Mine's coming soon! (I really am working on it. It's longer than I expected to be.)

The Sea of Lights
 

A short play

Dramatis Personae:
Alfred S. Felidae, a lion
Ursa Thorpe, a polar bear
Clyde "Dumbo" Smith, an elephant
Mutthew Plunkett, a dog
Theodore Grey, a bear
Charles "Astro" Tandy, a dog
Bill Thompson, a platypus
Angel Delmar, a fish
Mela Chu, a large panda
Leuca Chin, a small panda
Silas Cotton, a rabbit

Lights up on a nearly-blank stage. An array of ragged and faded animals are spread out, off-kilter and motionless. A lion, an elephant, and a dog are seated on a bench. Next to the bench, a bear is slumped in a chair. Another dog leans on a stump; a platypus and a fish are splayed on the ground next to two spooning pandas. On stage left, a polar bear faces the other animals in a chair, next to which sits a bucket—its contents concealed. an empty chair sits off to the side with its back to the audience. On stage right, a forked tree sprawls skyward—and in the middle of this fork hangs the front half of a rabbit holding a drum. The rabbit looks up and speaks to the audience.

SPEEDY
The meeting was called to order by Commisioner Ursa Thorpe at 7:00 PM on Monday, April 20, in the garden beside Little Granny Restaurant and Café. Members present included Alfred S.Felidae, Clyde "Dumbo" Smith, Mutthew Plunkett, Theodore Grey, Charles "Astro" Tandy, Bill Kendrick, Angel Delmar, Mela Chu, Leuca Chin, and, of course, myself—Silas Cotton.

Each animal has become conscious at the mention of its name.

BILL
Speedy!

SPEEDY
They call me Speedy.

BILL
Get over here, you bastard!

SPEEDY
It's ironic.

BILL
It wouldn't be so hard to get down, you know. If you jumped.

SPEEDY
Go to hell, Bill.
(to audience)
Bill never tires of mocking my circumstances.

BILL
No, really. Just let go.

SPEEDY
I can't ****ing let go. The drum is sewn into my paws.

BILL
Is it any wonder that you have trouble moving on?

ANGEL
Get off his back, platypus.

SPEEDY
Angel is…

BILL
How 'bout I get off on yours?

SPEEDY
Beautiful.

ANGEL
It's animals like you that make me grateful my eggs are fertilized outside of my body.

SPEEDY
And blunt.

ANGEL
If I could, in fact, lay eggs.

SPEEDY
To a fault.

ANGEL
How's it looking from up there, Silas?

SPEEDY
Still no change. I'm trying not to be disheartened.

ANGEL
I know you are.

SPEEDY
I don't think the Sea of Lights is coming.

A great dingy polar bear draws herself up in her chair.

URSA
Ladies and gentlemen? Are we ready?

BILL
Yes, Madam Commissioner.

URSA
Very well.

SPEEDY
(to audience)
Members absent included Daisy. Just Daisy. Again.

URSA
A good evening to you all. I hope that since our last meeting, you are all finding yourselves well. Let us review the agenda for this evening.

SPEEDY
(to audience)
Old business: there is no old business.

URSA
Moving on, then…

SPEEDY
No old business that they want to talk about, anyway.

URSA
The next item on the agenda is new business.

SPEEDY
(to audience)
New business: a report from the co-chairs of the Committee for Weather Preparedness.

URSA
Let us now hear from Mela Chu and Leuca Chin.

MELA and LEUCA
Good afternoon.

MELA
As you all know, the path of days is cyclical.

LEUCA
With each passing day, we travel back around toward our earlier steps, retracing them every cycle.

(The two pandas speak in overlapping statements.)
MELA
Petals follow thaw

LEUCA
Thaw follows crust

MELA
Crust follows crisp

LEUCA
Crisp follows the sea of lights.

MELA
And petals once more.

LEUCA
Today, the petals have gone, and the crisp…

MELA
As you can sense—

LEUCA
…is upon us. While the absence of the Sea of Lights is disconcerting,
we must face the facts.

MELA
The crust is coming soon, and we must consider our survival tactics for the impending weather.

LEUCA
The crust falls comes from the sky, and so it is our recommendation…

MELA
Following careful strategic planning…

LEUCA
That we construct some sort of shelter, so that we will not be separated—

MELA
nor harmed!

