DEE: 22-year-old waitress.
CLYDE: 25-year-old drifter.
LOCATION: A truck-stop café in the middle of the night.
DEE
Hey there, darlin'. Get you a coffee?
CLYDE
(struck by her beauty) Um... Yeah... Yeah, and I'll get a plate of hash browns as well.
DEE
(yells to counter) Order of hash browns! (to Clyde) Alright. Anything else?
CLYDE
No, not for me. Say, where’re you from, anyway? I been sleepin' on that bus out there all night… Don't know where the hell I am or what I'm close to --
DEE
Yeah, there's a little town just up the highway a bit, that's where I'm from.
CLYDE
Hm. What's it like there? You like it there?
DEE
I don't mind it. Grew up there.
CLYDE
Grew up there. Family there?
DEE
Yeah.
CLYDE
You lookin' after your mother up there?
DEE
Yeah...
CLYDE
She sick?
DEE
Just old.
CLYDE
Just old. Ever gotten outta there, Dee?
DEE
Um... Been to Seattle one time. I got cousins there. You askin' a lot of questions.
CLYDE
(laughs) You're an interestin' girl, Dee.
DEE
We'll see. Where you from anyway?
CLYDE
Well uh... I don't know really anymore, know what I mean?
DEE
I think I might. You happen to still know where you're goin'?
CLYDE
(laughs) Just so happens. I'm headin' North to my mother's, stay there a few nights. I think then I'll be makin' my way West.
DEE
What’s west?
CLYDE
Friend’s got a cabin. Up in some woods.
DEE
(nodding) You lookin’ for God?...
CLYDE
(beat) Got a fella, Dee?
DEE
(ignores question)…Or salvation of some kind?
CLYDE
Got a fella at home?
DEE
I'll be right back with your hashbrowns.
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Man: You don’t know what it’s like to be in love. True love.
Girl: No, you’re right; but I can imagine.
Man: Is that right? Can you?
Girl: Alone someplace, so separate and isolated from the real world; a sphere of intimacy that clouds everything outside of it so that you can’t see what’s going on around you. The only thing that matters is the warm, dusty smell of the quilts in your bed and the patter of rain on the roof above you. Their arms are warm and comforting and the smell of their neck makes you light-headed. (pause) That’s what it’s like, isn’t it?
Man: Maybe it is.
Girl: Work and chores and school and responsibility outside of each other don’t exist. It’s just the two of you, breathing and touching and feeling whole. Like you know who you are, like you know finally why you’re here.
Man: Well kid, you have a better imagination than I would have thought possible for a girl your age.
Girl: I’m young still, and full of hope.
Man: Then for your sake I wish that some day you will find this love, but it’ll vanish down the highway shoulder just as fast as it came rolling through town.
Girl: That’s fine, so long as it comes at all.
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