AMBIENCE: WE HEAR THE SOUND OF VENTILATION, OF MACHINES
HUMMING IN THE BACKGROUND.
WOMAN: It looks the same.
MAN: Yes, the same.
WOMAN: The same as
(a beat)
before.
MAN: Yes, the same.
A LONG PAUSE.
WOMAN: Will anyone think of us?
MAN: No. I don’t think they will think of us. We will just
watch them from here.
WOMAN: Watch them and see nothing.
MAN: Yes, see nothing. But the sky.
WOMAN: And the sea.
MAN: But no people.
WOMAN: No people.
A PAUSE.
WOMAN: But when they look up, will someone not think of us?
MAN: No one will look up.
WOMAN (matter-of-factly): Someone will think of us.
MAN: No one who can help.
WOMAN: We’re beyond help but –
MAN: What else matters now?
WOMAN: For someone to look up and –
MAN: Feel pity? No. There is no pity left. Too much used up
already.
WOMAN: Not pity. I didn’t mean pity. (A beat) What about: with
sorrow?
MAN: There is no sorrow left either. It is used up.
WOMAN: There is always sorrow. It is infinite.
MAN: If you think so.
WOMAN: Like space.
MAN: Perhaps.
A PAUSE.
WOMAN: Despite everything, there is love also. Someone will
look up and feel –
MAN: Perhaps for you. Not for me.
WOMAN: But they will look up –
MAN: And see just another point of light in the sky.
WOMAN: A point of light that looks back at them.
MAN (resigned): No one looks up now.
WOMAN: Somewhere, in a field of ruined corn or in a boat that sails the ocean, someone will light a cigarette maybe, and look up.
MAN: But no one who cares.
WOMAN: For that moment maybe, they will care. They will look
up and remember that we are here.
MAN: I doubt it. With everything that’s happened who would
remember us circling above.
WOMAN: Another point of light in the sky.
MAN: Yes.
(A beat)
Another point of light above the ruined world.
A PAUSE
WOMAN: When I was a child my mother took me in her arms and lifted me up. We were standing by the cherry blossom tree in the garden. Beside the pond where gold-fish swam, and water-lilies…
MAN: Was this where you grew up? Your home?
WOMAN: Yes, my home. And she lifted me in her arms and pointed to
the sky. She showed me the belt of Orion and told me he was a great warrior who lived in the sky. And the Pleiades. She called them the seven sisters, lost up there forever, wandering among the stars hand-in-hand, trying to find a way home.
MAN: Yes, the stars.
WOMAN: I looked up and told my mother I wanted to live there. She laughed and said nobody lived there except the gods. That all we could do was look up with awe.
MAN: Then maybe; not now.
A PAUSE
WOMAN: I would do anything for the sound of a voice.
MAN: Am I not a voice?
WOMAN: Yes, but…
MAN: You grow tired of me. I understand.
WOMAN: Forgive me. Not any voice. But my mother’s voice.
MAN: She is dead, your mother?
WOMAN: Yes. But does it matter what we long for? Whether it is
from the living or the dead?
MAN: I suppose it doesn’t matter. There is only silence now. If
we were to scream out no one would hear us.
WOMAN: Why would you scream out?
MAN: I said if.
WOMAN: Yes. If. But who would you want to hear it?
MAN: I don’t know.
A BEAT
WOMAN (quietly): I would hear it.
WE HEAR THE SOUND OF VENTILATION, OF MACHINES HUMMING AND WHIRRING IN THE BACKGROUND FOR A LONG TIME.
WOMAN: Look, the sun rises again.
MAN: I am weary of these sudden dawns and sunsets; these
succession of days and nights. I want…
WOMAN: Tell me what you want?
MAN: What’s the point?
WOMAN: Telling me.
MAN: Okay. I want… I want to sit by a pool on a beautiful
summer morning with a cold drink. A rum and Coke. To know that the sun will shine all day as it’s supposed to. All day, as I drink my rum and Coke. And when I’ve finished drinking as evening comes, maybe I will jump into the pool – from the diving board mind, not from the poolside. And when I jump, I will feel a light breeze on my body as I fall through the air, then hit the water with a shock of cold on my skin.
WOMAN: This is what you want?
MAN: Yes. That’s all. For the day to last all day. Not like these
sudden dawns and sunsets. That if I shouted someone
would hear me.
WOMAN: I would hear you.
A PAUSE.
WOMAN (hopeful): Maybe they will come for us.
MAN: They will not come for us.
WOMAN: Maybe they will.
WE HEAR THE SOUND OF VENTILATION, OF MACHINES HUMMING IN THE BACKGROUND FOR A LONG TIME. THEN:
MAN: It looks the same.
WOMAN: Yes, the same.
MAN: The same as
(a beat)
before.
WOMAN: Yes, the same.