Objective: to get Tye to agree to come travelling with her.
Super-objective: in order to not feel tied down.
Outcome: Tye doesn’t join her; she goes off with Jessie.
TYE is sitting at a desk covered in watch parts and is focused entirely on his tinkering. He doesn’t turn around. NATCH enters and talks to TYE’s back.
NATCH: Sometimes, Tye, I wonder why we stick around this place. Everyone around here wanders through their blind little lives, and hardly any are interesting. Maybe we should move again. Find new people. Jessie seems like he could handle it. We could take him with us and start over. What do you say?
TYE makes an impatient gesture and keeps working.
Come on, when was the last time we were out on the road? I can barely remember. You never have any fun these days. With you, it’s always work, work, work. You care more about those damn watches than anything else. I want a change, I want to get out of this house, away from these little people. I want to see people like us again. I’m sick of being the only ones.
Come with me. It’ll be fun, like the old days. You can set up shop or whatever. You could do locks again; you liked those. I think you’ve worked on watches for too long. You’ll go mad here on your own, with only that ticking in your ears. Maybe that’s what you’d prefer. God knows you tell me to be quiet often enough. It’s not right, you know. This place is stifling, you must feel it. I don’t want to leave you here, but I will if I have to. I’ll take Jessie and we’ll go. You’ll be all alone with no idea when I’m coming back. You wouldn’t have to tell me to clean up, or quiet down, or to control myself. You’d like that. And I could do whatever the hell I wanted. Can you imagine that? Me, loose on my own? And only little Jessie to reign me in. That should give you nightmares.
Maybe you’re waiting for me to go. You should’ve just left if you wanted to be alone all this time. Too attached to your clocks, I guess. Are you bored? Is that why you’re always buried in gears? We’ve been living here too long. Nothing left to surprise us. Goddamn it, nothing surprises you anyway, so why should it matter? (Pause) No, wait, I get it. You’re bored of me, right? You got so used to knowing what’s happening and what’s going to happen, that you actually became bored of me. I’m too unpredictable for you, and you don’t like not knowing. Anyone else it’d be the other way around, but not for old Tye! No sir! He likes things his way and his way only. No flexibility for Tye; he’s as rigid as the watches he works on.
NATCH approaches TYE but doesn’t touch him.
No room for someone like me. You probably can’t even hear me over that ticking, can you?
