We see Dolly Waters, her hair mostly pulled back into a bun, say for a few strands dangling down onto her bare shoulders. Her face is tense, her eyes worn and puffy. She sniffles, tucking a bang behind her ear as she looks out onto the sleeping commune of Coreytopia from the mansion balcony. Only the glow of the stars and moonlight are flirting with the grounds.
Dolly loves the commune. It’s been a nice change of pace for her. The warmth, the scent of the ocean breeze, the sobriety, the serenity, the selflessness and solidarity, the friendships.
Especially the friendships… it's all so tender.
She has a sense of security and belonging that has eluded her all of her life. Dolly, for the first time in eighteen years, is finally home.
But there was still…
Her index finger tapped just above her knee at a frantic tempo.
...there was still… something.
Vivid dreams of mountaintops and adventure kept her stirring through the dizzy nights. The waking sweat was a cold bath washing away Valhalla’s luminosity. It left her freezing through the evenings she spent alone in her head.
Where there are bitters for her fevers, and ointment for her wounds, the remedy for what ailed just beneath the surface was always temporary and changing.
The commune wiped away her vanity and smashed the ego. It was a welcome and needed fix. Serving as Dolly’s graduation from the alluring fable of never-ending-youth, into a new world, with new struggles. Every day was a new world and so on… and yet this
something still remained. Like a jammed open window needing a fix that just wasn’t there, and one that no amount of softhearted humility could mend.
Dolly thinks about these things. She thinks about the dreams. She thinks about her friends. She worries about her friends. She worries if having entrusted Corey with her needs might have strained their relationship. She didn’t want that. Dolly loves Corey. It’s a bond of trust that her words could pay no justice towards.
She stands there at the balcony window, sleepless and gnawing at her pinky nail. She turns back towards her blue and shadowy room as an old thought occurs: the backpack. Wearing only a nightgown, she shivers towards the backpack on the floor of her closet. She neals down and unzips the top, reaching in for something. A lone Camel cigarette, bent and dry, Dolly hadn’t smoked in months.
Dolly twists the end of the cigarette, holding it in her mouth, tilting her head up so that the dry tobacco doesn’t fall out. She strikes an old match and tilts her head down. As the flame burns the paper Dolly spots an old memory in her bag. An old Windows Phone. The case was gone and the screen was cracked. She plugs it into the wall.
42,623 new notifications. She opens her texts.
Dolly sits the phone down on a bookcase and leans against the wall, finishing her cigarette, ashing and exhaling all of the smoke through a window.
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