025 - voice
[Mal is basically using her communicator like a Dictaphone, thinking out loud at it while she paces. If you listen carefully you can hear her moving about, and occasionally you might hear a soft clink of metal on metal-the sound of her playing with her totem.]
So that is a "breach", then? I am not sure that I like it any better or worse than the other disruptions to which we are subject here, but I find I can't stop thinking about the woman whose memories now linger like- [A pause, then a soft laugh.] Yes, like a dream. I know her whole history and what she wanted and feared and yearned for, and I am-
[A pause, then Mal resumes talking; her tone is not unlike that of someone telling a story to a child.]
She was born in a city and had not wanted to move out west, but her husband desired it and she followed as a good wife should. But once there, she grew to love it. She loved the heat and the wildness and the danger, and the breadth of the sky and the smell of sagebrush. With her husband dead, she was going to return to New York, to live with her sister's family, but as her the day of her departure grew closer, she grew sadder and sadder and I thought her heart would break. But she never told anyone.
She would have gone away with the thieves if they'd taken her. She wanted to beg them to take her, but the words froze in her mouth. She'd have left with that handsome stranger [some amusement there; she realises it was Arthur who flirted with her outside the saloon] if he'd asked. She'd have done almost anything to stay out there in the West, the first place she'd ever felt truly alive. But she was too afraid to make that decision for herself. She wanted someone else to make that decision for her.
[A long silence, punctuated only by the sound of her footsteps and the occasional soft clink.]
Is anyone else so haunted by these things?
[Private to Angelica]
May I have access to the deck again? I promise you that I may be trusted there.
So that is a "breach", then? I am not sure that I like it any better or worse than the other disruptions to which we are subject here, but I find I can't stop thinking about the woman whose memories now linger like- [A pause, then a soft laugh.] Yes, like a dream. I know her whole history and what she wanted and feared and yearned for, and I am-
[A pause, then Mal resumes talking; her tone is not unlike that of someone telling a story to a child.]
She was born in a city and had not wanted to move out west, but her husband desired it and she followed as a good wife should. But once there, she grew to love it. She loved the heat and the wildness and the danger, and the breadth of the sky and the smell of sagebrush. With her husband dead, she was going to return to New York, to live with her sister's family, but as her the day of her departure grew closer, she grew sadder and sadder and I thought her heart would break. But she never told anyone.
She would have gone away with the thieves if they'd taken her. She wanted to beg them to take her, but the words froze in her mouth. She'd have left with that handsome stranger [some amusement there; she realises it was Arthur who flirted with her outside the saloon] if he'd asked. She'd have done almost anything to stay out there in the West, the first place she'd ever felt truly alive. But she was too afraid to make that decision for herself. She wanted someone else to make that decision for her.
[A long silence, punctuated only by the sound of her footsteps and the occasional soft clink.]
Is anyone else so haunted by these things?
[Private to Angelica]
May I have access to the deck again? I promise you that I may be trusted there.