I Wrote A Play

Post Reply New Topic

Survival Horror
Or: Hell is Other Psychopaths
By John Gallin

The Setting: Diefenbaker High, a first-rate Canadian High school with 1905 students, 120 faculty staff, 90 classrooms, a pool, three gymnasiums, a library the size of a lesser elementary school, an auditorium that could function as a fallout shelter and a relatively innocuous cafeteria. It is now empty, locked and shut down for Spring Break.

Dramatis Personae:

Tilson: A highly militaristic and jingoistic student although he has no allegiance to any actual military or government. He carries a Ka-Bar USMC combat knife hidden in his weatherproof jacket (above his American JingoMonger 9000 flak jacket) in flagrant violation of school rules. He has frightened several teachers out of their jobs with his fascist-anarchist-messianic personality. He’s managed to slip through the cracks and never get expelled or even suspended. He’s slightly psychopathic but has managed to hide it from almost everyone. He occasionally helps people (even teachers) out for the common good, but mostly for his common good. His psychological diagnosis, as far as we can tell, is borderline paranoid psychosis and antisocial personality disorder.

Rumsky: A rather pathetic and cowardly (though certainly not evil) drug addicted student. He smells of marijuana, 31 varieties of alcohol and uric acid from at least 17 species. He is still in school for the sole purpose of having enough on his resume to work at an industrial hemp farm. He has less functioning brain cells than Ozzy Osborne. He even brought some paraphernalia to the assembly. (How can anyone tolerate a school assembly without mind altering chems?). His psychological diagnosis is simple: weak minded anthropomorphic slug. Half of the school expects him to join an evil cult and become such a lackey.

Ritt: A seemingly harmless and obviously intelligent girl. She studies political science compulsively alongside life sciences. She has been hanging around with questionable people recently, however she has no idea how questionable. She has brought only a pocket dictionary to this assembly and for no viable reason since she’s already memorized all the words. Her psychological diagnosis is a harmless mild case of ADD.

Richard Wilhemthrop: A Teuton in limbo.

(The curtain opens, near total darkness, chairs are scattered about in a semi-logical pattern, Tilson, Rumsky and Ritt are at different sides)

Ritt: Hello... what... where is everybody?

Rumsky: Erg... knew those ludes weren’t first class. I’m calling the dealer soon as I get out of here.

Ritt: Hey, who’s there?

Tilson: So dark, I should’ve taken that cyber-implant or that genetic fix for infra-vision.

Ritt: What? Who are you?

Tilson: Never-mind, let’s see, sharpening file, flint, garrote, spork, oh here...lighter.

Rumsky: Don’t mind if I do.

(Tilson and Rumsky turn on lighters the stage seems slightly brighter)

Ritt: Why did you both bring lighters to this assembly?

Tilson: Ummm, no reason. Just being prepared, you never know when something like this will happen, you know Jeff Goldblum’s chaos theory.

Ritt: Jeff Goldblum didn’t invent chaos theory, he just popularized it by oversimplification. Jurassic Park, Independence Day, the American Jewish Experience.

Rumsky: I brought the lighter to get baked (asinine laughter, no one else laughs)

Tilson: You’re right, I guess... what’s your name?

Ritt: Ritt

Rumsky: My name’s Rumsky. Can’t rightly tell why people call me that.

(Rumsky goes into shakes and tics)

Tilson: You know who I am, I’m Tilson. So should we get out of here?

Ritt: We fell asleep in an assembly, how embarrassing.

Rumsky: You’re not missing anything.

Tilson: I guess not, never really learned anything from an assembly (imitates Charlie Brown’s teachers), bwuh, bwuh, bwuh, Civic Pride, blah, blah, racism is bad. Honestly, if you need to be told that racism is bad and you resist that fact then you have bigger problems than just a lack of education.

Ritt: Are you done yet?

Rumsky: Let’s get out of here, it’s like twenty minutes into March Break and I’m not having any fun.

Tilson: Okay.

(Ritt goes to door, it’s locked)

Ritt: Damn, the door’s locked, I’ll try another one.

(Tilson pulls out his Ka-Bar black finish combat knife)

Tilson: (coldly) Don’t bother it won’t work.

Ritt: (screams) What the hell is wrong with you?

