Get Out Often?

ALYSSA, in her mid-20s, has long, messy hair, wears an apron with paints, color markers, and pastels smudged on it.

The setting is the living room.

She sits at her desk holding a UPS parcel, opens it; inside is a new teddy bear.

ALYSSA: Hi, sweetie. So, you came at last . . . You look so pretty! Rose, I’ll call you Rose, do you mind?

This is the living room. Roomy, isn’t it? I’m lucky the rent is so cheap. This house belongs to my mom’s friend, and she’s been most generous.

I’m also lucky I have these glass sliding doors. They’re so airy, and they bring in a lot of sun. Anyways, now that you came, let’s get to know each other!

But first things first.

(She sits Rose down at the desk, mimes pouring tea into a cup, mimes handing it and a biscuit to her.)
(A pause.)

Glad you’re enjoying the biscuit. I baked it myself.

What do I like to do? Well, when I’m bored, I like nothing more than being wrapped in a soft sheet and rolling around. Then at night, I would fall asleep and sleep twelve hours or longer.

(laughs) Yeah, a little like a sloth.

When there’s no work, that is.

My work? (shows her a sketchbook) This! Just rough sketches at this stage. I’ve got six months this time to work on this picture book illustration, so I can take life easy. Heh heh.

(Sound of an incoming text message; she takes a cellphone from her pocket, checks it, sends a quick text message.)

Sorry, Rose!

Oh, my hair. Well, yeah. My mom would say, “Yours is a bush, my daughter!”

You know what’s interesting, though? It’s that when you stay inside for so long, never leaving the house, you don’t grow mold on yourself. Maybe it’s ’cause this place gets some sun in the daytime and that’s killing all the germs on my skin. Or at least most of it.

Yeah, I sure don’t go out. Been nearly two years since I left the house.

So, normally, I would go as far as our garden. That’s by the way my favorite spot to look at the night sky. To see what’s up tonight. I’ll take you there later.

And at the end of the garden, over the wall, I always see children playing around in the daytime. That’s how I can observe, sketch, and color them, which really helps me when illustrating my children’s picture book.

Of course. It’s all thanks to my mom that I . . . she goes grocery shopping and takes care of all the things that I can’t ’cause I don’t leave the house.

(An incoming text message. She checks it.)

Ha . . .

(Frowning, sends a text message.)

Sorry . . . I’m just sending text messages to Dad. And he’s ignoring what I want.

Oh. I wrote a poem last night. It goes like this.

(She reads from her notebook.)

Love,
a myth
a melody
a whisper of a moment
unreasonably hot,
then cooled down, you only have ash or a mere rock from it.
But hug.
a hug is more real, more genuine, more honest
when meaning it. And what I value most is one from a good friend.

I really felt this!

(An incoming text message; she ignores it.)

Recently my friends visited me. They were seeing me again after two and a half years. Anyway, the hugs these friends of mine gave when they saw me and when they said goodbye, they generated in me such a pure feeling, like the essence of warmth and affection itself! Which lingered in my body for so long afterwards.

So different from my dad, who pushed me away and dusted his suit angrily. I was a little girl who wanted a hug.

I did not live with my mom back then.

Am I talking too much?

Good. Enough about myself! So, how was the trip?

Sorry to hear that. Must’ve been a particularly bumpy ride.

How was the store?

Oh, yeah? Sweet . . . And so nice of you to come . . . thank you!

(She sits on the floor, stretches her body.)

Heh, heh, you need your exercise, even if you don’t get out often.

Oh, ivy! See there? It’s still that way . . . crushed under our glass door.

Made me think. Such a limited time of freedom, freedom of sitting up straight and proud under the sunshine visiting the garden. You know what I wish? It’s to live forever . . . and watch how the world changes and changes . . . until maybe the Earth dies, like a blackened star.

I wouldn’t mind becoming an old and wrinkly lady who may need her heart pills and a walking stick or wheelchairs and glasses, and what not, I wouldn’t mind that, really. (laughs) I just wanna watch.

(An incoming text message; she ignores it, annoyed.)

Let me . . .

(She stands up, picks up Rose, shows Rose her paintings on the wall.)

Do you like them?

Oh, um, they’re . . . a trace that shows others that I’ve been here. Just like a bird leaves its feather behind and flies away, I’m leaving my drawings behind.

Well, I’ve always loved drawing.

