Dear reader,
Where are you right now, and what are you reading? Why are you not currently reading this new entry in my diary? What do I need to do to earn your attention? What do you find so interesting about that other writer’s words; why do you choose to continue looking at them instead of reading MY words here? I’ll talk about anything you want me to talk about — the problem is that I can’t see what you’re thinking; I don’t know what you’re in the mood for. I can’t tell if you’d prefer that I compose a treatise on flowers, or if you would rather have me compile a bunch of facts about automobile repair. What must an author do to please his reader? Let me take a look at that weblog that has so engrossed you — what’s it about? Is it authored by a mother, and is she talking about her daily life; how she raises her children, and her curriculum for home-schooling? Would it help if I added recipes to my entry here? Or should I tell true stories of lost love? Maybe you’d prefer that I set out a number of political arguments, and ridicule that candidate from the other team. I wonder if you’d suddenly begin to pay attention if I were to reveal a list of easy steps that you can take to achieve mental health? I swear, if I knew which religion you subscribed to, I would declare a whole bunch of good stuff about its god or gods—or I’d even tout the superiority of godlessness, if your perspective is steadfastly atheistic.
Ah, forget it. I can’t decipher your preferences. I have no idea what you want me to write, dearest reader. Therefore, fuck off. Go stay with your other, preferred authors. Keep reading them; see if I care. I’ll just drone on about whatever I want, and it won’t please you. That’s just fine. My words will not please ANYONE AT ALL among the enemy’s readership.
I feel like writing a bad play today. Just a total piece of shit. I hope that nobody finds it pleasant...
*
BRYAN'S PLAY (NOT YOURS)
Act 1
[A family is eating together in their dining room: MOM and DAD and BOY and GIRL. There is also a MONSTER under the table. Until the moment comes when he must rise up and address the family, the MONSTER just crouches there, listening to the goings-on; and he occasionally engages in self-grooming.
The first full hour of the play consists of nothing but silent eating and the clinking of silverware. Then, suddenly, DAD tips over his cup of milk; and there is a deafening crash of glass.]
DAD
Merdre, I spilled my milk. Someone clean that up.
MOM
Clean it up yourself.
[Here the MONSTER creeps out from under the table.]
MONSTER
Hey, kids, dear boy and girl, why do you put up with this, night after night?
BOY
What would you have us do? We don’t wanna cut off our own supply chain. And suicide is cost-prohibitive.
GIRL
How do we know that you’re not just our imaginary friend, tho, Bob? For mama and papa don’t seem to see you.
DAD
Shut up, kids.
MOM
Kids, don’t speak unless spoken to. You’re making no sense, talking about nothing to nobody. I suspect that you’re both vile sinners.
DAD
Look what you’ve done, you brats. You’ve made your mother sick. Tomorrow I shall administer drug tests to both of you; for we need to get to the bottom of this problem of your existence. Now where’s my pacifier?
[Dad reaches behind him and turns on the radio. It is broadcasting a political talk show, blaring loud.]
DAD
Ah, that’s better. Now go away, but don’t abandon me.
MONSTER [shouting so as to be heard over the radio]
You ask me how you might know that I’m not just your imaginary friend but that I exist in actuality, Sophia? Here’s proof of the fact: I can repeat things about you which you’ve revealed when you sleep-talk at night. Embarrassing info. Do you really want me to do that?
GIRL
You eavesdrop on us? Wait. That doesn’t even make sense. For if you tell us our most private evil fantasies, that only fortifies my suspicion that you’re a figment of our dreams and not an actual, corporeal devil whom we might sic on our folks here.
MONSTER
Alright. Then we’ll do this the hard way.
[The MONSTER slays MOM & DAD and drinks their blood onstage. It is recommended that red wine be used to represent the blood of the parents, so that the actor playing the MONSTER can perform the rest of the play inebriated.]
BOY
Wow! He eats the meat with the blood!
Act 2
[The cellar of a video store. CLERK 1 and CLERK 2 are waiting for BOY to decide which title he wants to rent.]
CLERK 1
I wish this kid would hurry up and make a choice. All these movies are the same anyway.
CLERK 2
I disagree; but I will not argue about this, because all conversation between the two of us is presently futile: for we shall soon be interrupted by that ghost that always visits the store at this hour.
[GHOST enters & places his hands around the BOY’s neck.]
BOY
Ew, get your mitts off me.
GHOST
I am the father of the monster who lives underneath your bed. I am a spirit: a mere shade who is no longer with us. I’m only here to deliver a message, and then I can return back to Hell where I belong. Here’s my message: Beware of your parents; they are extremely stupid people who have no business procreating. If I were you, I would hire a phantom to abort them.
BOY
Too late. They’re already slain. Your son Bob Junior is a very big boy nowadays.
GHOST
You’re kidding.
BOY
Nope. Late again.
GHOST
Ah, well then my job here is already done. [Salutes.] See you in Hell!
[GHOST exits, weeping.]
CLERK 2
Hey there, little twerp, my name is Bry; I work here at this store called VIDEO DUMP. But don’t let the name fool you: there’s some gems amid all this trash. Here, let me give you a tip: If you’re having a hard time selecting which movie to rent, I suggest that you choose the 1962 film L’Eclisse, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni.
BOY
I’ve seen that already. But I agree with you. And I will.
Act 3
[The MONSTER is holding a small bathtub with a plastic human heart floating within it. The GIRL is standing beside him. They are in the street outside of the house of U.S. Senator Bernard Sanders.]
GIRL
What say’st thou, noble Diogenes? Why keep’st thou thine own heart submerged within that mini-tub?
