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CHAPTER 7

Emily and PT are in a rural graveyard.

A little bit of scattered light cricketing.

They’re looking through the tombstones, they are looking for something; PT is reading aloud.

PT: Lizzie Hale McKee

Cornelius Foster

Emma Ogden Jessup

These are really old names.

Amos W. Harvey

EMILY: Maud J. Dollard

PT: Joseph G. West

Samuel Chester Dodsworth

You’re sure they’re still putting people in here?

EMILY: I checked with the county.

They continue. After a bit:

PT: Ida and Lulu, twins.

Salome Vreeland

Bit of a pause. Still checking.

If it’s night time, shouldn’t it be cooler? Or something. Five degrees. Whatever. Some concession should be made. To the fact that it’s night. And everything is supposed to be different.

EMILY: I think it’s hotter, actually.

PT: Okay. Do you know what I think? Okay I know this is crazy. But get this: actually, okay, this is great: because (Flicking his flashlight around) they look like teeth, right? So get this: it’s like being in someone’s mouth.

EMILY: What?

PT: It’s like being in someone’s mouth, right? There’s the teeth, and it’s hot and wet and you know really weirdly quiet. Oh hey speaking of which I had my first older married woman last night. There should be guilt, right? It has not sunk in!

He shrieks. He has flicked his light onto a piece of statuary.

(Which is an actor, posing as a fabulous biblical gestures angel.)

Emily laughs.

Jesus.

She flicks hers onto one.

EMILY: A mouthful of angels.

PT: Crap.

She reads the inscription on the monument:

EMILY: And I bore you on Eagles wings

and brought you to myself

He flicks and illuminates another angel. Reads the inscription:

PT: Death came one bright summer’s day

and took our dearest friend away

EMILY: Very pleasant hast thou been unto me

thy love to me was wonderful

PT: Until the day break and the shadows flee away

EMILY: Morning is here

earth’s flooded with light

gone are the storm clouds

vanished with night

PT: Death is swallowed up in victory

EMILY: Won is the glory and the grief is past

PT: For me to die is to gain

Silence.

They continue, sobered.

Enoch Howard

EMILY: Sylvia Amelia Fry

PT: Edward J. McCullough

EMILY: Arabella Longstreet

ANGEL A: Lyndon Bartholomew Emery

PT: Angela M. LaCrosse

ANGEL B: Rupert Peter Dodge

EMILY: Molly John Schwartz

ANGEL D: Jorge Fernando Diaz

PT: Anatole Moritz

ANGEL E: Eddie T. O’Conner

EMILY: Gina Fratelli

There is an irregular spatter of sound as each Angel speaks a name not quite simultaneously:

ANGEL A: Ignatius Agnello

ANGEL B: Leo D. Nakamura

ANGEL E: Jaleh Afary

ANGEL F: Calvin Barton Upton

ANGEL G: Thomas A. Da Mota

ANGEL H: Amy Joan Nesbett

ANGEL I: Eunice Angela Adler

ANGEL J: Shannon T. Babcock

The Angels name again, again a cacophony:

ANGEL A: Kevin Andrew O’Keefe

ANGEL B: Martine Karin Zhao

ANGEL E: Ali Al-Jumaily

ANGEL F: Valerie A. Phelps

ANGEL G: Patrick Adam Ranier

ANGEL H: Ebenezer O’Brien

ANGEL I: Laurence Calderon

ANGEL J: Gregory M. Amadeo

Again:

ANGEL A: Michael Thomas Sweeney

ANGEL B: Fanny Foster Hoskins

ANGEL E: Syed Salman Abad

ANGEL F: Thomas A. Song

ANGEL G: Esperanza Ramierez

ANGEL H: Fabian Dawson, Jr.

ANGEL I: Ginger La Fevre Adams

ANGEL J: Tatania G. Szurlowski

There is a pulse of sound as each Angel speaks together:

ANGEL A: Takashimi Yoshida

ANGEL B: David Glenn Haas

ANGEL E: Vincent Fallon

ANGEL F: Elmer George Hammond

ANGEL G: Douglas L. Douglass

ANGEL H: Ching T. Kang

ANGEL I: Maria Fowler Keller

ANGEL J: Richard J. Naples

And again:

ANGEL A: Max Walcott Wagner

ANGEL B: Anthony Favuzza

ANGEL E: Julio Salas Portillo

ANGEL F: Bonnie Ruth Kaplan

ANGEL G: Glenn James Washington

ANGEL H: Liddy N. Abrahamson

ANGEL I: Hector Marshall Simmons

ANGEL J: Dierdre Wakefield

Then all together:

ANGELS: Roy Elliot Edmunds

Rachael Linda Edwards

Cecilia Luz Gutierrez

Peter Samuel Roth

James Dillard Takahashi

Aditi Amy Ranadivay

George Martin Lewis

EMILY (Delighted): Oh! Bingo. This one’s very small. This one hardly lived at all

The Angels whisper with her:

EMILY AND ANGELS: Monica

Alicia

Perry.

Flashlight out.