characters
Emma: a sighted woman in her twenties or thirties. She lives in London and works in documentary filmmaking. She is open-minded, communicates clearly and has an energetic, playful streak.
Karl: an earnest, gangly man in his twenties or thirties. He works as a writer and a teacher. He is visually impaired but rarely uses a cane, and never when he is dating.
outline
This short, comic scene explores cane-use, sexuality and intimacy. We join Emma in her bedroom. Karl, who she has invited back after their second date, is off stage in the bathroom. Emma looks for a book in Karl’s backpack, which he has left near her bed, and she is surprised to find a folded white cane nestled at the bottom. She turns the cane over in her hands, opens it, snaps together the shaft sections. She has no idea what it is. When Karl returns from the bathroom and Emma shows him the cane, he takes it from her and invents increasingly ludicrous explanations for what the cane is, demonstrating them in turn (a selfie stick, a large graffiti pen, an elaborate USB powerbank, part of a tent he forgot to pack away from his last camping trip, a prop for a circus act). As his performance runs out of steam, Emma tells Karl she knows what it is. “Are you blind?” she asks him. “Not really, maybe a bit” he says. “Can you show me how to use it?” she says. Emma sits on the bed as Karl shows her how to use the cane around the bedroom. He gets carried away and swings the cane too high, smashing the single lightbulb that illuminates the bedroom. Now in complete darkness, we hear Karl sheepishly folding up the cane. “What happens now?” he asks. Emma says he can continue with the lesson, but that she would have to come close so she can feel how it is done. Karl agrees, and we hear Emma get up from the bed and approach Karl. As they assemble the cane once more, we hear them giggling as the shaft sections snap into place.