“Go With the Flow” by Queens of the Stone Age from That Loud Mix

Listen to it here

LORENZO sits in a sparse room, a milk crate table in front of him, a framed photo on the table. His chair is ratty but comfortable, like that t-shirt you can’t throw away. He absentmindedly picks up the photo, sighing.

LORENZO

The thing of it is….honestly that day was kind of shit.

He stands up and wanders a bit away from the audience, deeper onto the stage.

LORENZO

It rained that day, for one. Not continuously enough for us to just call it, but
on and off all day. It was like…just often enough to make things soggy and
unpleasant. Make us itchy and stressed.

LORENZO pours a glass of water and takes a long drink, places the photo on the island, face up

LORENZO

And the fair…the fair was not like either of us remembered. Shoddy. Overpriced.
Loud. Dirty. Not at all the pleasant nostalgia soaked day out we expected.

But for that one moment, that moment that kid snag my phone and took a
picture of us before flipping it back and running off…we look so happy. Like…
maybe the happiest photo of us ever.

Another drink.

LORENZO

See the photo is a lie about that day, but not about us. I think. I like to think.
Most of our photos are static, staid. We look…like we’re trying. Straining to
be happy. But we were happy, usually. And when we took those pics, we
definitely were. But somehow this one, on this lousy day where we bickered
most of it away, this is the one that “captures us” as I remember us. Or think
of us.

Either way.

Returns to front of stage, sets pic back up but doesn’t sit.

LORENZO

So when I saw it on top of one of her boxes, the day she moved out. I snagged
it. I don’t think I stole it. I don’t think that’s how it works. If anything, she was
stealing because it belonged to both of us AND I’m sure this was my frame.

Anyway, I snagged it. Because it’s us. Her and I. Our love. Our fun. Our potential.
And just like us, it’s kind of a lie. But, like...the kind of lie that’s a little true? Does
that make any sense? It’s who we might have been and were for a moment,
even if it wasn’t that way that day and isn’t that way now.

So I took the picture. Because, beyond the frame…beyond the frame it’s all bad
and it’s all over. But in that frame…in that frame is the real us. Forever.