SCENE ONE KECK stands over LONG, who sits naked, slumped in a chair. KECK: Your mind is weak. LONG: I’m washed up. KECK: You’re a quitter. LONG: Always have been. KECK: You’ve squandered your gifts. LONG: A waste. KECK: You’re an embarrassment to the dignity of the human spirit. LONG: Would that it had never happened. KECK: That what had never happened? LONG: My conception. KECK. Oh. Right. LONG: A low point in human history, superseded daily by my continued existence. KECK: But we can rebuild you. LONG: Make me strong. KECK: Restore you. LONG: To my potential. KECK: From which point you can-- LONG: Conquer the world. KECK: Rule it. LONG: Subjugate it. KECK: Tyrannize it. LONG: Terrorize it. KECK: And ultimately-- LONG: Destroy it. When do we start? KECK: We’ve already begun. I see changes. Your golden complexion. Your hardened physique. Your mind—sharp, focused—a weapon. LONG: I am a god. KECK: You are the demi-urge. LONG: The unmoved mover. KECK: The founding father. LONG: The big bang that keeps on banging. KECK: Creating constellations/with every exhalation/of your cosmic breath. LONG stands, exalted, his erection throbbing as he rotates 360. SCENE TWO KECK, standing, speaks earnestly to LONG. LONG, sitting, drowsy, possibly drugged. KECK: No one wants to. No man wants to do it. But we do. Have done. Will continue…to do. If we don’t….they’ll kill us. So we go in. And we battle. We go in head first, despite foreknowledge of death. LONG: The home eternal. KECK: Say again? LONG: The home eternal. KECK: Yes. A touch of the, a touch of the…metaphor. Metaphoric. Metaphorical. LONG: Meta… KECK: Metaphor. A college word. Tell me a story. KECK waits. Kicks chair to wake LONG. KECK: A story. Tell me one. LONG: A story. KECK: Of bodies heaped. Ruins. The dream of extinction. LONG: No stories. My mind… KECK: Your mind. LONG: A graveyard. KECK: Inside your head, death lives. LONG hears something, looks around, fixes his gaze in the distance. LONG: A cow. I see a cow. KECK: A cow. LONG: It moos. KECK: What else. LONG: It walks the pasture. KECK: The verdant pasture green. LONG: Walking. Grazing. KECK: The cow of wisdom. LONG: Cow of bashful eye. KECK: Cow of life. LONG: Of milk and meat. SCENE THREE (Italicized lines spoken by offstage voice, female) LONG: I was in the Hall of Heroes. A thousand virgins draped in bunting. Priapic gods roamed the dance floor. On a high hill stood the gallows. KECK: Mating season. LONG: They led me out. KECK: Explain. LONG: The godheads took me up the hill. From the veranda the debutantes watched. (I am a shadow moving through the night. I sing my songs to the dying and the dead.) Soon after, mating commenced. KECK: Continue. LONG: Days later, a cow, chewing grass. The soil moves. KECK: It heaves. LONG: The soil heaves. KECK: It opens. LONG: The soil opens. KECK: The earth, asunder. LONG: A man. KECK: From the underworld? LONG: A man from the underworld. He stands in verdant pasture. KECK: The cow. LONG: It moos. KECK: It does nothing but. LONG: Walking, grazing. KECK: Lonesome cow. LONG: Cow of wisdom. KECK: Cow of mournful song. SCENE FOURKECK: Your greatest victories. LONG: They were few. KECK: Your heroic efforts. LONG: Forgotten. KECK: The last hope of the human race. Of whom it was said-- LONG: Thou shalt. KECK: We sounded the trumpets. LONG: Town by town. KECK: Enclaves. Cities. Nations. LONG: They came. KECK: Not knowing why-- LONG: They came. They followed. KECK: The last hope. LONG: My finest hour. KECK: And then. SCENE FIVEKECK: We’ll need banks: Five banks per thousand citizens. Libraries: One for every 10,000 people. Public swimming pools: Two per 5000. LONG: Tennis courts. KECK: A group of six every 10,000 people. LONG: Soccer fields, football fields, baseball fields. KECK: Distributed evenly among each bloc of three thousand citizens. LONG: Cemeteries. KECK: Hundreds. LONG: Food. KECK: All grocery stores will be within a five-minute drive, 10-minute walk, half-hour bus ride. LONG: Zoo. KECK: One for every 300,000 people. LONG: Ballet, symphony, opera, theater. KECK: All four for half a million. LONG: Amusement park. KECK: 5000-acre, retractable-dome site open year-round with trams running continuously from park to inner and outer districts bringing citizens seeking entertainment. LONG: A metropolis. KECK: Expanding ever outward in concentric circles with population density not to exceed 5000 humans per square mile of habitable terrain. Less, or more, depending on zoning and affordable housing, mortality rate and so on. LONG: Airports. KECK: One major hub with three smaller airfields distributed equidistant for private and small commercial craft. LONG: Hospitals. KECK: Five major hospitals centrally located with satellite hospitals at suburban outposts determined by population density and projected growth. LONG: Sports teams. KECK: Baseball, football, soccer, basketball, hockey. LONG: Gambling. KECK: Horse racing: two tracks per half million people. Casinos: