3712 by Ben Ohmart

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This Play is the copyright of the Author and must not be Performed, Copied or Sold without the Author's prior consent

(The future. The year 3712. And things don't look very different
than now, but obvious style changes, as odd as the director wants.

An afternoon on St. Patrick's Day. The backyard of a Tallahassee,
FL house in a residential neighborhood. Not a lovely house or
backyard, but good enough for two women on their own. The edge
of the house can just be seen.

A bush with red berries. Fallen leaves on the dirt-enveloped grass.
Drying bedsheets hang on the sturdy clothesline connecting free-standing
poles 20 ft. apart. The shades of trees are moved from start to finish of play
by the sun's constant motion.

CREATURE, a young woman of 21, sits in a futuristic deck chair “catching
rays.” She wears sunglasses. College books beside her chair. She gets up
to poke the fire simmering in the post-modern grill, comes back to chair,opens
a book to study, closes it frustrated, and lies back.

Something sounding like a shot is heard far away.

CREATURE jumps half-way up, then settles back down. She turns
off the radio which has been playing “Bohemian Rhapsody” or some
made-for-this-play song that has vaguely to do with mothers
shooting people)

CREATURE. Really hope this works…

(Gets up and starts to poke the fire again when MON enters. She's
47, but has still managed to keep her looks pretty well. She carries a
slab of frozen ribs in a bag)

Hey, Mon, did you?

MON. Next time, Creature, I'm going to send you out yourself, and I
don't care if you can't drive.

CREATURE. Said I was sorry.

MON. Sorry, yes, yes.

CREATURE. What is it?

MON. Ribs. What did I tell you I was going to get? Ribs. What did I
ask you for? Ribs. So here. Here are the ribs. Here!

CREATURE. You don't have to be so

MON. I'm not angry, just mad as hell! Our guest will be here in

CREATURE. (Laughs to herself) Never heard you call him a guest
before, Mon.

MON. I… we've got to get ready. Are you ready? Everything all set
inside?

CREATURE. No.

MON. (Pause) I'm sorry. I didn't hear that.

CREATURE. You said keep an eye on the fire. It's what I've been
doing. All I could. The breeze is up strong today. From that. (Starts to point)

MON. The fire? That's all you could do? Oh, Creature… (CREATURE
hangs her head.

MON's sorry for talking to her like that. Goes to hug her) Oh,
Creature… it's okay. Sorry. I'm sorry. It's all right. I'm nervous. Okay? Nervous.

CREATURE. You have a right to be.

MON. That's the spirit. You wouldn't believe what a run on the meat
department St. Patrick's Day causes.

CREATURE. I'd believe it, Mon, if you told me. (MON smiles at
CREATURE, pats her cheek. Then slaps her)

MON. Don't forget again. Now. I believe everything else is ready.
Everything. Out here, I should hope.

CREATURE. (In French accent) San doute.

MON. (Looks at her; pause) What?

CREATURE. I don't know. It just came out.

MON. What does it mean?

CREATURE. I don't know. What's it sound like?

MON. Sounds like a foreign language.

CREATURE. Maybe it's Spanish. Maybe I'm learning more than I thought.
Easier than I thought.

MON. Doesn't sound like Spanish. Sounds like French.

CREATURE. It doesn't matter.

MON. That's what it sounded like.

CREATURE. Did it?

MON. How are the studies coming?

CREATURE. I don't take French. I take Spanish.

MON. Was that French?

CREATURE. (Laughs) Ha-I guess it was…

MON. Well?

CREATURE. I'm tired of college.

MON. And I'm tired of paying for it. When you figure a way to teach
yourself, let me know. (They've been taking turns cooking the meat) See to the
sheets. I doubt our guest will mind if our clothes dry while we eat.

CREATURE. (Smiles, starting to go in the house) That's a really good
sign.

MON. (Pause) Uh..

CREATURE. Hmmm..?

