In a blue-walled bedroom, a seven-year-old girl watches her goldfish, plays with her dolls, draws pictures with her crayons. Her mother brushes her hair, buttons her school uniform, zips up her skirt. Her father leaves for work, kissing her mother goodbye. These are the familiar rhythms of family life, but something is wrong; the girl feels it, sees it. She remembers how things were when she was a girl of three, and it is rarely like that anymore. But the child does not have the words to express her emotions, and suspects that words themselves may be the problem. So she stops talking. While the audience can hear what she's thinking, through her silence the child attempts to influence her parents' behavior, to force them to communicate properly with each other and with her.