[Scene: FLORENCIA ACEITUNO's kitchen, twilight. FLORENCIA enters from the living room, carrying a brown paper parcel about the size of a football. She inspects package]
FA: H.S. Corkendayl... Hmm... Might be a relative of the Boston Kurkendals, but from far enough back that the spelling changed. Unless it was changed to make this branch of the family harder to find... Could it be? Could this be Gertrude Kurkendal's boy Gerald who robbed that baker and ran off? McCormick, Utah, eh? It could be... McCormick is about 48 miles from any large body of water, and Gerald never could abide so much as a puddle. Gerald was G. P., though, Gerald Palter, after his uncle, and this person signs themselves H.S. The Kurkendals never had a H.S.
[Picks at the tape]
FA:It's so soft and cushiony. I wonder if there's a cushion under all this tape!
[The tape removed, the paper starts to fall away]
FA: Gosh, this must be, what, about 13 layers of brown paper? Whoever sent this must have really wanted to protect it.
[The paper falls to the floor around FLORENCIA's chair. She is wearing ankle socks with pompoms on the back, which are slowly lost beneath the drifts of brown paper.]
FA: Well, it's not a cushion. It looks like... yes, this is definitely the box that Wells Fargo sent someone their checks in. But the Wells Fargo logo has been painted over, and the back has been painted black. I see they've misspelled my name on the side here, but they remembered my birthday. It's a charming little sunset scene, without the logos. How did whoever sent this know how I like sunset scenes?
[Opens box]
FA: More brown paper and tape. There must be something really precious in there.
[FLORENCIA cuts through the tape along one side and peels the top layer away. Inside is a brown paper parcel wrapped in scotch tape. FLORENCIA frowns a little and cuts through the tape, revealing a brown paper parcel wrapped in tape.]
FA: Oh. More brown paper.
[She drops each successive husk of paper and tape onto the pile at her feet. The parcel grows smaller and smaller, until she is sitting in a sea of brown paper, holding a rolled piece of brown paper about the size of her thumb. She rolls the tape back, careful not to rip the paper or damage what might be inside. The tape eventually comes away, and the small tube unrolls. FLORENCIA now holds a rumpled piece of brown paper. She turns it over in her hands, looking for a message or anything caught in the creases. After a moment she lets the paper flutter to the top of the pile. She gazes at the wall of her kitchen and thinks about the people she knew and the places she went long ago.