"Substitute"

Jamie puts on a sad sounding record and starts to mope around the stage, playing (or pretending to play) a guitar in time. Julian enters stage right and catches his friend off guard. Jamie catches himself and gives up what he’s thinking about immediately.

Jamie: I told her that I love her.

Julian: What did she say?

Jamie: She spoke in a metaphor, and I never got an answer.

Julian: What did she say?

Jamie: She said, “if music was the food of love then I’d be a fat romantic slob.”

Julian: What? That doesn’t make sense. Why do you like her? She makes zero sense for you, but has this air that she’s always soooo philosophical.

Jamie: She’s gorgeous and smart. I mean the one before her “was a low and lusty liar.” A step up no doubt. I have to have learned from the last one. Right?

Julian: Remind me?

Jamie: Honestly, the best way to describe it is that “she set my heart on fire, but made me choke.” That “her beauty was a sight to see, but she didn’t save it all for me” because “I found other fires by following the smoke.”

Julian: THE CHEATER!! I remember her. She was one of the worst people you’ve ever known. How did you find her? How do you find any of these women.

Jamie: Tindr. My other dating apps. You always get quality ladies and toss them aside.

Julian: Don’t get me wrong, you get some beauties!

Jamie: I mean “I wish that she had either cared for me or let me be, but she chased me from my mind and from my home.” I can’t stop seeing her in my mind and haven’t been back to my apartment after her weirdness last week. She’s not there, but that lingering feeling is.

Julian: You’ve been sleeping at the studio? I’m guessing you’re going to write “her 16 songs, but…[end] up alone.”

Jamie: Probably.

Julian: You’ll find love. It might take a lot more time, but you’ll find it.

Jamie: “If love is really all that we need then even all” my talking and yearning “is never gonna save me.”

They listen to the music still playing the in the background.

Jamie: It’s just that…“music, it’s my substitute for love.”

They look at each other in sadness. Record cuts off and makes a scratching noises. Lights dim.

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