Tilson: I’m locked in an auditorium, duh.

(Tilson artfully stabs the door, rips into plywood, door opens)

Tilson: Diefenbaker High was built using the cheapest lumber available.

Ritt: Why do you have a knife at school?

Rumsky: So you can heat it up?

Tilson: For situations like this... someone callously locked us in.

(Tilson sharpens knife with aforementioned file)

Ritt: That is complete violation of school policy.

Rumsky: So’s that haircut, Witt.

Ritt: Shut up, junkie go back to your opium den. You don’t belong in this school.

Tilson: None of us do, apparently.

Ritt: What?

Tilson: You could’ve gotten this education in a library easily. I’m too fascist-anarchist and Rumsky is Rumsky.

(Rumsky is looking at his hands while shivering, no shaking)

Rumsky: Wwwwwiiittthhhh Drraawwwl already?

Ritt: C’mon buddy let’s get you a cold shower.

Tilson: What for? Cold showers don’t cure anything.

Ritt: Yeah but he could use one either way. Let’s go home, you formaldehyde ghoulie.

Rumsky: The formaldehyde is that obvious?

Tilson: Let’s go already.

(Exit all)

(Stagehands dressed as ghosts or Cthulhu cult members rearrange the scene to look like an office)

Rumsky: Now here’s stage two of the plan, I couldn’t have picked a better time to pass out. Whole school to ourselves. Hehehe... What was I talking about?

Tilson: You brought us to the principal’s office for some reason, why? (Fiddles about in pockets menacingly)

Ritt: Forget this, I’m not watching you two at each...

Rumsky: This is where my secret stash is... the carpet underneath the principal’s desk.

Ritt: That’s stupid.

Rumsky: I’m always going to the principal’s office for stupid little stuff like stealing vitamin R from the crazy kids right?

Ritt: I happen to be one of those crazy kids.

Tilson: So I guess little Miss Ivy League isn’t perfect after...oomph (Ritt kicks him in the ankles)

Rumsky: And the carpet under his own desk is the last place our tight-valve principal would ever conceivably look right? He’s too busy looking everywhere else and I tipped off the janitors with some tequila, Cuban cigars and certain other Latin American counterculture exports.

Ritt: You are an inspiration to us all. Let’s get out of here.

(Ritt leaves)

Tilson: Might as well leave.( Pulls out knife) After I collect some interest.

Rumsky: Screw it psycho. I repaid your money.

Tilson: You repaid the principal. Don’t you know about compound interest, you owe me seventy-five bucks, preferably in cash.

Rumsky: What do you think this is? Business class?

Tilson: You ever read the Merchant of Venice?

Rumsky: That about a boat salesman?

Tilson: Didn’t think so. Is it 454 grams or 445 grams? How much is a pound?

(Tilson slowly sharpens knife)

Rumsky: Okay! Here it is (pulls out box) fifty bucks, sixty bucks, sixty five. How about I even it out with some party favors, herbal throat lozenges?

Tilson: I’m cool with that. Just give me at least ten bucks worth.

(Rumsky gives Tilson a ‘compressed hash pellet’ which appears to the audience as a Ricola cough drop)

Tilson: Cool I’ve heard about these things... MDMA style tablets, only they’re made from veggies and shrooms. What will the Columbian Mafia for Social Macrodegeneration think of next?

(Tilson swallows cough drop, waits, hums, checks watch, he isn’t wearing a watch, looks out window)

Tilson: Sure is foggy out there, but not in the toxic super freak out way. Alright, the walls aren’t melting, my face isn’t flopping around or being attacked by lizards. I’m not gradually going insane and losing my mind. Must’ve been a dud.

(Tilson swallows three more)

Rumsky: Hey, you don’t take them like that.

Tilson: Watch me.

(They wait, Rumsky looks at yearbook on desk, takes two more cough drops, nothing happens)

Rumsky: Can’t trust the Columbian Revolutionary Mafia, what’s the world coming to? My brain cells, they’re refusing to self destruct. My sanity and god-given reason are just... remaining there. I’m scared.

(Tilson steals entire box)

Tilson: The rest of this stuff better be worth it.

