The Lookout
Volume 7 Issue 1 | 2019
One More Night Ashley Costa [Nighttime. A bedroom. ABIGAIL, a disheveled, thirty-five-year-old woman, is sitting on a bed. She is crying and holding a glass of wine. She wears only a very large button-down shirt that is partially buttoned. An opened box is laid out before her on the bed. Items are scattered everywhere: opened books, piles of clothes on the floor, opened pill bottles and wine bottles sit on the bedside table. Picture frames are turned over. THEO, a forty-year-old man dressed in a black tuxedo, is seen standing by the bedroom door. ABIGAIL places the glass of wine on the bedside table and reaches into the box. She pulls out a picture. She smiles and laughs softly as she caresses it.] ABIGAIL: This was our first real date. Do you remember this? THEO: Yes, of course. How could I forget? I had seen you so many times at the city library, and you would always check out the strangest books. You seemed like such an interesting character to me, and I just knew I had to get to know you better. [THEO smiles and slowly approaches the bed]. Do you remember all those silly jokes I would tell you at the library? ABIGAIL [Sniffling, but laughs]: What is Emily Dickinson’s favorite reindeer? THEO [Now sitting at the end of the bed and looking at ABIGAIL]: Dasher. [Laughs] That one has to be your favorite. ABIGAIL: We were so young here. It’s so crazy to think that this was fourteen years ago. I think I had just turned twenty-one. You looked so handsome, Theo. [She looks up at THEO and places the picture back into the box as she smiles.] You still do. THEO: And you still look as beautiful as ever, Abigail. I can’t believe you still have that picture of us. Why didn’t I know about this mysterious box? What else do you have hiding in there? [THEO reaches towards the box, but ABIGAIL quickly moves it out of his reach. She puts her hand back into the box and pulls out folded up pieces of paper with a white-laced garter wrapped around them. ABIGAIL unwraps the garter and unfolds the pieces of paper.] ABIGAIL: Oh wow. [Pauses and wipes away a few tears as she looks at the papers.] These are our vows. This one is yours. Listen. [Reading as she tries not to cry.] “It was a force of enigma that has brought me to you, and ever since then it has always been you. [Pauses.] I give myself to you and everything that I will ever be. I promise to give you my unconditional love and devotion—”
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