image: torontofunplaces.blogspot.com

A series of mini-dramas based on public conversations, as overheard and rewritten by local playwright/director Aurora Stewart de Peña.

Overheard on the Ward’s Island Beach.

The beach is packed. There are bonfires. “Jock Rock Volume 2” plays from an iPod, people in fluorescent swimwear nearby sway in time to the beat.

Myles, 28, has pomaded his short hair so that each strand points in a different direction. He’s wearing ray-bans with white frames and knee length swim shorts. 

He lounges on a towel, drinking Amsterdam Framboise.

Kayla and Priya, both 19, share a towel beside him.

They crack their own Amsterdam Framboise. 

Kayla: Thanks.

Priya takes a sip.

Priya: Oh, it’s sweet.

Myles: Framboise. Craft brewed. Local. I only drink local.

Kayla: Cool.

Priya: Yeah, It’s so important to drink local beer. Support it.

What did you say you did again?

Myles: Wind.

Priya: What?

Myles: I do wind.

Priya: You “do” wind?

Kayla: Like wind energy?

Myles: Something like that.

Kayla: But…

Priya: But, like, what do you do in a day?

Do you go to an office?

Hang out by a turbine?

Myles takes a sip of his Framboise. 

Kayla: Do you install those big windmills that you see in farmers’ fields?

Myles looks out at the lake. A large gust of wind rustles the trees, tossing the girls’ hair, upsetting empty Framboise cans.

Myles waves his hand around the atmosphere. His hair has maintained its rigidity. 

Myles: You feel that, right there?

He makes a fist and draws it into his chest.

I harness that, I turn it into energy.

Myles drains the last of his beer. He plants the empty can in the sand and takes another from the cooler, cracking it open.

Kayla: Okay, then. 

Priya: I see.

We’re gonna go.

Kayla: Bye.

Priya: Yeah, thanks for the Framboise.

Kayla and Priya stand, and shake the sand from their towel. They walk down the beach.

Myles takes a small, dried mushroom from a plastic baggie. He chews and swallows it.