MONSTER
I plan on incontinently drowning the temptress.
GIRL
Why?
MONSTER
Because I’ve done my job too quick in this life. Our life is like a play, which requires action to build to a climax, so that the narrative can possess a graceful arc. Instead, I went and slaughtered your parents in the very beginning, before God could even make the world go bad. I was too efficient. Now there’s no plot to build; and my mind has overmuch time to wonder. So in these leisure hours I began to search on the Internet, and I found many speeches by this fellow Mr. Sanders, whose house is right here before us. I fell in puppy-love with his style of compassion; but, being a no-nonsense type of drive, his compassion did not requite my puppy-love; and now I’m keeping my heart submerged, in hopes that it expires, so that I can thereby regain my blank. For I’ve noticed that the people of your world go about with deadened emotions, and I long to fit in.
GIRL
Ere I would say that I would drown myself for the love of a guinea-hen like your quixotic Bernie here, who can scratch up and unearth ancient documents like his old New Deal, now green as a copper tramp from France, I would exchange my donkey head for the suit of an ape. Kong at least became King for a day, and put up a fight, and got the consent to grope Lady Liberty; whereas, among humankind, nobody cares very much anymore about anything. — But your attempt to offer your heart a Jacuzzi Baptism calls to mind that scene from my favorite film, Wrong Cops (2013), where Officer Duke enters Officer Rough’s apartment, looks around; then opens the bathroom door & sees Rough lying there in the tub wearing his full police uniform. So Duke sez: “What the fuck are you doing all dressed in your bathtub?” And Rough sez: “I wanted to kill myself.” Then, later, Rough gets a call on his cellphone, and it’s Duke checking up on him — after asking a couple questions, Duke sez: “If I ever see you in such a homo state of weakness again, I will kill you myself. Do you understand?” And Rough sez: “That works for me.” Man, I love that film — I wanted to screen it for the neighborhood just now, at the pagoda, but David commandeered the projection booth & is playing The Eclipse again. That’s a great film too, tho, I must admit. In fact, I’d rank it even higher than Wrong Cops.
Act 4
[The BOY and the MONSTER are at the government office, in a meeting with an ALIENIST.]
ALIENIST
I’m not convinced that you two are actually mad. I think that you both just came here with the plan of behaving in an antic fashion on purpose to skew the results of my interrogation. Your hope is that I will diagnose you as insane, since that will allow you to draw funds from the last governmental safety-net program that has not yet been slashed.
BOY
Guilty as charged. But my friend Bob here did kill my parents this morning. And he drank their blood, because the life is in the blood.
ALIENIST
Is this true, Herr Bob?
MONSTER
I confess it is my shame to be so fond, but it is not in my virtue to amend it, Mademoiselle Freud.
ALIENIST
Tell ya what. Let’s make a deal.
BOY and MONSTER
Deal!! [They shake hands.]
ALIENIST
Wait; I haven’t even told you all the fine print.
[There is a lengthy moment of silence.]
BOY
In case you can’t tell, Bob & I are both rolling our eyes to signify that we’re bored. We don’t give a hoot what your dream really means: we just wanna wake up.
ALIENIST
Ah, thank you for this interpretation of your own dumb-show. Now here’s the terms of this deal that I’m offering you. I will check the box next to the diagnosis “madman” on your psychological printout, if and only if you both agree to chaperone me to the mountaintop, so that I can confront my childhood lover Jehovah. For I’d like to take the plunge.
MONSTER
You’re gonna tie the knot? I’d strongly advise against doing so. Modern marriage is positively gordian.
BOY
No, Bob, you fool: when Anna here sez that she wants to “take the plunge”, she’s talking about diving head-first into God’s volcano.
ALIENIST
You both are wrong, as usual. What I meant is that I want to walk straight off the cliff, as did my former patient Gloucester, yet remain firmly aloft, with both feet planted in midair, like so many cartoon characters do, in those animated shorts that I’ve seen on U.S.A.T.V.
Act 5
[All the dramatis personae are in Sheol. They are all ghosts of their former selves.]
GHOST of MOM
O! O! It is my worst nightmare! Why did I mute any impulse, ever!? Lord let me redo the whole farce opposite!
GHOST of DAD
Ah, I could recline here admiring this fire till life strikes back. For I must’ve been alive once, otherwise how could I feel so poetical?
GHOST of GIRL
What a funny coincidence, how I fell into this weeping brook after teasing my confrere about wanting to drown his sorrows in a tub of gin. Look: the snaky train of my wedding dress is spread out wide upon the surface; mermaid-like, it continues to buoy me. Drat, oh well; if a quick demise is not permitted, I guess I’ll pass the time by chanting old tunes. [Hums prettily throughout the rest of the scene.]
GHOST of BOY
Fut! Here on Earth again. What does a fool need to do to escape this place — be kind even to oneself!? No, I refuse to partake. Instead I must get myself born again, preferably from above, to an unwed couple…
GHOST of MONSTER [to his SIRE’s HOLY GHOST]
Hail fellow well met.
HOLY GHOST of MONSTER’s SIRE
Did you remember to bring the salvation that I requested?
GHOST of PAIN & SUFFERING
Here am I. Yes, I devised how to transform myself into a plague that can even slay the dead here in Sheol.
[JEHOVAH flies onstage from the Wild West & sux up the GHOST of PAIN & SUFFERING before she can speak her final word. Holding his breath, he then proceeds to the base of his volcano and resuscitates Anna. They live happily ever after. Flourish; curtain. A march afar off and a shot within.]
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