He Arrives Home Drunk (with Stage Directions)
He is downstage right, half-sitting on,
half-across an armchair,
in a fairly slobbed-out bodily situation.
The light from the neon strip is garish.
She enters upstage left
and walks quietly towards him
but moving in a slight arc to the left
before gazing down at him. She shifts her elbows
slightly, as if about to fold her arms,
then lets her arms fall. She leans forward
and sniffs a couple of times. Her lips move slightly
in an unheard phrase. There is a ten-pound note
pushing a crumpled way out of his shirt pocket
and she slides it loose, before going to the sideboard
(upstage right), folding the note neatly
and stowing it in a biscuit barrel.
She comes back downstage and tries for a moment
to straighten his leg, which is spreadeagled
half-across the chair arm. His leg drops with a crash
and she skips, as if startled.
She tries for a while to straighten his head and neck,
before crossing to the other chair (downstage left),
to bring back a cushion to protect his head
from the worst of its crick. For a moment
she seems about to straighten his tie, but leaves that,
and then she does fold her arms and her lips move
in some sort of murmur.
She crosses back to the doorway (upstage left),
turns off the strip lighting and switches on
a small side lamp. Exit, upstage left.
He lies quite still, the room now lit
with a low glow.
Robert Nisbet published short stories (100 of them in total) between 1975 and 2005, before turning then to poetry. His work has appeared recently in magazines like Smiths Knoll, Other Poetry and Orbis, and on the London Grip website.