(Rumsky tries to intervene. Tilson uses box as shield in dagger and buckler style pose)

(Ritt enters)

Ritt: Mercutio, there’s no one outside the doors.

Tilson: Of course. It’s March Break; only custodians and vandals come here now.

Ritt: And there’s no one at the mall.

Rumsky: Looting spree! (Eyes fall back, falls on chair)

Ritt: And North of the mall everything’s scorched up.

(Tilson pauses, looks paranoid)

Tilson: You mean, we’ve been bombed?

Ritt: Apparently, the Diefenbaker High here and the Diefenbaker Mega-Mall are undamaged but everything else...

Tilson: Why?

Rumsky: Ritt did you take any of the veggie pills?

Ritt: No you base head? What are we going to do?

Rumsky: I resent being called a base head, I’m just a junkie, a wino, a rummie, a pothead, a white-horseman of the esophagus, an ecstasy freak, a crack head, a coke head oh yeah and a base head. Nevermind.

Tilson: Nevermore.

Ritt: This is no time to make sophomoric literary allusions. The city’s in flames... no, more like cold dead ashes.

Tilson: Wow we slept for a thousand years after the apocalypse! This is an obvious literary allusion to the end of Army of Darkness!

Ritt: Or Rip Van Winkle.

Tilson: Who could’ve expected that a high school assembly could be that boring?

(They stare dumbfounded in the direction of the audience)

Ritt: We might as well explore a bit, radiation poisoning and degenerate mutants can’t be that bad. I mean, we do go to high school, do we fear hell?

(The three exit)

(The three walk out, ghoulish stage-hands rearrange the play so that it appears to be cubist-style ruins, with a sign saying ‘Ye Olde Firebombed Hellscape’)

(There is a trench-coat clad German army officer repeatedly banging his head against a half-shattered girder, grunting and hissing at himself, a half-torn passport lies at his feet)

(Tilson enters)

Tilson: (picks up passport) Richard... Willhemthrop, I can make this out vaguely, 9th Sentry Division of Mortal Nazis Doomed to Die. Maybe those veggie pills were too powerful. But I only had four of them?

Richard: You’re talking crazy (punches self in kidney).

Tilson: You speak English? Of course you’re my hallucination, I think I should time out for a while.

Richard: Don’t you Americans watch your own movies? All Germans and Russians speak English with a fudgy accent.

Tilson: I’m a Canadian, there’s some sort of difference between us and Americans, or so I’ve heard. Anyway start squealing kraut.

Richard: So you do watch American movies. I was a foot soldier back in Hitler’s army, I did questionable, even insane things. I was assigned to guard Dresden a while back. I think you know what happens next.

Tilson: Not really.

Richard: Don’t you watch American newsreels and newspapers? Dresden was incinerated.

Tilson: Oh, I never paid any attention in history class.

Richard: What? It’s been that long? (Goes into a fit, bangs head)

Tilson: Um, could you tell me the rest of the story?

Richard: Look around you, this is what it was like, this is what it was. The city was being devoured by flame. Now that I’m here I’ve came to realize that it was justifiable, why did I have to join those barbarian curs? Richard you should’ve known better. (Curses himself, bangs head) There was a school, a small one, seventy children, I escorted them to a bomb shelter and then I realized that I left some behind, I went back into the school, they were probably hiding in the school. A bomb struck the school when I was running in there and...

Tilson: You died?

Richard: I died the second I joined the Nazis. I partially redeemed myself by saving those kids, I guess. Almost all of the Nazis I once knew are in their own special section of hell. I’ve heard that you dig trenches in flaming radium all day while being whipped by French and Polish degenerates and watch movies by some guy named Woody Allen all night. Who is this Woody Allen anyway?

Tilson: Don’t ask.

Richard: What happened to Germany? I felt that my whole homeland was reduced to charcoal by the Soviets, British, Americans, you Canadians and (shudders) Australians.

Tilson: It was divided into two parts by the allies and soviets. Long story short, Mr. Gorbachev tore down this wall thanks to American pressure. The Soviet Union, which became almost as bad as the Nazis, collapsed soon after. Now Germans have rebuilt their homeland, but they have never forgotten. Now they make damn good cars and have bailed out of the next World War.

Richard: And, as for you, welcome to Foglands purgatory of the undecided.

