#86

There is stasis and then there is the inciting incident. The inciting incident must happen for the rest of the play to move forward and certainly for anything to resolve.

She sat in class listening to a visiting playwright explain this process. She noticed the girl next to her had green nail polish that was now only on the upper half of the nails, like it had been some time and the nails had meanwhile grown out. A funny way to mark time.

She could not tell in that moment which play she was in. There seemed to be an infinite number of inciting incidents over the past few weeks, which could stretch to months, probably even to years, that had to happen in order to get her where she was right now, in a classroom on a Saturday in September writing out a one-act play.

How does one know when the play begins? She wondered if she had missed the curtain rising, or perhaps this was it, right now.