ACT 1
NARR: Your story started at your first week at NYU, in your first psychology class, with your first homework assignment; you were told to keep a journal of your dreams for one week.
SFX: wind chimes to fade
Chills ran up your arms as you thought of the assignment, dreams brought you back to your days in the orphanage. Your nightmares of your mother slowly drifting away and the only person that could comfort your screams, Lily. You and Lily were inseparable; it was your mission to keep her safe and safe meant to be with you. You always tugged her around, making her play with your friends, eating every meal together, even picking out her clothes so you could make her out in a crowd. Everyone knew that Lily was your little sister.
SFX: background professor talking, clock ticking
Suddenly your thoughts of childhood bounced from your mind, when the girl sitting to the left tapped your shoulder, you had dozed off and seemed to be right in the punch line of your professor's joke about Freud, the awkward silence was saved by the scream from the bell.
SFX: bell ring, students getting out of desks, rustling classroom
Walking out of the building the cold air hit your nose as you exhaled a white breath. Winter was coming right after the holiday; Halloween was 2 days away. You walked down Broadway and jumped on the E train heading uptown.
SFX: deep breaths, foot steps, train doors close.
Gazing around at the people on the subway, you realized the girl that had woken you in class was sitting directly across. She was pretty. She had carmel dark skin much lighter than yours and beautiful long golden hair. She was changing into what seemed to be a 50's poodle skirt and stripped blouse, when she looked up to catch you staring.
Terrance:"Oh, you going to a costume partying or something?"
Lily: "Ha, no I work at an old diner off Times Square," she said motioning to the nametag sewn to her blouse.
Terrance: "Lily..."
Lily: "Yup, that's my name and this is my stop"
Terrance: "Oh, well see you later"
Lily: "Yeah, you should by sometime, for a cup of coffee or something, it's called Starlight Diner."
SFX: Subway doors close
Narr: The subway doors shut before you could respond. You grabbed your journal and wrote (Terrance: "Lily, starlight diner.") the name gave you chills as you recited the words. You hadn't heard it in years, ever since your little sister disappeared on Halloween when you were eleven. You blamed yourself for losing her and had never celebrated Halloween since. Arriving at the next stop you gathered your things and got off.
SFX: gathering things, footsteps to doors, Subway doors close
ACT 2
NARR: The stain glass windows were always the only thing beautiful to you at St. Mary's Church, when you were younger, you would go to the church at lunch and draw them in your journal. You walked down the isle to the 3rd pew and sat down to pray when Father Gary came into the room. You had known him since you were a boy; He and Sister Claire seemed to take extra care you and Lily, and you thought of them as your mother and father, but Sister Mary had passed away two days before.
His gray eyes looked weak and puffy as he attempted to smile at the sight you.
Fr. GARY: "Oh Terrance, it is so good to see you during this painful time of grieving."
TERRANCE: "Thanks father"
Fr. GARY: " You know Sister Claire and I sometimes thought of you and Lily as children of our own."
Terrance: "so did I."
Fr. GARY: "It was dear Claire’s time to leave us. We found this in her corridors right after she passed. I believe it would be best suited with you. (pause) It is a photo album of mostly pictures of you, Lily and the other children."
Terrance: " I really appreciate it. Thanks, I’m gonna go, see you later."
You hugged him until he let go and then placed the album in your bag to go home. Walking out the big arched doors you turned on your iPod and started for home.
SFX: music-song
The dorm halls were dark and quiet; everyone else was out celebrating the Halloween festivities. You walked into your room, laid your bag on the floor, put your journal on the bedside table, and lapsed onto the bed, falling fast asleep.
SFX: wind chimes, eerie buzz in air sound
Your dream began in a bedroom. The room was unmistakable, it was that of the orphanage, and there was still only one small window that gave light onto cold white walls. There was a knock at the door and you immediately ran to it. No one was there, but you heard steps going down the hall. Without thinking, you followed the figure down a flight of stairs and into a hall. There stood a child with a white sheet over him, and holes where the eyes should have been for seeing. You remembered the common costume from Halloween when you were eleven years old. The child was starring at a stained glass window and then back at you; you heard footsteps and then a figure dressed in all black seemed to be coming nearer, his shadow on the floor was reaching to grab the child. The child ran out the door and onto the street. You tried to follow, but tripped down the stairs instead. Everything went dark and as you opened your eyes your alarm sounded telling it's time to go to class again. You looked to the journal to write down what had just happened, but the journal had already been opened. In messy red writing, there was one word written on the page: KEEP.
(above SFX: knock, running, footstep, child giggle, heartbeat, falling down the stairs, door open, whoosh)
SFX: scary sound- eerie buzz in air sound loud
Frazzled and a bit freaked out you threw on a new tee shirt, grabbed your
stuff and ran out the door.
After class you went to the park outside your building and tried to contemplate what the dream could have meant. Your professor had explained the theories of Freud behind dreams and you knew the information was somehow connected to your nightmares. Freud believed nightmares were a conflict between a person’s id and super-ego, the id always wanted to see prior wishes fulfilled while the super-ego did not allow them to be seen. But a person dressed in black, the stained glass window, and a child in the ghost costume, where did it all fit in? You supposed your id must be trying to show you something in your past about Lily, but what was it and how would you push past your super-ego?
You pulled the album out of your bag and flipped through the pages. The pictures brought tears to your eyes, Christmas and Thanksgiving photos, even a photo of the time Lily painted herself completely green during arts n' crafts, and then as soon as you saw it, everything clicked; it was a photograph of you and Lily at Halloween wearing matching ghost costumes you had made from your bed sheets. It must have been you in the costume and you figured that you were trying to tell yourself something in your dreams, something about Lily.