Tilson: Why am I here?

Richard: I just met you three minutes ago, that’s for you to find out. (Smashes head repeatedly)

Tilson: Umm, why are you doing that? You could damage your brain.

Richard: No brain, no damage... my skull is just a pile of charcoal in Dresden.

Tilson: Of course!! !

(Tilson and Richard depart at opposite ends, Richard is continually punching himself in the kidney)

(Still disturbing stage-hands rearrange the stage to become the front of Diefenbaker high)

(The three appear)

Tilson: So, I think we all realize where we are now?

Ritt: So, this is death.

Rumsky: (coughs, whistles) I think there’s a game of Yahtzee in the Senate Potential class.

Ritt: We don’t have a Senate Potential class.

Tilson: Actually that’s what they call the ‘special’ class now, Senate Potentials, political correctness and all.

Ritt: So, about the drugs?

Rumsky: They didn’t work...

Tilson: Hmmmm... I guess we don’t have opiate receptors any more.

Ritt: Tilson, how did you know what opiate receptors are... um... were?

Tilson: You tutored me, back in Grade 10...

Ritt: Oh, Yeah. You were smarter than I thought...

Tilson: I get my strength from a unique source.

Rumsky: Vitamin R?

Ritt: I take that for my... impulsiveness. Hey let’s go for a hike!

Tilson: No, my secret is... (nursery rhyme) well we are very rare and we are mostly male and we can change the world sometimes...

Ritt: Autistics?

Rumsky: Uncut freebase dealers?

Tilson: No... sociopaths.

Ritt: You... are a sociopath? As in Antisocial Personality Disorder?

Tilson: Ummm...well sort of, well yeah.

Ritt: So you don’t feel any guilt one way or the other for your actions?

Tilson: Well...yeah, all my life. But not here, I keep feeling this cold buzz like heroin withdrawal, is this guilt?

Ritt: Maybe. Did you believe you were a victim of society even though traditional ethics and Socratic logic would say the inverse?

Tilson: (stressed) yeah, back there... oh God! What did I do back there?

Rumsky: And do you have machine parts underneath your flesh?

Ritt: No that’s Terminators Rumsky.

Tilson: That Nazi guy said this quasi-material plane was a purgatory for the undecided? If you failed to decide for yourself between good and evil. I...I never made any real moral judgments for myself. None of us did. I just tried to look out for myself. I stole, I mugged.

Ritt: You helped teachers... and volunteered.

Tilson: I volunteered so I could steal shovels and pickaxes.

(Rumsky laughs)

Rumsky: I... I gave money to this kid, once in exchange for drugs. Nels Merrick, he kept on saying he would put the money to a good cause. Something about a ‘direct action for social revolution’... on March Break. It’s all so convoluted but...

Ritt: Are you saying we are...

Tilson: That’s right, terrorism casualties... I remember dreaming of thunder and fire right before I woke up... dammit, I taught Nels Merrick about knife tricks... the whole school is dead! Because of me!

Ritt: I tutored Nels in chemistry... he bombed us... we are all partially responsible for this...

Tilson: You know, poets say “Hell is Oneself”

Ritt: Sartre said “Hell is Other People”

Rumsky: But he was French, of course he would.

Tilson: This “guilt for your actions” thing is overrated, let’s play Yahtzee.

Ritt: You know, I’m surprised we didn’t go to... um you know... Hell. I mean we all did questionable things. And none of us subscribed to a religion.

Rumsky: If there’s a difference between Hell and withdrawal, I don’t want to know about it.

Tilson: What if Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson were right and Hell is full of lesbians and rock stars? Why couldn’t we have gone there?

Ritt: All this time organized religion had no idea what this was really like. Come to think of it. We don’t either...

(Pause)

Ritt: Just like on Earth, we have no idea what it’s all about... At least secular science had a vague idea backed by empiricism.

Tilson: I’ve got an idea, let’s play “strip yahtzee” we could roll dice for each others clothes!! !

(Long pause, awkward staring, total silence, fade to black)

The End

Feste-Fenris, if there was any part of me after A Scorched Earth Cristmas that even dared to believe that you weren't insane, it's sure as h*ll gone now.

I love it

Thanks man...

It's sort of Jean-Paul Sartre in High School...