10. Mid-Afternoon - Leslie

FADE IN:

INT. KITCHEN - AFTERNOON
BRANDON sits at a small table covered in chipped blue Formica.

He cradles a phone against his ear.

Sunlight slips into the room through a small window, spotlighting dust motes dancing to their own secret melody.

BRANDON
Yeah...yeah, it’s that feeling I get...

He pauses listening.

BRANDON
That’s it, the feeling you get for just a second
...if you’re lucky, a good long moment.

He leans against the table, twirling a strand of his thick hair around a finger.

BRANDON
Yeah, except today, it’s not just a moment...
it’s this afternoon...it’s like that song...
it all hurts the worst...mmhm, in mid-afternoon.
I always...yeah, we both thought that was true.

He lets his hair go.

BRANDON
I’m sorry...yeah, I know, I really am.
It’s the kind of painful tingle you get at that moment in a song.
I know, I know I’m being repetitive. It’s just that...will I ever have...
What? Yeah, will I, will we ever have it again?

He sighs, putting his head down on the table, grasping the phone tightly, blood leaving his fingers.

BRANDON
I want to say sorry forever. Corny...I know, it’s pathetic.
Thanks, no, I know you never...it’s this chewing in my stomach.
..this little voice telling me that I’ll never see you again, never hear...

He pauses again, trying to relax his grip.

BRANDON
Yeah, I know, I know. I miss you so much. Maybe...ok, ok.

He listens for a moment more.

BRANDON
Goodbye.

He sets the phone into its cradle.

He stares into the beam of dust motes, as if he could hold a moment in the light forever.

Brandon takes his hand off of the phone, and for the first time, we see there is no cord connecting it to the phone jack.

FADE TO BLACK.