19 July 2015

PROMPT:


Dr. Heidi Russell, 36, well-dressed with glasses, sits behind her desk.  Edgar, 58, enters.
HEIDI
I’m disappointed, Edgar.
EDGAR
(with a shrug)
I gave it a shot.  Groucho meets Bugs Bunny in the fifth dimension.
HEIDI
This is an important grade, Edgar.  I will give you a chance to rewrite the paper or turn in a new one, if you wish.
EDGAR
That very generous of you, Dr. Russell, but I don’t think more time or thought would make any difference.
HEIDI
You can’t really believe what you wrote?!
EDGAR
Of course I believe it.
HEIDI
We’ve been to the Moon, Edgar.  We’ve just taken close up pictures of Pluto. We’re on the verge of solving the mysteries of the universe...
EDGAR
What difference does any of that make?
HEIDI
What difference?!  What difference!?
EDGAR
Yea.  What difference?
HEIDI
It’s... it’s...
EDGAR
We still dig rocks out of the ground, melt the metal out, process the metal into car parts, assemble two tons of these parts, half way around the world, ship the assemble vehicles to a car park nearby, dig crude oil from half way around the world, ship it in giant ships to this country for processing, then ship small quantities of it to local stores on many, many corners of every city on the globe, so you and me and my grandmother can go to the mini-mart for soda pop that is killing us.  And that’s not even the tip of the iceberg.
HEIDI
I understand how you feel, Edgar, but the advance in science and medicine...
EDGAR
Medicine is amazing.  My life expectancy is into the nineties.  I’m going to far outlive the money I’ve earned. Children in this country and most of the modern world don’t die of illness that used to wipe out one in three.  And for what?  We can’t control population growth.  Malthus may have had the date wrong, but not the wrong principle.  The planet cannot sustain our species much longer, even if we stop, today, global warming.
HEIDI
We’ll find a way...
EDGAR
And what way will we find when Alabama gets the bomb?
HEIDI
What?!
EDGAR
It’s an old joke, but not that far-fetched.  Iran can make bombs, Saudi’s certainly can, the Israeli’s. The list grows daily.  Sooner or later...
Edgar jabs an imaginary button in his opposite palm.
HEIDI
Edgar...
EDGAR
And you know, better than I, how we treat tens of thousands of our own children in this country.  You told me you were you’d been in foster care as a kid when I said I was a foster parent.
HEIDI
I... I was...
EDGAR
Were you an orphan?
HEIDI
No.
EDGAR
No.  Most of the kids in foster care aren’t.  Their parent abused, neglected, or abandoned them.
HEIDI
(quietly)
My father is in prison still for killing a man in a bar.  My mother used heroin.  She beat me and she... she... pimped me out for drugs starting when I was ten.
EDGAR
How many foster homes were you in?
HEIDI
I... I don’t know.
EDGAR
You seem to be doing very well.
HEIDI
I meet with a psychiatrist once every other month to keep my meds balanced and I go to therapy twice a week.
Heidi pulls up her sleeves and shows the scars on her wrists and arms, some of them appear relatively new.
HEIDI
I... I cut... sometimes.
EDGAR
(sympathetic and apologetic)
Oh, Dr. Russell.  I... didn’t know.
Heidi quickly roles down her sleeves.
HEIDI
I shouldn’t have done that.
EDGAR
I won’t... tell anyone.
HEIDI
I know.  I wouldn’t have shown you if I didn’t trust you.
EDGAR
Dr. Russell...
HEIDI
Please, when we’re in my office, you can call me Heidi.
EDGAR
Heidi.  I know that my... my point of view about the world is hard to understand.
HEIDI
I understand it completely.  I just don’t want to believe it.
EDGAR
I didn’t believe it for a long time.  I believed that we were an intelligent and rational species that could and would solve the any and all problems.
HEIDI
(slight laugh)
And then you became a foster parent.
EDGAR
(laughing)
No.  As a matter of fact, foster parenting was my response to realizing that our nearest ancestors on the evolutionary ladder solve their problems by throwing feces at each other.
HEIDI
You became a foster parent because humans are stupid.
EDGAR
It seemed reasonable at the time.  I certainly don’t regret that decision.  And foster parenting has given me a chance to develop a more positive side to my philosophy.
HEIDI
Why didn’t you... why don’t you write your paper about that?!
EDGAR
Writing is a linear, logical, exercise.  What I believe... what I hope, is non-linear and non-logical.  I believe we will never solve the mysteries of the universe, because they are ever changing.  The universe is not a rational place.  The laws of physics may apply in this tiny corner, but...
(gesturing to the heavens)
...out there are angels.  I believe angels are the missing matter of the universe.  There is no atom smasher that can break an angel down into its constituent parents.  No detector that can quantify how many them there are.  But they bind the universe.  And even if one day, we pass on from this planet, the angels will protect whatever is important.
HEIDI
I hope we are important.
EDGAR
I hope we are too.
End of play.