The script adaptation of this short story has received the following accolades:

2019 - Los Angeles International Screenplay Awards Finalist

2019 - The Script Lab Screenplay Contest Semifinalist

Lovely Evenings

At first thought I think my heart has stopped, and that I must be dead. I begin to languidly lament my own untimely end before I realize with an exhaled breath,

Nope. Not dead.

I turn my not so dead head and see from out the kitchen window that the clouds hang in the air like stickers on a bright blue bedroom wall. Leaves speckle the sky like multi-colored freckles.

There is no sound. The kitchen timer does not go off, and the clock overhead does not tick. The cat, caught jumping down from its perch on the windowsill, hangs in the air.

I am not dead, but I also do not feel quite alive.

You sit across from me, as darling as ever, even with your frozen smile. I hope your immobile state leaves you no discomfort.

Is this my forever with you?

Not exactly what I had pictured, after all.

I may be definitely not dead, but if time were to exist, in any linear sense that is, it certainly would be.

Out of habit I set down two pieces of toast, burnt on the sides, buttered down the middle to the point of disgusting saturation. My slice becomes half, then a quarter. Yours has not been eaten. I get up from the table and swallow the humdrum of our silent, static home. I begin to think that if I were to yell, the world might just shatter to bits, and you possibly with it. When I return to the kitchen I timidly hope you will turn and look at me, but I see it as I approach, and I know.

The toast has not been touched.

If in this new universe, today is tomorrow and tomorrow does not exist, then at least the world has decided to end on such a lovely evening. I make do, you in a rolling chair and I behind as we travel our winding way down the sidewalk, swerving into the street and streaming past the cars. I push my foot off the ground and jump on the chair as we storm through downhill streets, cruising by bikers and truckers, minivans, and the occasional delivery man.

If I close my eyes and we crash will you feel it? Will I?

For the first time I wonder if I let go, if I lean back and let myself plummet will I freeze in this world with you, my head one second from hitting the ground?

There are no lines for us. None at the museum, nor at the movies. Imagine the sight, you and I skirting round despite the frozen ticket holders who, I can only imagine, have been waiting for a film far longer than either of us might.

Roller rink rodeo,

Round and round we go, just like we did years before.

Of course, this time we travel amongst a pond of the petrified, smiles still stuck on their faces, laughs still latched to their flesh. Me, behind, pushing you across the waxed floor in a way that had and had not changed,

For the sentiment remained the same.

Afterwards, we end with a summer evening ice cream at the same spot as thirty years prior, waiting for the cover of dark but dreading for the date to end. Lucky for me, this one never will,  as we watch the sun set,

And set

And set

And set.

The world feels a bit like a snow globe as I lie, almost as immobile as you do, on top of the covers.

I have begun to wish that I could give it a good shake.

Sun peers in through the curtains and asks me what I’m so frightened of.

I ponder it myself and know it is the idea of losing you.

I grab your hand and squeeze.

I feign surprise when you don’t squeeze back.

“What’s your name again?” You asked me with a confused smile.

Always a smile. You ask me things and it’s like a church bell chime,

What is the time.

What is the time.

What is the time.

You look and you see friends you no longer recognize and with that I fear your slow decline.

I hear it in my head,

“What’s your name again?”

But you smile.

“What’s your name again?”

But this smile makes it feel worse.

“What’s your name again?”

But these few words felt like a shot meant to kill.

(who’s the one repeating themselves now, huh?)

I found myself incapable of answering your question, and so my fears asked the world to stand still and it cruelly obliged.

I wonder if maybe in another universe or dimension of thought, this happened and perhaps it was I that froze, and not you. Maybe I lie in bed as a vegetable, stuck in my own mind dreaming of a you I’ve yet to lose.

If today is yesterday and yesterday doesn’t exist, then I wake up to all the possible yesterday’s of tomorrow.

At least the world has decided to begin on such a lovely evening.

Just as before, you and I in the kitchen.
No toast.

At some point, the wallpaper clouds begin to move. The sky’s freckles rain down on the ground as the cat finally descends to the floor.

I think the kitchen timer has gone off.

You begin to move once again, and you are as darling as you were in every one of yesterday’s todays and tomorrows. You smile.

I think that maybe I was the one holding my breath all along, and it was time that was waiting for me to catch up.

“Oh, I remember now.”

And with that, I smile.