Sound inside

The Sound Inside 8/23/19 8
(to CHRISTOPHER)
You should’ve received one during orientation.
CHRISTOPHER Email’s just not my style.
BELLA(to AUDIENCE)
I ask him what he has against it and he tells—
CHRISTOPHER I prefer penmanship. Getting ink on your fingers. The human effort.
BELLA
How Victorian of you.
(to AUDIENCE)
He adds something about how one’s signature has lost significance in a world
obsessed with the selfie.
CHRISTOPHER Plus, I like the option of drawing the impulsive, inappropriate picture or two
in the margins.
BELLA
Oh.
CHRISTOPHER Nothing too inappropriate. No nudes or anything like that. Just the occasional
escaped circus clown playing with a naked toddler or two…
Awkward pause.
CHRISTOPHER Please don’t call campus security. I don’t actually have a clown thing. Naked
toddlers on the other hand…
BELLA(to AUDIENCE)
Suddenly remembering this now: one day in class we’d just completed an
automatic writing exercise and after a few of the more adventurous students
shared their work, we took the customary ten-minute break. While everyone
else was updating their Facebook statuses and checking their Instagrams and
Snapchats, Christopher Dunn stayed in his seat and looked over his work. It
had been years since I’d seen anything like this.
I ask him if he owns a computer and he says that indeed he does.
CHRISTOPHER MacBook Air, newest generation.
BELLA
So you’re not such a luddite, after all.