3 black Xs where my locker number was.

(no dialogue, only stage directions)

School bell. Hallways flood with students.

We follow a girl with her head down, walking and weaving through the crowd almost effortlessly. As if a ghost. She is in uniform, pristine, like everyone else.

She arrives at her locker, still humming a random tune. Unlocks it, grabs her books and lunch.

We see her wrist, painted with 3 small black Xs in a vertical line. The one closest to her elbow is the biggest. She locks her locker.

She continues, merging into the hallway seamlessly and heads upstairs. Still humming.

She slows outside her common room, where her year level laugh and eat.

She breathes. Her hand clenches and she hugs her books tighter. A shield.

She has stopped humming.

The camera spins around her, and we’re in the past. A memory.

The room is empty but she is the same.

A younger girl steps “out” of her, brighter.

Question: what does this little girl have that the other doesn’t?

What did the past do?

-

She steadies herself and walks inside. Rhythmic, habitual. Sitting, back to the tables of girls. It's empty, then full, at the will of a lightswitch.

Long shot on her. Invisible weights smashing her unfailing straight posture.

Lightswitch. Gone.

Lightswitch. Hunched, quiet, alone.

She slams her laptop and breathes. No one's there and yet she fights the vulnerability.

~

Author's Note: take this as you will. but promise me to look around and see the obvious. not everyone is as-

resilient, brave, strong, courageous, kind, happy, mature

-as this girl. and don't pretend to believe what she shows you, either.

actors are liars, after all.

- Red 🌱