oh, the places we'll go

For my screenwriting class/workshop, we had an assignment for which we had to describe -- in maybe more concise prose than I ended up doing -- this room on the first floor of the building where the class is held. So I did that.



The room faces its exit. It hums with the sound of the unseen soda machines next door, with the voices from the bank of nine televisions that nobody's really watching.

The room faces outward, like a non-room, like a non-place, like transience.

The bank of televisions, near the exit, near the clean, pristine recycling bins, near the unseen soda machines next door, broadcasts politics, the news, and commercial breaks. It broadcasts big, scary things. Things disconnected from the people in this room, sitting on the couches or at the tables facing the televisions discussing these things that they aren't really watching, anyway. The bank of televisions televises things upon which the people in this room can't really have an impact. Things outside of this place.

The bank of televisions says: Let me see if I can tell you something about osteoporosis you don't already know.

The people in this clean, pristine, ephemeral sort of place sit on synthetic furniture with spindly legs. Everything is on wheels. Nothing is stationary. This whole room could easily, effortlessly, no big deal just wheel out of the exit that it faces, but no one in it would bother. That's not what they're there for.

The television says: You could be wealthy, wealthy! It only takes a split second!

The people, seated with a certain uncomfortableness on these smooth, sculpted, plastic surfaces, do not wheel the furniture, or watch the televisions, or listen to the hum of the unseen soda machines next door. The people, they read or eat or go on their computers. And they carry out these actions like they have somewhere else to go. This is not a permanent place. People do not take off their shoes here.

Angled, modern windows sneak up corners and walls of this fleeting, transitory room, to a skylight, not hidden but unseen nonetheless by the people below. Balconies peak into this place, from each floor above, but no one is in them. No one looks at this room whether in or outside it. One head can be seen in an office window on a floor above, but it does not turn. It just rests on its neck, unmoving, a potted plant beside it; a coat hanging off the edge of a cubicle.

The television says: It slides, it toasts, it sees, it calls—it's perfect for you and you!

This room -- this is a place for passing through. This is a place on the way to other places. People walk by its doors and windows, but no one stops to gaze in or out. No one leans over its balconies. No one converses, or relaxes, or has a laugh. People cough quietly and then neatly, systematically pack up their things when they are ready to leave.