7 June 2015 - The Seat with the Clearest View

PROMPT:  Call a long lost relative or friend to say hello. Whatever you talk about, that's your prompt for the day. 

Kirk Lynn, playwright/educator

A man, late fifties, stands on stage, head down, shoulder’s slumped.
MAN
I’m tired.
He paces.
MAN
I remember everyone of them.
Paces.
MAN
I have pictures.  They’re on my screensaver.  An endless loop of young happy women.
Paces.
MAN
Two are happy today.  Two out of ten.  Twenty percent.
Paces.
MAN
That would be a pretty poor batting average in professional baseball.
Paces.
MAN
I don’t even know where most of them are.  Their gone from my life.  Wisps of memory.  An endless loop...
Paces.
MAN
One of them still lives with us.
Paces.
MAN
She’s not one of the happy ones.  But I guess I should put her in the plus column.
Paces.
MAN
I don’t think any of them are in jail.  But I could be wrong.  I know one has a warrant out for her arrest on a charge she could have gotten deferred adjudication on if she’d just shown up.
Paces.
MAN
I’m sure that at least one is on the streets...
Paces.
MAN
Should be in a mental institution, but the mental institutions are all under bridges and overpasses now.
Paces.
MAN
Mentally ill children become mentally ill adults if they don’t get treatment.  And if you don’t have any family and your poor and your mentally ill...
Paces.
MAN
There original parents wouldn’t... couldn’t love them.  Most of their parents were mentally ill.
Paces.
MAN
It’s easier if you demonize them by calling them alcoholics or addicts.  Nowhere to go.  No health care. Any wonder they self medicate.
Paces.
MAN
But if we called them mentally ill, then we might have to offer help rather than the back of our hand.
Paces.
MAN
And the state scoops up their children and puts them...
Paces.
MAN
It’s better then where they were, with their mentally ill parents who use them as ashtrays, or rape them, or sells them to their boyfriends, or just... forget... to feed them... for days... weeks...
Paces.
MAN
It’s better than that... but not much.
Paces.
MAN
The state calls itself their parents, and send them off to strangers who have very little training in how to handle a fifteen year old girl who was raped by her grandfather... and her uncle... and their friends... starting when she was five.
Paces.
MAN
I have pictures of them and they look happy... walking through a sunken dream.
End of play.