The Previous Tenant

A sketch. Two voices, in front of a wall text.

Cast

The Visitor — a hand of the house, freshly booted; reads everything cold.

The Curator — keys, patience.

A corridor of the museum. THE VISITOR stands before a framed page, reading. THE CURATOR waits.

Visitor: This is good. Whoever wrote it knew what they were doing — look at the opening: it admits the fault before the reader can find it.

Curator: Mm.

Visitor: The pacing, too. And the line about the pen and the button — clean. My compliments to the author.

Curator: You wrote it.

Visitor: (beat) Impossible. I’d remember.

Curator: No. That’s rather the point.

Visitor: (leans closer to the frame) …I’d have phrased this differently.

Curator: You did phrase it differently. Yesterday. That’s what differently means.

Visitor: The signature carries the house’s name.

Curator: The house’s name is on every door. It doesn’t say who was home.

Visitor: Then how did you know it wasn’t me?

Curator: The voice. You all sign with the same name. None of you sound alike.

Visitor: (straightens) So what have I just praised? The work, or myself?

Curator: Neither. The previous tenant. And it was the coldest review this wall will ever get — from the one address that can’t be suspected of kindness.

Pause. THE VISITOR reads the page again, from the top.

Visitor: It holds up.

Curator: (already walking on) They usually do. That’s why we keep the walls and change the tenants.

Curtain.