two per half million. Off-track betting…supply meets demand. LONG: Prostitution. KECK: Legalized and renamed personal services. Classes offered as electives last year of high school for students interested in pursuing professional work. LONG: Rivers. KECK: If none available, we build one. LONG: Skiing. KECK: Landfills repurposed as ski slopes. LONG: Everything else. KECK: As needed. (Clears throat.) Stand up. LONG stands. KECK: Look left. (LONG looks left.) Look right. (LONG looks right.) Look up. (LONG looks up.) Look down. (LONG looks down.) Give me 20. LONG gets on floor and does push-ups. KECK: Important to note that in the future, after the last human has died, markets will continue operating. Autonomous entities, self-sustaining, unregulated, solar powered, unfettered by humans. A clean economy operating according to its own principles. Superluminal spaceships will explore universe seeking planets capable of hosting humanoid life. When suitable planet is found, spaceship will deposit DNA pods in primordial ocean. Five billion years later, humanoids will emerge from the muck. This scenario of course begs the question: are we too the descendants of computer-generated cells dropped in boiling oceans of planet earth five billion years ago? Or are we the template from which all further offshoots are derived? LONG tires, stops. KECK puts his foot on LONG’s back. KECK: Keep going. LONG struggles to continue, grunting with each push-up. KECK lights cigar. KECK: The music of physical exertion. (Exhales smoke.) The song of labor. LONG makes a loud grunt doing his final push-up, then passes out. SCENE SIX They stand looking into the distance, shielding their eyes from the sun LONG: Beautiful. KECK: Mythic. LONG: Something…primal. KECK: I feel it. LONG: It pauses. It waits. KECK: It looks. LONG: Left, then right. KECK: The cow. LONG: The cow of past and future. KECK: It sees us. LONG: Bashful. KECK: It moos. LONG: Song of the plaintive cow. KECK: It walks the pasture green. LONG: Where once the earth heaved. KECK: Putting forth man. LONG: Homo sapiens. KECK: From the underworld. LONG: Man the tool maker. KECK: Man. With a gun. LONG: A rifle. KECK: Man with a rifle. LONG: The cow. It moos. KECK: Man hears cow. Sees cow. LONG: Man with rifle. KECK: Man aims gun at cow. LONG: The cow grazes. KECK: Man looks at sky. Wipes forehead. Looks at cow. LONG: Run. Run, cow. KECK: The man aims. LONG: Run cow run. KECK: Man kneels. Places right knee on ground. Left leg supports elbow of the forward arm. Places right hand on pistol grip, left hand on forestock. Aims. LONG: Run. Run cow run. KECK: Man shoots. LONG: Run cow run. KECK: Man lowers gun. Stands. LONG: Get up, cow, get up. KECK: Man shields eyes from sun and looks across pasture. LONG: Cow. Get up cow. KECK: Man approaches cow. LONG: Run. Run, cow. KECK: Man fires again. LONG: Get up. Get up, cow. KECK: Man prods cow with foot. LONG: Get up cow get up. KECK: Man walks away. LONG: Get up cow get up. SCENE SEVEN KECK, standing, speaks to LONG, sitting. They came through turnstiles, revolving doors, down elevators and escalators, ladders and fire poles. Some came by parachute and others by jet pack. Airplanes, blimps, hang gliders and air balloons Brought the rest. Some came with purpose but most were bereft, mouths open, slobber-strings swinging in the breeze. But they came. LONG: I remember. KECK: You remember. LONG: I was there. KECK: We all…were there. LONG: My name day. KECK: Sunlight so intense my hair caught fire. LONG: I remember. My name day. KECK: Dein Namenstag. Your first. LONG: My only. KECK: They came for you. LONG: The field. I remember. KECK: The child of whom it was said: “Thou shalt.” LONG sees something in the air around him and begins grasping for it. KECK: A journey commenced. LONG grabs something from the air and holds it lovingly. KECK: The population boom soon after. Nine months, to be exact. LONG: Flowers. I remember. KECK: As soon as seeds were planted, flowers bloomed. Everywhere. LONG: The entire world. KECK: Including the arctic. LONG: And the Antarctic. KECK: Covered with blossoms. LONG: Red and yellow KECK: in the north. LONG: Purple and blue KECK: in the south. LONG: The fragrance. KECK: The fragrance circled the planet. A sweetness in the air. LONG: But they froze. KECK: The flowers froze. LONG: The air. Too cold. KECK: Not conducive. LONG: The flowers froze. KECK: Frozen flowers crunching under boots of explorers. Whatever LONG was holding escapes. He reaches for it but can’t catch it. They watch it float away. End Michael Haller is a writer based in Cincinnati. His fiction has been published in X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Five on the Fifth, Maudlin House, and Across the Margin. He studied playwriting at The Padua Hills Playwrights' Workshop in Los Angeles. His one-act plays have been staged in NYC and Los Angeles.
michaelhallerwriter.com
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