Three Days of Rain
By Richard Greenberg

Here, neurotic Theo hovers and babbles while his friend, roommate, and business partner, the more-or-less silent Ned calmly inspects a series of his drawings.

THEO:

It came to me whole. Do you know those moments? No labor, pure vision: Emerson on the I.R.T.

I started sketching right then - that's the wavery lines - anyway, you know how badly I draw, did you ever hear Cole Porter play piano? It's the same thing.

Are you looking, are you thinking, what? Don't talk. Think. I'm jabbering, I'll shut up. I tell you, it was such a startling thing when it came to me, I almost resisted it. I'd become comfortable with failing. I know I wasn't failing yet, but I'd started to fear... sterility. Delusion. Emptiness.

Don't look at that, that's corrected on the next page, see? Don't look at that, it's poorly drafted, it's a terrible idea, anyway, it stinks, I'm getting rid of it.

Listen, I'll leave you alone, I'll be silent, you'll be silent, we'll both shut up. (Pause.)

Why are you so quiet? Do you hate it? If you hate it, just say it, I'll stop already and let you... Of course, it's incredibly rough and, who knows, it's in progress, it's, we can throw it away. But at least we have something to throw away, that's the crucial step, it's when you have something you can reject completely that you know you're almost there. And it's not as if anybody else was coming up with, it's not as if you're - and of course even if it's genius it may not be suitable, it may not be suitable to your parents. After all it's your parents' dime we're spending (more or less literally, but) anyway, who knows what their taste is, who knows if they even have taste; really, there's no reason to believe they have taste at all...

Why are you looking there again? You already looked there. Is something wrong? Look, obviously all the sketches are clumsy, the arithmetic is wrong, the proportions are out of proportion, you know the minion skills I'm lousy at. Can you see the intention through?

Tell me. Tell me the truth. Tell me the absolute truth. Tell me what I want to hear. The absolute truth that I want to hear. Say nothing. Talk!

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