda’s bedroom wall. He also moves one of the chairs a little way behind the table and faces it towards the audience. Then Harry exits SL. Esmerelda enters SR. She sits in the chair and mimes combing her hair as if looking in a mirror. Horatio enters SL and mimes throwing stones at Esmerelda’s bedroom window. Hearing the sound Esmerelda rises, walks to the table, and throws open the ‘window’.

HORATIO: Oh beauty! Oh Emma-

ESMERELDA: Esmerelda.

HORATIO: Oh Esmerelda! I apologise for the lateness of the hour, but I had to see you again. Can I come in?

ESMERELDA: My parents are asleep and I’m getting ready for bed.

HORATIO: Do they despise me, your parents, like Juliet’s despised Romeo’s? Can they not see the beauty of our love?

ESMERELDA: I have not yet told them. It’s all happening so fast (aside) without any real plot development.

(more…)

This is just a quick experimental piece. Let me know what you think:

Jigsaw Puzzle

Do you want to do a jigsaw?

What?

I want to do a jigsaw. I brought one. Do you want to do it?

(more…)

i think i mentioned it before but my bike got stolen – well they caught the guy who stole it – wouldnt you just know it – he was a chav – yeah – they showed me a picture of him – baseball cap and everything – it was this pixellated CCTV still – from like a cash converters or somewhere – cos the police had sent out the description of my bike to all the second-hand shops – silly bastard – he might have known the police would do that – so when they caught him they came round my house – to take a statement (more…)

let me tell you about my day – i don’t actually say this but I will tell – it’s nice to have someone to tell this to – i like coming home and there’s someone waiting and i tell him about my day – it’s a monologue of course – i tend to do that with conversations – i have so much to say – i go into minute detail – it’s unnecessary but he listens – patiently – you though i’ll tell you about my yesterday – it was a sunday (more…)

In a coffee shop in Norwich, watching a girl I had never seen before drink an Earl Grey, I smiled to myself, secretly knowing that she would never know how much I knew about her, just from watching her as she sat there with a camera case, her companion, by her side. But it was obvious; it was in her clothes, in her movements, in her voice quiet with confidence as she spoke aloud, but still cracking timidly, unsurely, at the ends of her syllables, as if she knew what she said was worth saying, but did not know whether now was the time to say it, or if it was coming across right. And it was in the tiny rising intonation she added at the end of her statements too, as if hoping for reassurance, agreement. (From anyone else it would have seemed an annoying Americanism, but from her, it was somehow endearing). (more…)