When I was attending high school, you know what I enjoyed the most? It was watercoloring under a tree. How one day the cherry blossoms fell on the white paper I was coloring! They fell on the drawing of my fake olive green trees and on my fake ash gray concrete street. And also on my fake aquamarine sky. How the fake and the real were mixed together to form such a beauty! And sitting there, I would bite into a hamburger and sip cider that the competition organizer gave for free. How relaxing that was . . .

(Her cellphone rings.)

Oh. Excuse me, Rose.

Hi, Mom. Uh-huh. Yes, I ate them.

What? Today? He's coming today?

Shoot!

To me, he just said, “Sometime this week.” And I told him not to come at all! . . . Shoot!

What time will he be here?

Why didn’t you let me know this earlier?! Oh, stupid me. I thought . . .

(She leaves Rose on the desk, walks as far away as possible.)

Okay, could you call him and tell him . . . that I’ll kill myself if he ever comes here?

If he dares to come . . . I’ll just kill myself!

You heard me, Mom. You know I don’t kid around.

That’s not my problem.

True, but . . . Mom, just please, please don’t let him come here. I’ll really die.

Can’t stand. Can’t be in the same space. Can’t even breathe. And there’s nowhere I could go. Yes, please call him quick. All right, bye. Love you, too.

(She hangs up.)

(Her body shakes; she calms down, puts phone back in her pocket.)

Sorry, Rose. But everything is all right. My mom, she’s gonna take care of it all. So, no worries!

Yeah? . . . Come here.

(She sits on the floor, with Rose in her arms.)

Here’s a story, Rose. Where my mom is originally from, there’s this folk tale about a bear. A bear and a tiger. The bear stays in a cave and doesn’t come out for twenty-one days, eating only mugwort stored there, and you know what happens? It turns into a human! . . . After the twenty-one days I mean. It gets to live the rest of its life as a lady. But the tiger, who is unable to stay inside that long eating only mugwort, comes out of the cave before the twenty-first day, and so it remains the same. A tiger, ever after. The end! . . . For some reason, this story is stuck with me forever.

Now I’m gonna draw some murals for the very cave. Look!

(She takes chalk from the desk, draws on the floor in silence.)

(still drawing) About my dad, well, there were things . . .

And there still are . . .

The world is crazy, you know.

(Sound of a car arriving; she breaks the chalk.)

OH, SHOOT!

Oh Rose, I didn’t mean to . . . It’s okay!

(She stands up.)

(She rushes to the desk, puts her cardigan, blanket, wallet, and art supplies in a backpack, turns to Rose.)

I’m going out. Will you join me? . . .

Come on, girl! Just to draw. Just to relax and be lazy under the sun.

At a park, maybe . . .

Yay, that’s the spirit!

(She picks up Rose, exits through the glass sliding door.)

(In a moment or two she’s back, stands frozen in front of the door, with Rose in her arms.)

I don’t think I can . . .

I still can’t . . . And . . .

Perhaps I don’t want to . . .

Maybe it’s not yet a time for this. But . . .

(She leans on the door.)

When I was a kid, I would close my bedroom door and crawl under the desk, with a blanket. I would then cover myself with the blanket and pull the chair towards myself, thereby completely blocking all four sides from where I was sitting. I stayed that way until I was sure Dad was asleep, for good. Which was usually around four in the morning. My body would tremble the whole time while waiting nervously for four o’clock to come. Hidden from sight.

Don’t know what to do . . .

Leave? . . .

But can I?

(Sound of a suitcase being pulled.)

I remember the last time I went outside, the white sky, men fixing cars, cops, just-doing-my-job cops, and dogs on the street being dogs on the street sniffing everywhere and pulling the leashes in a hurry, then the rain drip, drop, drip, drop, having a beat of its own, everything looked sort of okay for a moment, to my relief,

but then I went back home quickly before, before I meet someone who recognizes me from somewhere, or from some time in the past, before they’re able to remember, before everything breaks into pieces, before I feel so hurt, burned, and hot, so, disappearing immediately is the only option, to relieve myself from all this pain reborn and reliving, this is why my trip to the outside world, which is quite rare by itself, doesn’t last more than a minute, a minute! (laughs) Yeah, pretty short if you think about it, if Dad didn’t do all those things to me, if he had just . . .

(Sound of a four-digit code unlocking the door.)

Shh!

Lights dim, end of play.

NAYOUNG JIN

Originally from South Korea, Nayoung Jin obtained a BFA degree in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. She is the author of Shooting Star Rider, released by Simply Read Books, and her play The Mermaid was produced during the Festival Dionysia in 2020 at UBC.