The Extinction of Felix Garden

BROOKE:
Well, Officer, I called Bob on the phone because I was lonely.
I said: Bob, there’s no one here but the bears.

I get lonely. It’s a beautiful park, but sometimes I step out of my cabin and I look at the acres and acres of trees with their blank bark faces and I want to punch the roots out from under em.

(Excuse me, sir, I love these trees. I am sworn to God and my president that I will protect these trees until I expire. Sometimes you just want to punch what you love. That’s all.)

Anyway, so I call Bob when I start to feel desolate in this wilderness. He is a comfort. He tells me I should throw a tea party and invite the bears over. And I laugh and I say: Oh Bob! But then he tends to get peeved because it’s four a.m. over on the East Coast. I always forget the time zones between us. You love someone so much, it doesn’t seem like there could be anything between you, especially time. What’s time compared to love?

So then we hang up, and I can’t sleep the rest of the night. Teeny bit insomniac, see, Officer. I have some tricks to pass the time. One thing I like to do is I light a candle and pretend it’s Bob, and I talk to it.

You’re thinking: another Crazy.
I’m not a Crazy, though. I don’t think the candle’s talking back to me. It’s just a warm light that keeps me company in the dark hours. I melted one candle with another candle so that the one candle would look like Bob, a little (I’m no artist). Then I lit it with my Bic lighter, and the Bob-candle glowwed with love for me, just like I glow with love for Bob.

The light of sunrise seeps into the scene.

I came out here last night to read the birthday card he sent. He was a week late, but I don’t mind. My mother just told me yesterday: you drop that man, Brooke, you never have known what’s good for you.

Dawn begins to get out of hand, a little more fiery than sunrise should be. Sound of crackling.

What does my mother know? She married a man who spends his life collecting tiny little trains! Officer, my mother doesn’t know jack about love.

I’d show you the card he sent, but it all burnt up. I could recite it. Got it all up here.

Dear Brooke: (Such good handwriting.)
Please stop calling. (Silly Bob.)
I’ve met someone new. Bob.

Sound of raging fire, frightened animals.

Uh. Well. But wish I could show you his beautiful handwriting.
Anyway, he was never late with my birthday card before. That’s all.
So then I just, I just lit a candle, Officer. I just took my bic lighter and lit a candle. It was an accident, the way it took to the woods that way. And I am so sorry. I feel sad about the birds. They didn’t do anything to me. But jeez, they got wings, don’t they? You’d think they would’ve noticed the fire and flown up out of it. How. How did it all. Oh, it’s just that you never see the badness till it’s over.

The screech of birds in danger.

Did you ever love somebody so much that you could smell them even when they weren’t in the room?

The sounds disappear, as does BROOKE, leaving behind only the gargoyle on the roof of an apartment building in Brooklyn, frozen, still.