Mimi Cook
      What It Is
 
Eleanor Ellis
      Nutritional advice
      from the legless
 
Erin Carnahan
      Satisfaction
 
Kristen Mittelsteadt
      Why do you drink it?
 
Lara Goodrich
      Communion
 
Paris White
      Pop-Up Book
 
Anonymous
      "The Plot Against the
      Giant": A Translation
 
Patricia Vanderbilt
      Souffle
 
Sam Alden
      seven jokes about food
 
Elizabeth Hambleton
      To Winnie
 
Rebecca MacFife
      Missing
 

    Miriam Cook
What It Is

(Lights up. A small cabin on a large boat. Everything in the cabin is different shades of green. Two women sit at a table. They are both very thin. An orange sits on the table between them, almost glaringly bright. Both women are gazing at the orange. The light is watery, murky, almost underwater.)

My god, what is it?

So round. So lovely.

Where did it come from?

Found it.

But where?

Round, rolling on the water, the wave water rolling, it round on the wave water I found it. Went down the ladder and took it from the water, the rolling waves.

So it came from the sea.

The sea.

Then, there are no words to name it what it is?

No words. Only round, and a smell.

(She lifts the orange and smells it. She hands it to SERENA, who also smells it.)

Ah, the smell. I remember this smell, on my hands I think . . . but when?

(She rests the orange on the table and looks at it again.)

How mysterious.

Yes.

I don't like mysteries.

Lovely round thing.

I think we should cut it open.

(NADIA looks up at her.)

Cut?

To see how it works inside.

No.

But we must know what it is.

You cut, silver fish flopped on counter, flopped cutting on blade and died.

That was a long time ago. Now I know how to do things better.

How?

I just do.

No.

(She takes the orange from the table and hides it behind her back.)

No. Mine.

Give it to me.

I found it.

But it could be bad.

(She reaches out behind NADIA’s back. NADIA hits her. SERENA winces back with a cry.)

See, it is bad. It has caused us to turn against each other. It caused you to hurt me.

(A long silence. SERENA stares at NADIA who looks at her feet, at the table, out the porthole, at the wall. Finally she sighs and slumps. SERENA straightens.)

We must know what it is.

So lovely.

(But her voice is weak. She meets SERENA's gaze and after a moment brings the orange out from behind her back and sets it on the table. SERENA rises and retrieves a large knife with a wooden handle from a drawer. She goes to the table and positions the knife over the orange.)

(Mournfully.) So round.

(SERENA cuts. The orange splits into two halves on the table. Juice drips from the knife, from the cut edges. SERENA and NADIA lean forward and look.)

Look. It bleeds.

It bleeds. All that which lives will bleed when cut. It must be alive.

Dead now.

No. No, it doesn't have to be. Perhaps it is only pretending to be dead, trying to trick us.

Dead, like fish.

(She points her finger at SERENA and becomes suddenly menacing.)

You killed it!

(Black out.)

   

   

   

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