Apocalypse
Apocalypse
a short play
(Curtain rises on A and B)
A: How are you, my dear fellow?
B: Better than yesterday and worse than tomorrow.
A: Now there's optimism! And how's your hedge?
B: My hedge?
A: You know. How does your garden grow?
B: Oh that! Well, with silver bells and cockle shells and seven little spades all in a row, of course.
A: You mean maids.
B: (All casual) No, spades; just try digging without them.
(Enter C)
C: Alas, alas, the sky is falling!
A: What's that?
B: He says the sky is falling.
A: Again?
C : (Shouting now) The sky is falling, people! Run from your lives!
A: What's that?
B: He's confused.
C: Hurry!
A: Wait a bit and tell me, how do you know it's falling?
C: What?
B: The sky.
C: How do I know? Do you take me for an idiot? I'm not blind. I can still feeel. The signs… are everywhere! Listen!
A: I can't hear anything.
C: Exactly! Everywhere you go it's the same… this ominous silence. Shhhh!
(B picks up the stone, sneaks behind C and flips it over C's shoulder.)
C: There, it's starting already. I'm afraid I'll have to go now.
A: Wait; where are you going?
C: Why, to warn the others.
A: Don't you think that they'll find out soon enough. After all, doesn't the sky fall everywhere at the same time?
C: Hmm?
B: Besides, I don't suppose it's going to fall any more heavily here than anywhere else.
C: Well…
A: So what's your rush?
C: I had a reason…
(B tosses another stone.)
A: You didn't think you could run out from underneath it, did you?
B: And stand on the sidelines clapping?
A: What a silly idea!
C: I…
B: Relax. When the sky falls, you are guaranteed total participation no matter where you're standing.
A: And if you don't want to miss anything… you don't, do you?
C: No!
B: Well then, you had better take it easy. At the rate you were going before, you would've forgotten to look up at the crucial moment.
C: No!
B: You of all people!
A: How ironic that would've been!
B: The cruelest sort of joke!
A: For the sky to have finally fallen (B tosses another stone from behind) without you seeing it!
B: After you had been the first to know!
A: An outrage!
B: Impossible!
A: You'd better sit down (sits C down).
B: You'd better lie down (pushes C down flat on his back). Now you can't miss a thing.
(A and B move off.)
C: But where are you going?
A: Why, to warn the others, of course.
(A and B exit.)
Curtain
Lee Strauss (Copyright @ 2019)