LEUCA
…when it freezes around us. We have taken the liberty of obtaining this billowing object…

MELA
(holding up an unraveling and soiled children's safety blanket)
Which—stretched over the chairs, should provide sufficient shelter from the coming cycle.

LEUCA
We place a motion on the table: after the crisp has settled in and the Sea of Lights return, we will construct our shelter…

MELA
And prevent our suffering.

ANGEL
Prevent our suffering?
(She scoffs.)

URSA
Angel, I will not tolerate your speaking out of turn.

ANGEL
I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Madame Commissioner, but I simply cannot listen to these elegant, ignorant words without responding.

URSA
Must I demand your removal from this quorum?

ANGEL
Demand all you like, Ursa Thorpe, but you and I both know I'm not going anywhere. No one is. We are stuffed animals. And we're stuck here, and no amount of "billowing objects" will solve our problems.

URSA
And I presume you have the answer to said problems?

ANGEL
No. I can't say that I have the answer. But I have a hell of a lot of questions.

(continued)

(continued)

URSA
Such as?

ANGEL
Well, for starters, why do you think that the Sea of Lights will return?

An elderly bear straightens up in his chair.

THEODORE
If I may say-- It has returned and returned again. It is cyclical.

(overlapping)
MELA
Petals follow thaw

LEUCA
Thaw follows crust

MELA
Crust follows—

ANGEL
(interrupting)
It has come once and returned a second time. That's all. But you all seem to be forgetting that in between the two times we've witnessed it, we saw more people than just the ones that made up the Sea of Lights.

THEODORE
You mean Little Granny's tea guests?

ANGEL
Well, yes, but aside from those. There were other people…. people who didn't go into the tea house. They brought petals out of season.

DUMBO
I do remember that.
(He points to the empty chair with his trunk.)
They laid them on Daisy's chair, and all around us. I will never forget it.

SPEEDY
And… I remember them searching. For Daisy. After the tall man took her away.

URSA
We'll have to take your word on that, Silas Cotton. You were the only one who could have seen any of it from your vantage point.

SPEEDY
But they did search. I know you heard them calling her name.

URSA shudders. This is true.

ANGEL
Someone must have taken Daisy. If not, she would have come back to us. She would have held us again.

SPEEDY
But the only person who ever held us again was Little Granny.

DUMBO
She came to see us so often.

ANGEL
But she stopped coming so often.

SPEEDY
And then she just stopped coming.

URSA
Then we will just have to wait until such a time as she returns and brings us inside.

SPEEDY
Don't you see? She's leaving us here. I can't even see her come and go anymore.

BILL
Why are we supposed to believe you, rabbit? You're a corporate shill.

SPEEDY
It's not like I asked them to sew this drum to my paws.

ANGEL
Stop convoluting the matter at hand! Think of this logically. Even the people who used to come to Little Granny's for afternoon tea. They're not coming here anymore.

DUMBO
It's like every day is Monday.

ANGEL
It all adds up. The tea guests aren't coming to Little Granny's. And Little Granny isn't coming to us. The Sea of Lights won't be coming, either. Because no one thinks about Daisy anymore. No one thinks about us.

URSA
(sternly.)
Angel, that's not true.
(sofly)
I think about Daisy.

THEODORE
I do, too, Ursa. I do, too. Perhaps… perhaps, if we wish to remember Daisy, we will have to do it ourselves.

ANGEL
Yes, Theodore, I think you're right. I'd like to put a motion on the table: The petals have passed, and the crisp is upon us. It is time for us to take the Sea of Lights into our own hands.

The animals retrieve and pass out candles and matches from inside the bucket next to Ursa's chair.

SPEEDY
(to audience)
A motion was made and seconded. We utilized the supplies left behind after the last time the people came.

ALFRED
(lights his candle)
I'm a lion of few words, but Daisy… I always liked being your lion of few words.

DUMBO
(lights his candle)
Sometimes I was resentful that you never asked my real name. My real name is Clyde. Clyde Smith. But then, I didn't know your last name, either. I guess we didn't know that about each other. I guess we'll never know.

