Rowan Tate

Setting: A small yellow kitchen in North Oxford. Evening.

Characters:

ARI: 24. Postgrad in something so niche it might as well be abstract art. Wears wool as a way of engaging with discomfort.

NINA: 25. In a long, complicated relationship with Derrida. Has a guitar but doesn’t know how to play it. Lives with ARI but might be moving out.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Lights rise on a small, clean kitchen. Kettle on the counter, toaster, cafetière drying on a rack.

ARI sits at the table with a closed laptop and an open notebook, facing a mug. He stares at it like it’s accused him of something.

Enter NINA, holding two tote bags. One has leeks sprouting out of it. The other appears to hold books and anxiety.

NINA:

They’ve moved the chickpeas again.

ARI:

That’s the third time this term. It’s pathological.

NINA:

Then I spent ten minutes in grains trying to pretend millet might be useful.

(She begins unloading. Beets. Yogurt. Onion powder.)

What’s wrong with your face?

ARI:

I’ve come to the conclusion that my research is a symptom of a broader social malaise.

NINA:

Oh, that.

(She finds a place for the yogurt in the fridge.)

How very 6:45pm of you.

ARI:

I’m serious. What am I doing with my life? I’m part of the culture of critics, sneering from the sidelines. I’m getting a Master’s in measuring the world in footnotes. I’m fulfilling the prophecy.

NINA:

You’re the one writing about Wyndham Lewis and moral cowardice. I don’t know what you expected.

ARI:

An intellectual horizon. Or at least a sentence I could stand by.

NINA:

What about the one with the trams?

ARI:

Disingenuous. I only liked the word trams.

NINA picks up a spoon, stirs the mug, and takes a sip without asking. Winces.

NINA:

God. Did you microwave this?

ARI:

The kettle’s broken.

NINA:

Isn’t that the third kettle?

ARI:

The building rejects them. Like antibodies.

Pause. NINA sits across from ARI, who seems fixated on an unremarkable patch of wall as if it holds a revelation.

NINA:

You’ve been weird all week. Not in the usual “I think German idealism is stalking me” way.

Did something happen?

ARI:

My supervisor told me my writing has “moral clarity.”

I haven’t recovered.

NINA:

That sounds like a compliment.

ARI:

It’s an accusation. That’s the kind of thing you say to someone who needs to be made Chancellor of a small university in the Midlands to stop them from writing any more prose.

NINA:

So you’re spiralling because you might be employable?

ARI:

I’m spiralling because I might be boring.

(Slight beat.)

And because I bought a self-watering basil plant and it still died.

NINA:

The basil died because you tried to feed it leftover coffee and Schopenhauer.

ARI:

It needed structure.

NINA:

It needed sunlight. You haven’t opened the blinds for in three weeks.

ARI flips open the notebook. Scribbles something. Closes it again.

ARI:

I keep thinking about how everything I do is just… rearranging language.

NINA:

But you’re good at that.

ARI:

Maybe I should’ve done something practical.

Become a surveyor. Or an electrician. Or a mortician with a uniquely poetic outlook.

NINA:

You know that you wouldn’t survive more than an hour in a job that didn’t let you say the phrase “the semiotics of collapse” in a socially acceptable tone.

ARI:

It’s a useful phrase.

NINA:

You used it to describe your laundry.

ARI:

It was collapsing.

NINA turns away and smiles, despite herself. She notices a piece of paper taped to the fridge. Reads it.

NINA:

What is “thesis snacks (existential)”?

ARI:

It’s a list I’m developing. Of snacks that acknowledge despair without encouraging it.

So far I’ve got dried mango and those oat biscuits that try to pretend they’re not made of cardboard shavings.

NINA:

Add Tesco hummus. Or peanut butter when eaten directly from the tub with a spoon.

That’s spiritually neutral.

ARI:

Agreed.

They sit in a shared silence. NINA’s phone buzzes. She checks it. Doesn’t respond.

NINA:

I think I’m going to take that sublet in Abingdon. Just for a few months.

ARI:

Right.

NINA:

It’s nothing weird. I just—need to wake up in a room where my deadlines aren’t laminated into the walls.

ARI:

I get it.

(Smiles weakly.)

I’ve always found solitude extremely character-building.

NINA:

You say that, but I know you talk to the toaster.

ARI:

Only when it burns things with attitude.

NINA:

So, daily?

ARI:

You’d be surprised how much the moral arc of the universe bends toward undercooked crumpets.

NINA:

I won’t be far.

ARI:

You’ll be geographically closer to the zone six state of mind.

I respect that.

NINA:

You’ll visit?

ARI:

As long as I don’t have to pretend your plants are thriving either.

NINA:

Deal.

The light has shifted. NINA picks up the mug again and sips, still grimacing.

NINA:

This tastes poorly executed.

ARI:

It’s a metaphor.

You’re drinking my academic trajectory.

NINA:

You should really put that on your cover letter.

ARI:

I did. Haven’t heard back.

NINA stands. Gathers her bags.

NINA:

You know… moral clarity isn’t a bad thing. Especially now.

ARI:

It just makes me feel like I’ve already written the conclusion. Resolved everything. Like there’s nothing left to reconsider, just the need to justify what’s already been decided.

NINA:

Isn’t that most of adulthood?

ARI:

I want to be allowed to be surprised. Even if I’m clever.

NINA:

That sounds dangerously like hope. Haven’t we outgrown such sentiments?

ARI pushes up his glasses with exactly the wrong finger.

NINA, laughing:

Don’t worry. It’s local and ethically sourced.

She nudges the mug toward her housemate.

NINA:

Drink the metaphor, Ari.

Lights begin to fade as she exits. ARI stays at the table, alone, hands folded between the laptop and the mug.

ARI:

Room temperature honesty.

Blackout.