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(Darkness. A spotlight is on the Host, wearing a get-up
similar to Rod Sterling from the Twilight Zone series opening. Omnimous music
plays. Or smooth jazz)
Host: (moves stiltedly, has a manner of him reminiscent
of Hitchcock) Solemn. (beat, picks up dictionary that is not Webster) Webster
defines solemn as marked by grave
sedateness and earnest sobriety. (closes book) It is a feeling of great horror and
tragedy together, like the absence of a true love or an onslaught of midterms.
Like finding your poor dog Sampson limping ever so slow to grab the
square-looking chew-toy you toss to amuse him before his final moments.
(melodramatic) Oh, how that makes me so solemn! (tosses book away). I trust
that you are not solemn this night. (beat) But you will be. Sometime in your
life, you will be.
Master Jackson: (offstage, like a ghost, and nearby) Oh yes, you will
be…
Host: That, out there, shouting in the far, far, (accentuated) far distance is Master Jackson. Jackson
is a solemn fellow himself. (beat, turns 180 degrees to the other side, posing
dramatically) Oh, he died a horrible death! (pulls out a flask) It was too much
lick-er inside his li-ver. (downs the whole flask, tosses it to the floor). Oh,
how solemn.
(Master Jackson enters. Clearly Master Jackson is a woman who is very
much alive. She picks up the flask and speaks in a very normal-volume tone)
Master Jackson: Where are the contents inside of this flask I handed to
you?
Host: (acting like someone who’s never gotten drunk would imitate a
drunk person) Inside my sto-mach, good sire! Ha ha!
Master Jackson: There was nothing in there, but water and lemon. I
needed that for my morning jog. What a cretin you are.
(Host snickers “drunkedly”)
Host: Well at least I’m not the one who’s late! (laughs loudly)
Master Jackson: Oh, how I worry about you…(exits as Host stumbles about
like a fool)
Host: (stands back up rigid and cold) Solemn. See how solemn Master
Jackson was. After realizing his life has gone away from him, and that he may
not taste his booze once more in the afterlife. What a pity. (beat) But that is
what being solemn is about. Facing the negative. Be it the balance of your bank
account or the score you got on an assignment. Negative. (beat, puts head down,
cries for a while) SOLEMN!
(Coffee Servant enters)
Coffee Servant: Here you are.
Host: (grabs onto the Coffee Servant, spilling the coffee on themself)
Where were you when I needed you?! When I saw a dead man going through my
house...shouting at me?!
Coffee Servant: Calm down, that was just…
Host: (invades the personal space of the Coffee Servant) Master Jackson?
The drunk fuck who snuck a duck and a buck to his…ass!
Coffee Servant: You’re spilling the coffee…
Host: (looks at themselves, solemn tone) So I am. Forgive me…I am so
scared of my own demise. Upon seeing poor Master Jackson deceased
Coffee Servant: She’s not dead. You’ve just been worrying too much.
Maybe it has to do with the fact you’ve had 10 coffees already and it’s 2 AM
Host: (thinks about it for a while) Nah, I don’t think so. Though I wish
it were that simpler.
(Coffee Servant slowly exits)
Host: Everyone around me is so cold. So worried. So…solemn!
(8 enters in, having a plain mask that just has the number 8 on it)
8: Eight, eight, eight!
Host: Oh no…it’s you!
8: Eighteight?
Host: I feared that you were the cause of all of this!
8: Eight. Eight eight. Eiiiiiiight…(really fast)
eighteighteighteighteighteight!
Host: No! Please haunt me no more! I dare not think of you anymore
8: Eight!
Host: No!
(repeat last two lines 3 more times, each more dramatic than the last)
8: Eight…y
Host: AHHHHHHHHhhhhh wait what?
8: Eighty. (beat) Minus eight minus eight.
Host: Oh…oh lord. Oh lord! So all of this madness can be averted? I am
still safe?! Oh good. I can no longer be solemn anymore.
8: Yeah, I guess you’re good. But Master Jackson is still going to kill
you for this.
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