MUTTHEW
(lights his candle)
It's like I'm still in shock. Like I just can't take it all in. Two years, and I still feel wide-eyed. I… I don't know what else to say.

THEODORE
It's OK, Mutthew.
(lights his candle)
Daisy, I was there from the beginning. I was bigger than you back then. You were soft, and pink, and I could have held you in my paws. How you grew. How you might have grown. I miss you.

ASTRO
(lights his candle)
You built me a fort once, with a sheet over a couple of chairs. I felt… special. I hope you knew you were special to me.

BILL
(lights his candle)
I never admitted it, but I loved your tea parties. The tea kept me warm. Your arms kept me warm.

ANGEL
(lights her candle)
It is… so HARD. So hard to carry on without you. So hard to be brave. So hard to tell the truth. You always told us the truth, though. And I know if you were still around, you'd still be telling us how ragged we looked and how much you loved us. Well. Ditto, babe.

MELA
(Lights her candle)
May the songs you sang to us play on.

LEUCA
(lights her candle)
May the dances you danced with us live on in our hearts.

URSA
(lights her candle)
You were a graceful child. Our graceful child. I still believe you're out there. Please come back to us.

Night has fallen, and the stage is barely lit, aside from the characters' candlelight. SPEEDY still holds his drum, and looks wistfully at the others' candles.

SPEEDY
God damn you, Daisy. I can't even hold a candle. You put me in this tree, and I have spent the last two years looking. Looking at your face, burned into the fuzz where my brain should be, the face you made when the tall man squeezed your hand and pulled you away. And I have tried—I have tried to replace that vision with the memories of you laughing with us. The smile on your face when you'd played a trick on one of us. And I've tried to replace the guilt in my heart—the guilt that I could see everything that happened, and I couldn't stop it—with… anything. Anything else. But all I have left…

ANGEL
All you have left is us. We have each other.

SPEEDY
I'm not sure that's enough.

Quiet music fades up as the last of the lights fade out. And then the candles fade out, too.

Too add to my mojo, MBC:

"And somehow I sense that, along those battered and desolate old highways, we might both be seeing the world for the first time."

Two snappity snaps way, way up.

HEIDI! We (and I believe you know the 'we' I refer to) need to have a reading of this. In costume. Or we should just put on the damn play. I command it and it will be so.

That is cracking me up. My insides her from suppression. "Bill never tires of mocking my circumstances." If Speedy can be played by a girl, I want that part. I want to say that line. I'm going to think that line all the way home.

Poor toys and their missing Daisy.

That's terrific. Abandonment: by parent. By God. By any loved one, etc. It doesn't always matter that there are others when the One you want isn't there.

Brava. Let's put on a show!

(Funnily enough, you mentioned that the similarities in our approach, and just this morning I was thinking of expanding my piece for the stage, or a longer story in which the stage is set...)

Amazing, Heidi. The terms and clues were perfectly balanced, the tension and suspense a perfect length. Just wonderful. Now that's the craft! :snap:

That was a most enjoyable read, Heidi. Both amusing and touching and a wonderful balance between the two.

Some Short Films About A Stuffed Animal Tableau
 

FADE IN

STUFFED ANIMALS set up as in picture. Off-camera, we hear the rear door to a truck being rolled down and locked. We hear doors to the truck open and shut. Several car doors open and shut. The engines to the truck and accompanying car start and rev up. The vehicles drive off into the distance, until we hear nothing. Two beats.


--

FADE IN

STUFFED ANIMALS set up as in picture. Off-camera, we hear car doors open. A SLAP, then a CHILD'S HYSTERICAL CRY. The car doors shut. The car starts and revs up. It drives off into the distance, until we hear nothing. Two beats.


--

FADE IN

STUFFED ANIMALS set up as in picture. Several seconds pass. An OLD LADY in a nightgown wanders into the picture. She is obviously suffering from Alzheimer's Disease. She sits down on the ground in the midst of the animals and stares at them, uncomprehending, without joy.



--

FADE IN

STUFFED ANIMALS set up as in picture. The animals are all wearing anti-contagion masks. Nothing happens for seven seconds.

Hurrah, SL! Abstract and intriguing-- reminded me a little bit of Beckett's short plays. I'm so glad you hopped on the bandwagon!

Thanks. It's a grand bandwagon to be on.