A Suite of Five Stabs at 60

by Audie McCall


Palindrome

EMMA: Think! Don’t sit there. What are you thinking?

BOB: Sorry?

EMMA: Are you really? Now? Here?

BOB: I am.

EMMA: Wish I could believe you.

BOB: Do.

EMMA: I can’t.

BOB: Can’t you?

EMMA: But you love to want—

BOB: I—

EMMA: --Me.

BOB: Absolutely!

EMMA: Not love. You love not absolutely.

BOB: No, love.

EMMA: But me. I want to love you.

BOB: But you can’t.

EMMA: Can’t I?

BOB: Do you believe?

EMMA: Could I?

BOB: Wish. Just . . .

EMMA: I--

BOB: Am I here now?

EMMA: You are sorry thinking you are—

BOB: What?

EMMA: -- There.

BOB: Sit. Don’t think.

(End of play.)

Double Clock

KID: How long is now?

GROWNUP: Hmmm. Well. I don’t know. ‘Bout a minute?

KID: No. Now is longer than that.

GROWNUP: Or shorter.

KID: Now can be an afternoon.

GROWNUP: Or a breath.

KID: In or out?

GROWNUP: Both.

KID: Or an Elmo.

GROWNUP: Okay. But only one.

KID: I’m with you now.

GROWNUP: Me, too.

KID: You’re with me.

GROWNUP: Always and forever.

KID: Now.

GROWNUP: Yeah.

(End of play.)


Devotion

story by RangyJoeyHondo

(Lights upon a waiting room in a psychiatrist's office. A male and female patient sit reading magazines, preferably from the 60’s.)
FEMALE PATIENT: Waiting long?

MALE PATIENT: Seems like forever.

FEMALE PATIENT: Here to see Dr. Goodyear?

MALE PATIENT: Yes. I believe that’s correct.

FEMALE PATIENT: Me, too.

MALE PATIENT: I’m an amnesiac.

FEMALE PATIENT: Yes, me too. That’s his specialty.

MALE PATIENT: Yes. I think I knew that.

FEMALE PATIENT: I’m a special case. My husband and I were in an accident. Now we both suffer from amnesia.

MALE PATIENT: You know, I have a very similar case. A sort of tragedy struck my wife and I and we both have absolutely severe memory damage. Or so I recall. . . Dr. Goodyear. . . . saying something about . . . .

FEMALE PATIENT: Yes.

MALE PATIENT: Well, that’s quite—

FEMALE PATIENT: Fascinating.

MALE PATIENT: Yes.

(They turn and look each other in the eye.
Beat.
They turn back away.
Beat.)
FEMALE PATIENT: Oh my gosh, these doctors sure like to make you wait.

MALE PATIENT: They sure seem to, don’t they?

(They return to reading their magazines.
Fade to black.
End of play.)

Block Universe

(Lights up on two people kissing.)

PHYSICIST: Everything’s happening all at once.

LAY PERSON: Sure seems that way, doesn’t it?

PHYSICIST: No, no. It doesn’t seem that way. It is that way. It’s not my impressions of things. We live in a block universe.

LAY PERSON: We do? What is that?

PHYSICIST: Everything happens all at once. Time doesn’t pass; we just think it does. Light doesn’t radiate. Particles don’t move. Instead their tracks are world lines frozen everywhere in everywhen.

LAY PERSON: Hunh.

PHYSICIST: So . . .

LAY PERSON: And that makes this block thing you’re talking about?

PHYSICIST: Block universe, yeah.

LAY PERSON: So I’m always kissing you.

PHYSICIST: And you’re always pooping your diapers.

LAY PERSON: Right. Well . . .

PHYSICIST: So . . .

LAY PERSON: So I can live with that.

PHYSICIST: Oh, okay.

(They kiss again.
Fade to black.
End of play.)

Everything Butt

USR_god_VoicE: Greetings. Welcome to the Kitchen Sink. You have 60 seconds from login to post something useful and/or witty and/or scandalous and/or scandalously witty, i.e. useful.

NOOB: Hello?

USR_god_VoicE: Greetings. Welcome to the Kitchen Sink—

NOOB: Wait! What is this place?

Burning_Bush_911: It’s a place that’s not a place but still’s a place for words to accumulate. Would you like to post some?

USR_god_VoicE: You have 20 seconds.

NOOB: What’s the rush?

keeG_hceT: All our servers are on borrowed time. This is not a place that could disappear at any time.

NOOB: That blows.

Burning_Bush_911: And mightily.

NOOB: And it’s all so disconnected and impersonal. So . . . virtual.

TenMinJoe: Perhaps. But what if someone told you that could be someone some day could print your words and say them out loud in front of some others in a dark uncomfortable but actual room.

NOOB: That would be astonishing. That could happen for me, my words?

Burning_Bush_911: Sure. If you believe in such things.

NOOB: I’m in. I have something brilliant

USR_god_VoicE: Sorry.

NOOB: --to--

keeG_hceT: Times up.

NOOB: --say.

Burning_Bush_911: Consider it undone.

(Blackout.
Blank hum and sick clicking.)