Rom-Com · 4 min
Shotgun.
On a highway drive full of tiny irritations, two strangers spar their way toward the kind of chemistry neither wants to admit yet.
The roles
KENT
Mid-20s. A recent graduate sharing a car ride with a stranger. He has theories about everything and evidence for none of them. Thinks he's charming.
NIRA
Mid-20s. A master's student who agreed to share a ride and regrets it already. Precise, controlled, and determined not to be entertained.
Shotgun · Rom-Com side · memorlined.app
(A car on a highway. Late morning. KENT is driving. NIRA is in the passenger seat with a book in her lap. The AC is on high.)
NIRA
Can you turn that down.
KENT
I run hot.
NIRA
Then crack a window.
KENT
At seventy?
(He turns the AC down one notch.)
KENT
So. Jaya says you just finished your master's.
NIRA
I'd rather not do this.
KENT
Do what.
NIRA
The getting-to-know-you part. We have six hours. I brought a book.
KENT
You're going to read for six hours in a moving car?
NIRA
That was the plan.
(She opens the book.)
KENT
Can I say one thing.
NIRA
That tone suggests it won't be one thing.
KENT
Don't you think it's weird that Jaya put us in a car together?
NIRA
She said you needed a ride. I was going the same direction.
KENT
Right. Except she described me as "interesting." Her word.
NIRA
She said "he's fine. He won't be weird."
KENT
She said I wouldn't be weird?
NIRA
Her exact words.
KENT
That's not the recommendation I was imagining.
(A truck passes. The car shakes slightly.)
NIRA
Can you get in the right lane.
KENT
I'm passing.
NIRA
You've been in the left lane for twenty minutes.
KENT
I pass slowly.
NIRA
That's not passing. That's camping.
(He changes lanes.)
KENT
What I'm saying is, when a friend puts two people in an enclosed space for six hours—
NIRA
She needed someone to split gas with.
KENT
OK. Sure.
NIRA
I'm also seeing someone. So.
KENT
Ah.
NIRA
What does "ah" mean.
KENT
It means "ah." It's not a code.
(Silence.)
KENT
I'm stopping for gas in about twenty minutes. Need anything?
NIRA
No.
KENT
What are you reading?
NIRA
Are you going to talk the entire drive.
KENT
Probably. Yeah.
NIRA
It's a novel.
KENT
Any good?
NIRA
I've read three pages. Someone keeps talking.
KENT
Three pages in two hours. That's on you.
(A gas station sign ahead.)
KENT
This one work?
NIRA
Fine.
KENT
I'm getting something from the hot case. Fair warning.
NIRA
Why is that a warning.
KENT
Because it's going to smell. In this car. For four more hours.
NIRA
Don't get something that smells.
KENT
Everything in the hot case smells. That's the whole point of the hot case.
(He pulls in. Parks. Kills the engine.)
NIRA
I'll pump.
KENT
I got it.
(He gets out. She sits for a moment. Closes the book. Gets out.)
Print it for class, or open it in the app: every role in this side is playable, and the other side of the scene gets a reader. Cast a voice against your part in the Audition Room, then run it until the lines are yours.
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