Dinah laid in the water, her legs floating listlessly before her and her arms flying out to her sides like some misshapen starfish. She drifted on top of the water, completely and totally aware of herself, so much so that she could feel her shoulder length blond hair tickle her shoulders like loose and supple seaweed. As she floated, slowly around the small and lucid pool, her mind also drifted. It drifted to school, to work, to the colors the sun was reflecting off of the clouds, to the area beyond the clouds where hopes and dreams reach escape velocity and burst out among the stars like intangible galactic rockets.

She had been out on the pond for almost an hour, but it felt like longer. It was almost like she had lived a lifetime on the pond, that all she was destined to be was a piece of duckweed floating on a freshwater paradise. In terms of small things, bacteria and such, she had lived a lifetime. She had existed more than several lifteimes, and she spent all of them thinking within her head. Nothing else really mattered, not at that exact moment when her appendages bobbed in their liquid cushion.

Dinah wondered what she would do with her life. What should she do? There were so many roads to take, so many paths to choose, and she had all the time in the world to decide as long as she stayed alive in that moment, that precise moment on the pond. She felt as if the minute she left, the instant a part of her body touched firm ground, time would speed up again and all of a sudden there would be almost no time to decide what she wanted. Time would run out, like water in a sieve and it would be all Dinah could do to prevent those precious little tears from dropping and evaporating entirely. As long as she was in her aqua cocoon time was motionless, solid and firm around her, keeping her safe from the life-altering decisions that awaited her on the shore.

Dinah laid there in the pond. She could feel time itself, she could feel that very moment on her skin, like standing in a warm summer breeze. As she laid there, Dinah noticed shadows had changed on the shore. They were longer, darker, more present than they had been. She was wrong. Time was moving, but only on land. As long as she was in the water, she was safe.

Dinah watched as the sun set on her pond. She watched the sky turn from blue to yellow to red to purple. Then, in her endless drifiting, Dinah felt her foot brush the clay bottom. Her cocoon had been interrupted and she had to re-enter the land of decisions. As Dinah stood, her hair slicked against her head, still trying to keep hold of the precious time as it dripped off her hair. She slowly made her way to shore, desperately trying to hold on to the feeling of timelessness to no avail. As she reached for her towel and felt the rough and foreign terrycloth against her skin, she knew her time was over, and Dinah made her way up the path to the small cottage that awaited her, set back in the trees.

For future reference: Standard Play Script Format

Dialogue

Adam: No Dawn, you don't understand. I have to be who I am every day. When the sun rises, I am Adam ..... I wake up, get my water from the spring, maybe pick a few coconuts if I'm hungry, and spend the rest of the day with myself. Looking. Thinking. Existing.

But when I'm with you, I'm someone different. All of a sudden, I'm a teacher, I'm a companion. I'm not boring, lonely or clumsy. I'm suave, debonair. I have interesting things to say. I'm the person I want to be, and you make that possible. You, Dawn.

Nothing else matters now. It doesn't matter if I sleep in late in the morning. It doesn't matter if while I'm sleeping I accidently miss a passing ocean liner. It doesn't matter if I ever get off this stupid island at all. I have you now, and I'll always have you...right?

Dawn: Adam, I cannot stay here. I am being hunted by people far more powerful than you can even imagine. While it was nice being with you, my staying here is not possible. I cannot give you what you desire, I cannot even touch your hand. I must leave. Please do not make this harder for you.

As she pulled up to the The New Moon Playhouse, Linda felt the air of uncertainty coalesce around her. Auditions weren't new to her, goodness knows she's been to enough of them. This was different though. A different playhouse, a different city, different people. She wasn't going to know anyone. It wasn't like back home where you saw the same people audition with each season, where you could pretty much put on your magic genie hat and predict who was playing what part. Back home there was a good chance everyone who tried out would be cast in one role or another, even if it was just as "organic scenery." In musicals with big choruses like Oklahoma, The King and I, and Damn Yankees there was a definite need for bodies to fill up the stage as party guests, wives or angry crowds. It was pretty much a sure thing.

Not like here. Here at The New Moon Playhouse there were seven precious roles. Seven roles and at least twenty auditioners. Twenty doesn't sound like a lot, but the odds were still against her. To make it even worse, only four of the seven roles were for women. Fifteen out of the twenty auditioners were also women. It didn't seem fair. Men always seemed to have an easier time getting parts, at least at all the places Linda went to.

Well, here goes nothing. Linda stepped through the door and into the dim amber light of the lobby. All the other auditioners had come with friends, someone to talk to, someone for moral support so they wouldn't have to feel alone. Linda neglected to bring anyone. She kind of liked it that way. By herself, she could play the part of the broody, lonely actor who no one understands but still doesn't act like she's better than everyone else. A little shy, a little introverted, but once she stepped onstage, queen of all she surveyed with a commanding voice and a pliant face full of expression.

Quietly, she filled out her audition form being sure to include her tap and ballroom dancing experience. Her singing experience probably wouldn't be a deciding factor in her audition since this was a straight play, but Linda included that as well just in case.

As she turned in her audition form to the smiling, forty-something woman behind the little table in the front, Linda surveyed the room. Look at all these young kids. They all look like they're my age or younger. Linda knew looks could be deceiving though. She herself was knocking on her twenty-fourth birthday and she still got carded at bars. Linda amused herself by reading some of the scenes from the play, Brighton Beach Memoirs by Neil Simon, while she waited for slower, more talkative auditioners to finish their sheets.

Presently a man stood up and took his place in the center of the lobby. Obviously the director, he had that look about him...that artsy look. With ribbed sweater, scarf encircling his neck and wool hat barely capping his blond curls, the director addressed everyone.

"Hello. Hi. My name is Phillip John Title and I'm the director." He went on with the usual director spiel about how glad he was that everyone showed up, that he'd love to but he can't cast everyone and how if not cast, everyone should come back and try out again for the next show. He ended with,

"With that, let's all go into the theater."

Linda trooped along behind the rest of the auditioners and entered the auditorium. The building was old, she could tell from the large wooden rafters in the ceiling that supported a patchwork of lights and metal beams. It must have been remodeled in the last five years or so, because the seats were reupholstered and the aisles lined with new carpet. The area around the seats however, were bare, painted cement.

The stage was small, Linda had been on a bigger stage in college, but very quaint and appropriate for the small theater. Considering how many people were auditioning, Linda surmised that The New Moon Playhouse didn't get the draw the musicals back home and the plays at college did. Still, a play was a play and Linda was going to do her damndest to snag one of the four coveted parts.

All right. Since I'm not doing too well at writing (it's obviously March, and I didn't finish the novel) I'm going to use this blog to air out my ideas. I'll write, whenever I feel like it. Just prose though. I have another blog for poetry. I don't think it'd be wise for me to mix my poetry and prose, just because I'll get my leylines crossed.

Here's to a new beginning! *toast*