Com una gossa en un descampat

An empty lot. In the center of the lot, a gynecological exam chair. A hospital bed. A toilet. Garbage. Various trusses with spotlights. A clock without hands. An oven. A steering wheel, headlights, and the bodywork of a car. Everything scattered about. An old-fashioned microphone suspended from the ceiling. Lighting from the side. A window letting light in. Sand covering the ground. A dog barks.
Júlia 2 and Júlia enter, running. They look around. They're exhausted. They've been running for some time.

JÚLIA 2: This is it! Oh! This is it!
JÚLIA: You run so fast!
JÚLIA 2: The window... The hall...
JÚLIA: I'm so tired!
JÚLIA 2: Look, everything’s covered in dirt and weeds... They've grown up everywhere.
JÚLIA: This place stinks. And it's getting dark. And there's garbage everywhere.
JÚLIA 2: It's not garbage...
JÚLIA: I want to go back home.
JÚLIA 2: You need to sit down here first.
JÚLIA: Here? Where?
JÚLIA 2: Here.
JÚLIA: There's nothing here. It's an empty lot.
JÚLIA 2: Don't you see the bed?
JÚLIA: What bed? I don't see a bed. I think I should just go back home and...
JÚLIA 2: You really don't see the bed...!
JÚLIA: I'm really worn out!
JÚLIA 2: Take a good look.
JÚLIA: I am looking... There's nothing here!

Júlia 2 takes Júlia's hand and makes her touch the bed. Júlia pulls her hand back, startled.
JÚLIA: Oh! There is something here!
JÚLIA 2: Look carefully.
JÚLIA: It's some kind of...
JÚLIA 2: Of what?
JÚLIA: Of... I don't know!
JÚLIA 2: Think!

Júlia sees the bed.

JÚLIA: Of bed! It's a bed! I see a bed!
JÚLIA 2: Good! (She motions to the gynecological exam chair) And this?

Júlia looks at the gynecological exam chair. She looks at the window. She remembers.
JÚLIA: It's the hospital. Did you bring me to the hospital?
JÚLIA 2: Yes. Just so you can...
JÚLIA: I want to go back home.
JÚLIA 2: No, no, no, no...

Júlia tries to leave. Júlia 2 stops her.
JÚLIA: I want to go back home! I'm happy there!
JÚLIA 2: You're not happy there!! You never eat! You never sleep!
JÚLIA: I'm never hungry. I'm never sleepy.
JÚLIA 2: Everybody at some point in the middle of the night or day gets sleepy!!

There is a noise. The dogs bark.
JÚLIA 2: What was that?

A shadow passes. It lodges itself in the corner.
JÚLIA 2: Did you see that?
JÚLIA: Hello?!!! Anybody there?!!
JÚLIA 2: It's the fog... It's impossible to see anything in this...
JÚLIA: Who's there? You, looking at us from the dark! Who are you?
JÚLIA 2: Maybe we should go back home now.
JÚLIA: No.

Júlia takes a few steps in the direction of the shadow.
JÚLIA: Hey!! You!! Hey!! Hey!! Wait!

The shadow leaves.
JÚLIA: It's gone. (Silence) He’s the reason you brought me here!
JÚLIA 2: Sorry...
JÚLIA: Why do you have to torture me?!
JÚLIA 2: I'm not torturing you! I'm trying to take care of you! You never leave the house, you never leave your chair, you spend the entire day staring at the wall. You won't let your pills out of your sight. Your stomach always hurts and your heart always aches. And your head is filled with a shadow that won’t let anything else in! How long has it been?!
JÚLIA: The days have flown by so quickly since then! Like trees planted by the side of the road, flashing past the car windows so fast you can't even see them. Like ghosts.

Júlia looks over to where the shadow disappeared.
JÚLIA: Last night I dreamt I was back at the hospital. Everything was the same, but different. Nature had taken over every room. Weeds had grown up so high they were covering the beds and exam tables. The floors of the halls were covered in dirty sand. It looked like an empty lot. Death where life should have been. The moonlight can play tricks on the imagination... All of a sudden, I thought I saw him. There, in the middle of the room. Tall and strong. Everything he would have been. If the war hadn't caught us. If death hadn't cornered us. I could have looked after him.
JÚLIA 2: What happened, happened!
JÚLIA: I remember the hospital days muddy and stretched like chewing gum. I remember the doctors' words and the way Pau looked at me. And I remember how strong I was. I have no idea where I found such strength. The instinct to survive came to me as though from beyond the grave, from somewhere far away, from beneath the earth. And it wasn't invisible. It was a strength that could be seen and felt. As if I was being propelled by the women who died before me, my Nana, my grandma, Pili. All of them there with me. They were all there for those days in the hospital, all around me, rowing, not letting me look down and see the sharks circling in the water. (Silence) But now... I sit in my chair and stare at the wall. I watch the days go by, and the ghosts. And all that force that came out of nowhere has drifted away, like smoke from a bonfire. Now I'm weak and fragile, a squashed toad. What do they expect? Do they expect me to fight? Who am I supposed to fight? There's no enemy. There's only the emptiness of this place, and it's torture for me. There is nothing except the whatcouldhavebeens and the shadow. I'm tired and I...

Júlia 2 looks over to where the shadow disappeared.
JÚLIA 2: The shadow! That's it!!
JÚLIA:. ... I want to go home.
JÚLIA 2: Try to remember when the shadow first showed up.
JÚLIA: What?
JÚLIA 2: You need to remember when the shadow first showed up! When the shadow decided to set up camp in this empty lot!
JÚLIA: How am I supposed to remember that?! I can barely even see the bed!
JÚLIA 2: Come closer, touch things...

Júlia 2 goes over to a mound of objects piled up in the empty lot. She picks up a blue envelope, from the hospital.
JÚLIA: The dead are dead, and their bones should be left alone to lie in peace. Didn't they ever teach you that as a child?
JÚLIA 2: That first day. The day you were admitted. You were carrying this in your hand. They had you undress. Remember?
JÚLIA: (She sighs).
JÚLIA 2: Pau was outside, talking on the phone...
JÚLIA: If I agree to remember the day we came here, will you leave me in peace?
JÚLIA 2: Your peace reeks like rotting animal carcasses in a slaughterhouse.

Enter Pau, dressed as a lighting technician. He's speaking on his phone.
PAU: (on the phone) Ricard...? I'm not at the theater.

Júlia and Júlia 2 look at him.
PAU: (on the phone) I'm at the hospital. Do you think Manel can run the tech rehearsal?
JÚLIA: That’s it. The day I was admitted.
PAU: (on the phone) Júlia's not feeling good.
JÚLIA: They saw to us right away. That's how you know it's bad, when they rush to take you ahead of everybody else in the ER.
PAU: (on the phone) We're hoping it's nothing serious.
JÚLIA 2: You were here.
JÚLIA: I was here. In the examining room. And you stood behind me, like always, at my back.
PAU: Thanks, Ricard, talk soon.

Júlia sits in the gynecological exam chair. She's pregnant. Júlia 2 stands behind her.
JÚLIA: Then Pau entered the room.

Pau ends his call and enters the exam room. He gives Júlia a kiss.
PAU: How are you, babe?
JÚLIA: Fine... But it hurts...

Júlia touches her belly. The gynecologist enters. Flashback to the past, in the hospital. Júlia 2 is also in the flashback. They are both the memory.