INT. SMALL LIVING ROOM – EVENING

Music hums softly from a radio. A lava lamp blorps in the corner. The shag carpet is buried under open notebooks, stray hair ties, and one very overwhelmed hairbrush. TALIA sits on the couch, her sleeves rolled up, wrestling with KAMARI’s thick, curly hair. SABINE sits nearby at a desk, tinkering with a device, pretending not to eavesdrop. Her glasses catch the orange glow of the setting sun.

TALIA

Hold still…

KAMARI

Ow! That’s my brain stem, I think.

SABINE

(without looking up)

Anatomically impossible.

KAMARI

See, she was listening!

SABINE

I am not.

I’m calibrating the empathic amplifier.

TALIA

(teasing)

Uh-huh.

Calibrating how to interrupt your daughter’s conversation without turning around.

SABINE

(flatly)

That is called multitasking, Talia.

Some of us have mastered it.

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