You picked up your stuff and ran to the subway back to uptown, back to St. Mary's.
Terrance: "Father, I need to talk to you."
Fr. GARY: "Yes, what is it child?"
Terrance: "It's about these dreams I have been having, I dunno, I think it's about Lily-"
Fr. GARY: "Now Terrance, I thought you have accepted the facts, Lily is gone."
Terrance: " Yeah, I know I have just been hearing her name and thinking a lot of her lately, I mean I had a dream of the night she disappeared, there was a stained glass window and a figure dressed in all black was coming to take me. I don't understand."
Fr. GARY: "Hum that is very interesting, I predict it is just your past haunting you my son, you must not blame yourself. Halloween is just a day away and I am afraid that you are probably troubled by this date. "
Terrance: "Yeah, I suppose. But I think it might be deeper than that...I think, I'm trying to figure out something about her disappearance."
Fr. GARY: "Nonsense, Terrance that university must be working you too hard, you clearly aren't getting enough sleep or something. Now go on back to the dorms and have a cup of tea and get some quality rest."
Terrance: "Sure, I'm just gonna take a look around for a bit."
Fr. GARY: "Okay, not too long. I'm off to the diner to see an old friend."
SFX: wind chimes, eerie buzz in air sound
NARR: You watched him give a slight grin and walk briskly away. You sat down in the 3rd row pew, placed your bag beside you, and began to pray. Your murmurs of the rosary began to fade as you dozed off into a light sleep. You fell into another dream almost immediately; this time you and the child dressed as a ghost were outside of the St. Mary's orphanage on the street. You followed the kid down the street to a grave yard. The child stood at the entrance, pointing a grave that read Lily James, the person in black appeared and he grabbed the child's hand pulling it through the gate. The child reached for you but as you approached, you were awakened by church bells. Your books were spread across the bench and lying faced open. On top was the journal and a second word has been written under the first: GOING.
(above SFX: footsteps, gates screeching, fast beats, church bells)
SFX: scary sounds-eerie buzz in air sound loud
NARR: You jumped up, throwing the journal on the floor.
ACT 3
NARR: The next day was Halloween and you were determined to know what your dreams had been telling you. You decided not to go to class, but instead attempted to go back to sleep. Anxiety got the best of you and you were unable to even close your eyes. So you took out the album and looked for clues. Passing through the pages and smiling at the memories, you stopped motionless to see a blank space where the Halloween photo had been before. You furiously tore through the pages and eventually emptied out your entire backpack looking for the lost photograph. You reached under your bed but found nothing. Starting to cry with all the commotion, you began to rise from under the bed but hit your head on the bed frame while doing so and immediately became unconscious.
SFX: head bang, whimper, papers rustling, wind chimes, eerie buzz in air sound, beats of time
You latched into a sinister dream that sent you back to the graveyard entrance. You saw the child dressed as a ghost being pulled down a dark row of trees and then heard shriek of terror. You followed down the shadowy column and stopped at the center of the park. A circular patch of grass was visible with a blotch of sunlight that came through the trees. From the shadows of the trees you heard rustling of brush. A moving shadow emerged into a figure that revealed itself to be you as a child. He seemed to be looking for something or someone as well. He pointed towards the vibrant light and ran towards the source, clearly asking you to follow suit.
You both weaved through shrubbery and trees, engulfed in shadows. You felt your heart pounding as the stream of light ahead opened. You walked a bit further and mysteriously found yourself in Times Square. You followed your child self into a dark alley and suddenly stopped, what you witnessed next stopped your breath. Two figures brawling near a dumpster, but you couldn’t quite make out what was happening, but then you saw my face. (SFX: footsteps, eerie buzz in air sound, dun, dumb)
My ghost sheet had been ripped from my head, while wrestling the black
figure off of me, easily three times my size. I yelped and the person in black became frustrated after a minute of struggling and then held me up by my neck, causing me to gag wildly. I drew my last breath at the motion of your screams and efforts to move forward, but no sound came from your mouth, and your child self held you back. He tossed me into a dumpster, whipped his bloody hands on the white sheet, and shut it; closing off my existence forever more. His black shadow walked into the restaurant next to the alley and sat down in the first booth by the window.
(SFX: struggling, dumpster close, screams, rustling)
You woke up lying face down, out of breath, and underneath your bed. You turned over and found yourself wrapped in a white sheet with blood stains on it and two eye-holes located towards the center; the journal fell to the floor from it's crevices as you extended the sheet further. You picked up the journal and read the words written on the first page, (Terrance: “Lily, Starlight Diner, KEEP, GOING.")
You immediately grabbed the sheet and journal and walked out of the
dorm room. You jumped on the E train heading uptown and got off at Times Square. Obeying the journal’s orders you walked up to the Starlight Diner, and looked through the window. You had figured out the meaning of this journey, Lily was the child in the costume, she must have been scared and went looking for you at the stain glass windows the night of her disappearance, but the man that always dressed in black had gotten to her before you could. You dropped the journal at the steps of the Diner to see a man dressed in all black sitting in the first booth, it was Fr. Gary. Shaking you looked down at the journal once more; it had a picture sticking out of it. You picked it up and peered at it for a long time, tears filling up your eyes. It was the picture of you and I outside the orphanage wearing matching ghost costumes on Halloween. On the back was another piece of writing in the same messy red writing: MISS YOU.