The Commercial Exchange Building

A Micro Play in 3 Acts

By Eliot Gabriel Graham

August 18, 2026

Act II

As the dry sun reluctantly yoked up, the scene was taking on a direction, working better for everyone involved. Six windows east of Olive, was the plan, to be executed in due course.

"The ground always shakes here, the locals know. You take your chances staying in a high rise anywhere in the state of California. Even holding for a red light under a bridge gets angsty after thirty seconds or so, digits fidget the steering wheel grooves, trying really hard to hold down a 4/4 time signature." Johnny Jones was pillow talking, air drumming, soft breathe-bragging his life as a frontier kid, “look, I’m not saying that Californians are better than anyone else, I'm definitely not saying that, but, and this is bigger than yours, this, you know…” raising his eyebrows Groucho Marx-like, as she puffs out a coy sigh. “… double bubble butt, if you happened to have been born here, you’re probably a lot cooler than if you hadn’t”.
“Pa-lease…so lame.”
“Jack London, uh-huh, Horatio Algier, ehhh.”
“What band were they in?”
“Oh, the burden.”
“Can you just stop being a doomer and tell me.” She paddles her feet and legs through the plashing air, causing the top bunk they're piled on to rock in squared rectilinear jerks, jello-jiggling all the pillows.
"Betty, you bet ya boobs, Betty Boop."

A lock of sunshine peaks into their room and swipes the curtain open. Refracting a view to the street where it’s clear a construction project is well under way. Sounds of circular saw bursts and angle grinds, visceral metal on metal screech that shred up any soundscape within the site's earshot; triplets of hammer strikes, crescendoing on the last beat, bap, bap, BAP; the annoying cadence beep of work trucks in reverse, always seeming to relish in taking just a little more time than needed to complete the maneuvre. The bawling of ranchero music. The din of chatter, whistles, grunts, and imperative tones of that universal, timeless and primordial language of worksite communication, indistinguishable, surely from that heard during the raising of the pyramids of Giza, or Stonehenge of Salisbury.

“ALL OF YOU IDIOTS STILL IN YOUR BEDS, GET UP!”
Thales Man was now down at the street level, in front of the Golden Gopher, breakfast martini in one hand, voicebox bull horn in the other. A thin, pretzel-postured man just off his side.
“I know there are more of you in there, GET UP AND COME TO YOUR WINDOWS!”
Curtains randomly flitter open like birdhouse condominium openings, or council estate glimpses at a crime scene down below.
“Yeah, that's right all you soft-skulled egg whites, take a look around. It's not a bloody dream, your building has been cracked in half. Cracked right down the fin."

A sea of bloodshot eyeballs blinks in unison. A massive thought bubble in the sky reads, "Huh?".

“Here’s the deal, for you numb bums who snoozed through last night’s events…” wolfing down his martini in one maw, after chewing it, performatively, as if it were an actual, solid breakfast.
Betty leers at Johnny incredulously, blowing a massive bubble gum bubble, popping it causally near his face.
"Yeah, Kool n the gang."

With that a plash of glass hits the sidewalk. Another window lost its grip on the brick that was connecting it to the building.
The screen twitches in pixellation, holding the least flattering image of every character's startlement.

"Sorry about that, lo siento, dude!" a laborer nearest to the suicided window's jump point could be heard.
"For god's sake, El Dude, yell headache next time!," Thales Man upbraided. If we don’t get to work soon, someone’s gonna get a limb jammed from these nosediving windows!”
"All right, here's the deal…” his vain-rudded pate heaving into his spiel, going full rictus to the point where it looks as if he's about to oyster down his bullhorn like a pelican does a massive carp.

IT'S NOT ON, WE CAN'T HEAR YOU!

“Wait, what?”
He throws his empty martini glass at his assistant, whose striped seersucker suit flaps slightly near the collar as the piece of glass whizzes by. The assistant gestures with his pointer and index fingers together in a cupping motion.
“Oh, burn it all,” the foreman tosses the device to him in disgust, deciding his throat organ is powerful enough.

“Any of you been on the trans Siberian train through the Mongolian/China border?"
A pack of seagulls keowed in the distance.
Thales man continued. "Geeze, I didn't realize I was that interesting. Well, this is what they do, the track gauges are of different sizes, so they have to change out the wheels when they get to the border. The train pulls into a garage, they put it on a lift, detach the Russian wheel gauge, and replace it with the Chinese one. And here's the point: when they pull into the station, they make an announcement giving you the option to remain in your room, or de-train and hang out in the station lounge. The train thing takes about two hours. What we’re about to do’s gonna take two whole days.”
He turns to his assistant for final confirmation, receiving a pit-boss-like head nod.
“You have it?”
The assistant reveals the capsa he was holding behind his back.
“Would it kill you to speak, Kikeron?”
Kikeron twirls the capsa.
“Nothing’s changed,” he turns back towards the building, “anyways, you got 20 minutes to uncork, or you'll be stuck in your room for the next two days.

"Russia, China, what train gauges, what the fuck are you talking about old man?," Johnny Jones yells out the window, looking back to give his girlfriend a wink.
"Listen, punk, I don't give a squirrel's toss what you and your little cotton candy do, just make up your minds and get on with it. Exits are snapping shut in 20 minutes. Got that?!”
Ignoring Thales Man, Johnny starts recording Betty posing fish lips in front of the window.
“I said GOT THAT, you mangy little trogs up there?"
“He's yelling at us, Johnny.”
“Just flash him, that'll shut him up.”
"Oh, and if you are in rooms with structural damage, that is, you can feel the breeze whistling between your ears, you don't have a choice, you got 20 minutes.”
He pauses for a moment to appreciate Betty’s offering.
“That’s it,” he finalizes as he and Kikeron head back into the Golden Gopher.

*

III

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