MON. I didn't ask your father. I forgot. (The sound of someone
reciting something is getting closer)

CREATURE. (Smiles again) That must be him now.

(Goes in the house. MON continues over the meat, a little troubled.

Suddenly a DEAD BODY, like something from Night of the Living
Dead, ambles on, reciting Byron's “Vision of Belshazzar.” He walks
slow and continues to recite no matter what he does, which is
basically to get at MON's “brains”)

DEAD BODY. The king was on his throne
The Satraps throng'd the hall:
A thousand bright lamps shone
O'er that high festival.
A thousand cups of gold,
In Judah deem'd divine-
Jehovah's vessels hold
The godless Heathen's wine!

In that same hour and hall,
The fingers of a hand
Came forth against the wall,
And wrote as if on sand:
The fingers of a man;
A solitary hand
Along the letters ran,
And traced them like a wand.

(MON's horrified and doesn't know what's going on. She evades its
crippled walk and screams once or twice, before finally deciding to
take up the shovel from a remote part of the yard and hits DEAD
BODY on the head repeatedly until it's dead again. She kicks it
to see if it's dead. CREATURE enters with a laundry basket of
sheets. She stops, seeing MON over the DEAD BODY with a
wild look in her eyes)

MON. (Pause) He was reciting Byron! (Pause) Good Lord!... How did I
know that?!

CREATURE. What do you mean “get ready for our guest?"

MON. What?

CREATURE. “Our guest.” If you didn't didn't invite dad, who's
coming?

MON. Creature, there's a dead body in our yard. He wanted to partake
of my dandruff. (Thinks to herself) What an odd thing to say

CREATURE. Did you kill that man?

MON. Well….

CREATURE. Yes or no.

MON. Or. (Laughs at herself, pleased with the joke)

CREATURE. Why did you kill him, mother?

MON. Well, what do you want me to do? Stand there and say “Dig in!”?
It was like he was trying to eat me.

CREATURE. Oh, Mon!

MON. Don't you “Oh, Mon!” me!

CREATURE. What's he doing here?

MON. How should I know? We're so far out in the country, the closest
neighbor we have is the cemetery. (This makes both women pause. They look at the
DEAD BODY, then move away from it)

CREATURE. What did you-

MON. If you think I'm going to repeat that, you're crazy. (CREATURE
starts to hang up sheets) What are we going to do?

CREATURE. You killed him. (MON drags DEAD BODY to a more
inconspicuous place)

MON. (Grunts and groans while moving it) You don't really think?

CREATURE. The area of a triangle is one half times base times
perpendicular height. I just realized that.

MON. What are you talking about? He'll be here any minute.

CREATURE. Who, Mon? Who? You can't just evade the question by killing
someone, you know.

MON. He was trying to attack me! How should I know!

CREATURE. Are we eating alone?

MON. (Pause) No.

CREATURE. No.

MON. No.

CREATURE. Yes?

MON. No.

CREATURE. I'm starting to understand things, Mon.

MON. “That must be him now.”

CREATURE. What?

MON. “That must be him now.” That's what you said.

CREATURE. When?

MON. A few minutes ago. Before I killed that man.

CREATURE. You remember?

MON. I remembered.

CREATURE. You never had that good a memory before.

MON. Maybe I never had anything important to remember before.

CREATURE. You've forgotten my birthday more than once.

MON. Should I repeat myself?

CREATURE. I know what we could do. We could roll him down.

MON. Now you're trying to-

CREATURE. Down the hill. No one would ever know.

MON. (Thinks) Don't think so?

CREATURE. No one would ever have to know. (MON's still thinking) The
hill back there's very steep.

MON. Yes, yes, I know. All right. (They talk as they roll the body
toward the edge of the stage, where the hill starts)

CREATURE. It was Byron.

MON. It was Byron.

CREATURE. Born 1788, died 1824. Of his most famous works, Childe
Harold's Pilgrimage, Cantos one and two in 1812.

MON. You're well informed.

[end of extract]

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