By Luciana Rosania
JIM and HAROLD are second semester, freshman year roommates at college. It is late at night, and JIM is sleeping is his loft bed, across from HAROLD’s. The room is fairly clean. Lights are dim.)
HAROLD
(entering through the door in a frenzy) Where is it, where is it…
(HAROLD runs over to JIM’s backpack, which is leaning against his loft. He opens it and dumps its contents onto the floor. There are some books and pencils.)
HAROLD
(grabbing a spiral bound book) AH-HA!
(A flashlight turns on from above. HAROLD is in the spotlight, and JIM is pointing the light straight down at him)
JIM
What do you think you’re doing? Rummaging through my stuff?
HAROLD
Nope, just taking this.
(Lights on. HAROLD throws the book on top of his loft and then climbs up)
JIM
Hey! You’re going to break it. Give it back right now. I need to turn in a draft of a sketch tomorrow, and it’s in the sketchbook.
HAROLD
(partially to himself) Man, you shoulda ripped it out before I took an inspection…
JIM
You’re going to open it? You can’t do that! You are invading my privacy!
HAROLD
We share a room. Consider your privacy already invaded. You’re welcome. (he starts flipping the pages rapidly.)
JIM
By the way, you’re not welcome. In my journal. Get your hands off.
HAROLD
Try me. (JIM grabs the flashlight and chucks it at HAROLD. He horribly misses.) That’s all you got? (JIM sighs.) Well, by the end of the year, you’ll have a good arm, one way or another. Frisbee, baseball, boxing, all those are- (continues to talk)
JIM
Can you just hand me the book.
HAROLD
Sports are good! You should give it a try sometime. Tell you what, I have a buddy in my English seminar that has– (continues to talk, increasingly louder)
JIM
Harold, you gotta stop this. Now.
HAROLD
Tennis is so good for eye-hand coordination, but I’m not that good at it, as you know, b–
JIM
Shut up and give me the stupid book. I’m not joking. Why do you need it anyways? (there is a pause. HAROLD starts to open the book with urgency) I told you not to open the book! If you don’t give me a reason, I’ll come over and wrestle you for it.
(HAROLD chuckles, JIM and gets out of his loft in a fury and climbs up HAROLD’s loft.)
HAROLD
Okay, chill man. I’ll give you a reason.
(JIM is now sitting, facing HAROLD)
(hesitantly) I need a blank sheet for a project I’m doing. It’s watercolor, so the sketchbook will hold it better than the ordinary printer paper.
(Beat.)
JIM
(hesitantly) I used the last sheet for the project I was telling you about.
(Beat. HAROLD slowly opens the journal. JIM puts his head in his hands.)
Someone save me from this pain. Please.
HAROLD
Explain this. This sheet looks pretty blank to me, front and back. (He flips to another random page.) And this one does too. And this one (flips to a third page.) looks- (there is a pause.) this is beautiful. Who did you draw?
(there is a long pause)
JIM
Umm… it’s-
HAROLD
It’s her, right?
JIM
Yeah. I’m sorry, I didn’t want to-
HAROLD
No, it’s fine.
(Beat.)
JIM
It is, really? Is it really okay for us to hold on for this long?
HAROLD
Well, if it’s this book, no. I’ll hold onto it for as long as I want.
JIM
Oh no you won’t! (JIM clenches his fist and goes to swing) Take this!
(HAROLD easily blocks his punch by using his hand to defer the arm)
HAROLD
Good effort. Now tell me, where did–
(JIM groans and lays down in frustration.)
JIM
You don’t understand, do you? I need that book. Have you ever thought about what life would be like without sports? Without baseball, without soccer?
HAROLD
(teasingly) Awww, man. But I can take an off day. I can take a dead week. You can’t take twenty minutes without your “prized possession.”
JIM
You’re kidding, right? Of course I can.
HAROLD
I know you can’t, stop bluffing.
JIM
(in defeat) I know I can’t, Harold. I can’t because she’s there. She’s in the pages, in the cover, in the seams and folds and cracks and bent corners.
HAROLD
And in the dried teardrops too? They left marks on a few of these ones. (Beat. No response.)
(softer) The teardrops too?
JIM
Some of them.
HAROLD
Most of them.
(There is a pause.)
JIM
Fine, most of them. I go through these sketchbooks like wildfire anyways, but when she left me, I just couldn’t stop thinking about her.
(HAROLD yawns. He continues to flip through the pages.)
HAROLD
These are amazing. This one, that’s the park bench. We had ice cream there on our second date.
JIM
We fed birds there in March for a couple of weeks.
HAROLD
And the sky was blue that day…
JIM
It was mid-morning…
HAROLD
She told me to miss soccer practice…
JIM
We got some coffee…
HAROLD
And her smile drew me in…
JIM
The twinkle in her eyes spoke to me…
HAROLD
In that moment, I felt invincible…
JIM
My head was in the clouds…
UNISON
I knew what love felt like for the first time.
(There is a long pause. Finally, JIM sits back up. HAROLD smiles.)
HAROLD
(chuckling) She played me so hard.
JIM
(laughing along) She tried to erase me from her life.
(JIM takes the book from HAROLD, and flips a page. He tears it out, and hands it to HAROLD.)
I guess you can keep this one. Here.
HAROLD
Thanks man. I guess sometimes you gotta embrace the suck, right?
(JIM climbs out of HAROLD’s loft with his sketchbook in hand, and goes to his loft.)
JIM
Yeah. And the suck, well, it sucks. (Beat.) Good night, Harold.
(JIM lays down, and HAROLD looks down at the sketch lovingly.)
HAROLD
Good night, Jim.
(lights out.)