1-2 minute read. Note: We are currently on a whirlwind visit to the UK, next stop Bulgaria. The below piece is a new style I'm experimenting with I'm calling the Life Scenes Series, combining Vien's photography and my writing - please do let me know if you enjoy it, and would like more of its type! //
[ Caption: Looking up at the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel ]
Setting: Lounge outside The Gilbert Scott, a 2** restaurant by Marcus Wareing, in the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel at King’s Cross St Pancras, London.
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Woman: What on Earth do you think you’re doing?
Man: Oh, I was taking a photo of the light coming in – it’s beautiful.
W: You were pointing your camera directly at me. The light is over there.
M: You looked very sad. Alone in this room…well, it’s like a stage set. Waiting to be shot.
W: Well, I don’t want my photo taken, not by you anyway. Please delete it.
M: Why?
W: I don’t know what you’ll do with it. And I don’t like surprise photos. It’s impertinent.
M: It’s a hobby. Not being impertinent, taking photos I mean. I think you’ll like it – have a look.
W: Oh my.
M: Yes.
W: I look so sad.
M: Yes.
W: I’m getting divorced today, you know.
M: Sorry?
W: I mean to say, my husband is meeting me next door, for dinner, and it’s what he’s going to say. He’s always said that rail stations are where all proposals – and all endings, romantically speaking, – should happen. He’s never asked to meet me here before – we only live in Islington.
M: You’re quite calm about it.
W: That’s one’s job, as a woman.
M: I don’t know about that.
W: Of course you don’t. That’s not your job, as a man.
M: What will you say?
W: I’ll say yes, of course. It’s remarkably easy to unwind forty years when you’ve been married to someone like my husband.
M: He sounds difficult.
W: Quite the opposite. We’ve gifted our houses to the children, and we’re both independently comfortable. The largest question is our elderly cat. She’s an utter nuisance.
M: You should travel.
W: Sorry?
M: That solves the cat question. Leave, and he’ll need to need to sort it. If he can divorce you at a rail station after forty years…
W: It’s not the cat’s fault.
M: Whose lap does she sleep on?
W: His.
M: Who gives her her tablets and takes her to the vet?
W: Well argued. Perhaps…yes. Crete is lovely this time of year, turning a bit cool. Our friends – his friends – will have returned to London by now too. They do talk utter rubbish all the time. I won’t miss our ghastly Sunday lunches. Such a lot of work with the most frightfully dull conversation.
M: Sounds like a typical Sunday lunch.
W: Quite right.
M: Why are you telling me all this? A few moments ago you called me impertinent and told me to delete things.
W: There’s a certain comfort in speaking to a stranger. You’ve also not told me how sorry you are about it all, or told me it will be okay, or otherwise pretended your response is useful.
M: Fair enough.
W: I’ve changed my mind. I want you to keep the photo, now. I’ll like knowing that someone saw me and thought my sadness worthy of a photograph.
M: Fair enough.
~
[ Caption: The photograph ]
Post Script: Thank you to Steve K for the brilliant suggestion of writing scripts to practice dialogue ❤❤❤