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.)