Something gloomy:
Sometimes everything about the future terrifies her. She’ll lead an unhappy life despite all the hard work and all the degrees and die alone- an ashen pile of bones locked inside a dingy apartment. Sometimes she wishes she’d had fewer happier moments, fewer moments of hope and of living surrounded by people, surrounded by laughter because they’re echoes of what could have been and what should have been. Instead, as time went on, shyness, quietness swallowed her whole mercilessly so that she became mute around people…incapable of saying anything, except clumsily and awkwardly nodding along like a drone. No wonder no one likes her. She sighs as she turns on the Christmas lights on her small tree and calls home, when she’ll pretend to be happy and having a blast.
**
Something cheerful:
Dinosaurs
Tick, tock, tick tock. There are twenty four hours before Trip’s doing it. Making the ultimate plunge. He’s a bit sad about it, of course- no more flirting with girls at least not in front Em. Em is the jealous type (God, a jealous Em is really hot sometimes though). No more being the complete slob that he is (note to self: do laundry every month now instead of…however long it was before). And the list goes on. Somehow, it seems okay though. Giving up these things for Em.
It all seems all right except for the wedding vows, which he’s tearing his hair over. Marie, his sister, who he regrets now not being nicer to, has read over all of his drafts, and he wants to take back all the mean things he’s ever said to her.
“Trip, are you marrying the girl or making a business deal with her?”
“Now, this is just shady. Sounds like a mafia arrangement.”
“This sounds like a Savage Garden song.”
“Is that bad?” He asks.
Chortling, Marie shakes her head. “Yes Trip. That’s bad.”
Marie tells him (even though she’s never been married and has never had to write wedding vows) that it’s not so difficult to write vows: just be genuine and honest and the vows will naturally write themselves out. The usual girl advice crap.
But all he really wants to say to Em on their wedding day that’s real is this: “I’ll love you until the dinosaurs come back.” It sounds silly and like a ploy and doesn’t seem like an everlasting, romantic gesture- he’s sure that Em’ll either smack him or be supremely disappointed if he says this, but he sees it as one. To hell with till death do we part- till death is finite…till the dinosaurs come back though, seems like a complete impossibility, an indefinite time with no dead line.
When they’re at the altar, even though he’d practiced it all night- the better vows Marie finally wrote for him, it slips out. Em’s silent for a moment, and he’s expecting her to bolt or to slam her bouquet of flowers on his head, but she smiles instead. “But Trip,” she says. “What about Jurassic Park? Doesn't that invalidate everything?” And in that very moment, he can’t help but to kiss her.
**
There's another version of Dinosaurs that's a lot more dialogue based. I can't decide which version I like better. Dinosaurs in dialogue form remains incomplete though...and even though I tried to make it prose the narration between the dialogue just seemed more and more like stage cues as the piece went on (one reason why I really liked writing drama- you create the words that people say and some of the setting but you don't need to worry about the rest.)
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