CHARACTERS:
WILFORD – 50.
MILA – 40
KLIG – 15, Mila’s son.

LIGHTS UP: early May. At a stone wall in a field. Here-and-there fallen stones lie on the ground. WILFORD stands on one side of the wall, MILA—who wears an ill-fitting bonnet—stands across on the other side. She is staring at the sky overhead. Wilford stares at Mila then, looking up, stretches his arms exuberantly to the sky:

WILFORD: Ahhhh, uummph, ahhhh … so . . . this . . . this . . . is dawn . . . in Vermont. Ahhhh, uummph, ahhhh . . . (lowers his arms, looks at her) . . . Perfect. Serene. Metaphysical! The sky is a painting, meant for a gallery—is that what you see?

MILA: (she points to somewhere in the sky) Kulerie Klee . . . Kulerie Klee . . .

WILFORD: (looking up) Excuse me?

MILA: (still looking and pointing skyward) Good morning, good morning.

WILFORD: (to Mila) Good morning . . . yes, good morning.

MILA: (still looking and pointing skyward) Good morning, Kulerie Klee.

WILFORD: (to Mila) Well . . . good morning, Kulerie Klee.

MILA: (lowers her arm; to Wilford) So unexpected, that we landed here.

WILFORD: Well, life, the turns in life . . . ha ha . . . me, from New York city to a farm in Vermont . . . overnight . . . practically overnight, it seems. . . ha ha . . .so unexpected, so amazing.

MILA: And your farm has been vacant a hundred years! We on our side have had no one to talk to.

WILFORD: Ah, well, good morning. I’m Wilford.

MILA: I’m Mila.

WILFORD: And . . . (looking skyward) . . . Kulerie Klee . . . is that a bird?

MILA: (looking skyward) No, my husband.

WILFORD: Husband . . . (looks skyward) . . . ah.

MILA: (searching skyward) He’s lost.

WILFORD: I’m sorry.

MILA: Me, too. It’s been hard. No one to talk to, no one to love, except Klig.

WILFORD: Klig?

MILA: Our son.

WILFORD: Ah. Well. I think I understand. You see, when Carla left me . . . crushed me . . .
it was like death . . . I needed to leave, quite sudden, quite impulsive, I read the ad in the newspaper, an “abandoned” farm in Vermont, and of course the word “abandoned” struck a chord with me . . . and . . . so . . . well—suddenly—so it seems, here I am, finding myself at dawn, amid the merry month of May. . . ha ha . . .at my stone wall, on my farm in Vermont, across from my neighbor, a complete stranger to me, a beautiful woman,
a widow . . . a mother . . . radiant in the rising sun . . . and I say: hail to life . . . hail . . .
hail to new beginnings!

MILA: (A moment, then): Not your wall, our wall.

WILFORD: Ah . . . ha ha . . . our wall. Well-well. Well, hail anyway.

MILA: My field extends so many perches north—this is the north field—ending one-foot under this wall—you and I share this wall, although your field—yours is your south field—
extends so many perches as to end only six-point-seven inches beneath this wall. I own
the most, you own the least. But . . . altogether . . . we share it, we have joint ownership.

WILFORD: Well. . .ha ha . . . hail new beginnings whatever!

MILA: I don’t fully understand walls . . . but . . . for whatever reason, we share one, Mr. Wilford.

WILFORD: Yes, apparently so, another unexpected turn, ha ha. And, by the way, Wilford is my first
name. My full name is Wilford Cranny. Have you ever read my novels?

MILA: My eyesight is poor . . . poor . . . Mr. Wilford.

WILFORD: Ah, well then . . . and it’s Wilford, but call me Will.

MILA: Will.

WILFORD: Yes. Simple. Will.

MILA: Fine.

WILFORD: Good. And it was your note, then, I found—(he holds a piece of paper)—pinned to the sweet-cherry tree by my kitchen door, and, which says—(he reads): “Meet me at break of dawn at the stone wall at the far end of your south field, running sixty-seven-point-five rods from the oak tree at twenty-four-point six degrees east of my barn?”

MILA: (shyly) Yes. I apologize for my poor handwriting. I’m surprised you can read it.

WILFORD: Not a problem . . . it is indeed strange print, but . . . well it helped that Carla is a
doctor, and the messages she would leave me were . . . well . . . ha ha.

MILA: I’m afraid I don’t fully understand, but . . . so . . . we should begin. With the cool temperature. I get very sick in any heat.

WILFORD: Sure. Begin what?

MILA: Mending the wall.

WILFORD: Mending the wall?

MILA: You see what frost has done? Uplifted stones and toppled them? It’s an ugly wall.

WILFORD: Yes, yes it is. It is indeed an ugly wall.

MILA: Klig and I are tired of having to fix this wall year-after-year all by ourselves. So when I learned about you, I promised him that I would ask you to help me instead. Frankly,
we hate having to fix it. We are angry at frost.

WILFORD: Frost . . . well . . . ha ha . . . you’ve hit on a good theme, there.

MILA: I don’t understand.

WILFORD: Vermont, Frost, Robert Frost, and his poem Mending Wall. You see?

MILA: Well perhaps I should, but I don’t.

WILFORD: Well . . . we don’t read anymore, that’s the problem . . . we don’t . . . oh, ha, don’t get me started. Ha. Ha ha.

MILA: Excuse me?

WILFORD: I hate walls!

MILA: I hate frost!

WILFORD: (looks at her a moment, then) Excuse me?