View.I

VIEWS

Fade in from black.

View: in shadow, beneath a table in a small trailer home. A teenage girl’s profile in silhouette, slack, prone on the floor. There is an air of something wrong. Muffled noise. Something flies across, beyond the girl.

In the background, a pair of heavy, black dust-laden boots pass by in determined haste. There is a deafening din of violence; glass and crockery exploding against walls and the floor, sounds of struggle, climaxing in a guttural howl.

Then, silence. Stillness. The dust settles.

The boots return, slowly, pausing in the background, vaguely labored breathing from above. Droplets of something red hit the floor about the boots. There is movement above. Wetness glints darkly as one boot turns out.

A male face, long and stubbly peers carefully beneath the table. The whites of wild eyes burn brightly in the dark. His jaw rolls open. He reaches out and under, grasps a limb and drags the girl out.

In the light, a blood trickle glints from her nose. The man stoops down, face lit to show an unkempt and quite unstable appearance. A calloused hand takes the girl’s face, turns it back and forth while red-brown eyes crawl over her features, searching for something. He presses a palm against her chest over her heart. The tip of his tongue worries the corner of his mouth. His index finger taps to the faint thrum of her heart. His fingers leave blood stains on her skin.

The girl’s head moves slightly, a quiet unconscious grown in her throat.

A sigh of grotesque pleasure from the man’s suddenly grinning lips.

She is not dead. Not playing possum. She is unconscious, but she is breathing.

He stands, pulls her arm up with him, yanking her upright, and hefts the girl over his shoulder.

In the view from beneath the table: his boots on the floor, her battered sneakers hanging.

He walks away. The sound of a screen door kicked open, banging, and shutting again.

Silence except for quiet chirping of insects in the desert night climate.

Fade out to black.