The Outside, In.

We're sitting in our living room, watching the television. Familiar, but unfamiliar surroundings, the carpet is grass, we're sitting on a park bench, and the TV is perched upon a tree stump.

The air is fresh and has that smell of the outdoors after the rain. A butterfly glides past, then lands upon the TV, where it stays to rest.

The programme we are watching is about a mother and her daughter, the daughter only about 6 years old and small for her age. The mother is obsessed with health and fitnesss. She wears a brown, velour track suit.

The little girl is kneeling on the floor, she may be drawing a picture, but we cannot see as she has her back to us. Her mother pedals furiously on an old exercise bike, the motion of her legs causing a draft that gently ruffles her daughters hair and clothes.

Then all motion ceases, the power's down. Screaming, shouting, the mother is filled with rage, so obsessed is she with her regime, woe betide anything that comes between her and her exercise bike. Her face is now pressed up against the TV screen, looking out at us, contorted and twisted beyond recognition, tears of frustration rolling down her cheeks.

Then the TV has a split screen view, one side shows a workman, agitated in his manner, the sweat of fear collecting on his brow. He's frantically working to fix a contraption that provides the house with power. The other side show's the mother, and her passive child. The mother has removed her track suit to reveal plain white shorts and t-shirt, but what causes us to gasp are her painfully thin arms and legs, bones visible through the papery skin. The velour track suit served it's purpose to disguise this fact, the mother's shield from the outside world, but now she is exposed, her insecurities laid bare for all to see.

She climbs aboard the bicycle again, knowing full well there is no power, we puzzled viewers wondering why you would need power for an exercise bike anyway. She starts to pedal again, furiously, as the workman is still trying to fix the contraption. Her pedaling causes such vibrations, the walls and floor begin to shake, then a cracking sound, and her little girl is swallowed up by a gaping hole in the floor, the crack running from this hole towards the mother, oblivious of her daughter's plight, then she is swallowed up by another gaping hole in the floor.

The dust filled air swirls, a crow appears and lands between the two holes in the floor, the sound of it"s voice ringing through the air.