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)