SCENE: This morning, DARA is reading, for the nth year running, a large group of one-act plays for a high school festival. She is sitting with her travelworn laptop at Janik’s at the corner of Division & Damen. Overhead, an exposed heating pipe is wrapped in plastic-tubed Christmas lights. Underneath, the floor is tiled like a chessboard. To her right is a wall of comic-book art plated in glass stacked like a European museum, where there’s so much art you can’t afford to let each piece have its own place on the x axis. To her left, a flatscreen is streaming images from NASA, interspersed with images of the menu. Galaxy – catering available. Supernova – Stella Artois. Behind DARA, people are glossing over emotions, in that way when someone has given you too much information, and you have to say something – but nothing you can say will be enough. She listens. It’s never too early.

A: (trying) Hey, that’s how life is, right – you don’t like it, hit the road.
B: Yeah. And I did.