Wednesday, April 9, 2008

i already gave the end away...

If you listened to the blogtalkradio thing, you know how this story ends.
I'd be surprised if anyone managed to actually listen to it though. It's me babbling and repeating the same words more often than I'd like, for fifteen minutes.

In any case, here is the story/play from this weeks playwriting class. Again, it was remarkably liked and people are suggesting I submit it for short attention span festival-y things.
I might do so.
Have fun.


Track Branch
By ERIC JAMES FOX

A man sits behind a large mahogany desk on a deeply lined and well worn leather chair. He is smartly dressed in a charcoal gray business suit. On the desk before him is a sleek, black phone with many buttons.
The man, the desk, the chair and the phone are all sitting in a sumptuous high-rise office, overlooking a city where millions of people must live.
The man picks up the phone and presses a single button.

MAN- Linda? (pause) Yes. Thank you. I'm fine. Would you bring it in now please?

The man sits back in his chair and waits. Soon, Linda arrives, pushing a nondescript cart on which a small treasure chest sits. It's lock encompasses its entire front face.

MAN- Hmmph. I told them it wasn't going to be a damned lamp.

The man gets up from his chair, reaches into a drawer and pulls out a manila envelope. He taps the bottom of the envelope and a key slides into his hand. He walks to the chest, touches it briefly, puts the key into the lock and turns it.
A small puff of smoke escapes from the box as the cover lifts.
The man looks up from the box and sees the Djinni standing behind it.

MAN- That was slightly disappointing, I have to admit.

Djinni- Oh great master, allow me, your humble servant, to bring to you your wildest desires. I grant you now three wishes. What is your hearts fondest wish? Power? Glory? Life everlasting? You must only wish and it will be yours.

MAN- Yeah. I'm really not interested in any of that. I've kind of researched this a little. Had my boys go over some possible outcomes based on various wishes I might make. Of course, I presented it all as an exercise in logical thinking for them. They took it pretty seriously though and I think I'm confident with the outcome.

Djinni- Uh... Your boys?

MAN- Yeah. I got a think tank I fund and a whole squadron of lawyers. I pit them against each other like it was a game. It was a hoot. In the end, I had had it more or less figured out anyway, but it was still a fun couple of years.

Djinni- Okay...

MAN- So. Are you ready? Here's my first wish.

Djinni- You need only ask it, my master...

MAN- Yeah, yeah. Shut it on up there, scooter. I don't need the preamble. This is my first wish. I wish that you would need to work toward my best interest, would be truthful and would honestly like me.

Djinni- That's three wishes.

MAN- Nope. It isn't. It's one wish. My wish is to change the reality of you, I am merely describing what I want the new reality to be. If I were to wish for the perfect woman, I could describe her down to the smallest detail, couldn't I?

Djinni- Well yes you could, but really we're not supposed... Crap. Okay, so there's one wish. I like you and I will be honest with you and I will work toward your best interests. But, I am not happy about it.

MAN- Don't care. And... I don't really believe you. Let's try a test. If you will be honest with me and want the best for me, I should be able to ask you about the possible outcomes of a wish I am thinking about making, but am not making, and you'll have to tell me the way that wish would really turn up. Right?
Djinni- It appears so. I'm not really sure, honestly. This is kind of new ground you have me on.

MAN- Well, let's try it. There is a guy who owns a building uptown from here. I've been trying to get him to sell it to me, but there's no way he's going to. What might happen if I were to wish him dead?

Djinni- (quickly) It doesn't matter who you wish dead if you wish someone dead the person you value the most will also die through unexplainable circumstances and you will be sad for the rest of your life. Gah!

MAN- Well, I guess that'll have to do. You could still be lying, but I imagine at some point I'll have to trust you. Right?

Djinni- I wouldn't trust me. Damn it!!

MAN- Haa! Okay! Let's see where it goes then. My second wish involves life choices. I'm a very powerful man who has lead a good life. I'm in good health and have another twenty or so years in front of me, barring unforeseen circumstances, but I could go at any time and I'd go with a good measure of peace. But, curiosity has always been with me. It's like an itch. There are questions and I want answers. I don't want to use them for power or to change, really, anything. There are things I just want to know.

Djinni- I'll be honest with you as far as our working together goes, but that doesn't mean I'm going to be a magic eight ball for the rest of your life. If you want to know something outside of what we're doing right here, you'll have to use a wish.

MAN- That's okay. I wouldn't want to keep you from your next arrangement anyway. However, I can wish for you to make me something that can work like a magic eight ball.

Djinni- Anything you wish for to get you inside information about anyone else, or about the future, will only turn out bad for you. In your best interest, I recommend you think of something else.

MAN- How about the past, not the future?

Djinni- Well, you might be able to get away with something that looks at your past, not the past of anyone or anything else. Like you couldn't ask to see the Kennedy assassination...

MAN- No. This would be only about me. But, what I want to see is alternate versions of the past.

Djinni- What are you talking about?

MAN- I want a book that will answer the question of what would have happened if I had...?

Djinni- If you had what?

MAN- ANYTHING! Where would my roads have led me if I had made different choices? Not to change today, but just to know.

Djinni- Uh...

MAN- What?

Djinni- How about a couple million dollars instead? Wouldn't that be nice? I will make all the money you want appear and you have my personal promise there will be no negative repercussions . Really. I promise promise!

MAN- (swivels a monitor around to face Djinni. On it is a large, constantly incrementing number. It is ten digits long.) Do you see this?

Djinni- Yes.

MAN- This is a live view of my net worth. It is screen saver full of pomposity, I know, but I think it makes a neat point here. I'll make a couple million dollars after lunch. I've been looking for you for the better part of a decade. I don't think I'll be wasting a wish on money.

Djinni- How about women? I can make you desirable to the most beautiful women in the world.

MAN- Would you look at the screen again, please? I've had that kind of money for a long time. Women have been drawn to it and I used that to my advantage, but it the end, none of it was real, just like it wouldn't be real if you made some other women love me. I have a wonderful wife who demanded we sign a pre-nup, a loving family who don't seem overly eager for me to die and am generally pleased as hell with everything. There isn't anything you can tempt me with.

Djinni- I wasn't actually trying to tempt you. It's just that, if you make this book, you're not going to like it. Honestly.

MAN- Maybe I could use it as a tool for making more informed future decisions, but beyond that, it would only be a curiosity toy. It wouldn't hurt anyone.

Djinni- Yeah. I get that. You're not going to like it though. I really think you should reconsider. I actually do like you, though that may only be because of the wish you made. You made yourself who you are. You are already a success and are not looking to be vindictive toward anyone. You seem to have no greed, although that may be because you already own everything, I don't know. It doesn't really matter. You're not looking to hurt or to take advantage or to be given an easy way out of a bad situation. I rarely see that. All I've seen is basic, animalistic lust. People looking to claw their neighbors eyes out so they can have a better seat at the movies. Well, I never actually saw that, but you get my point.

MAN- I get it, and I appreciate what you say, but it doesn't change what I'm going to wish for. I want to wish for a book that will present to me the answers to the questions I ask it pertaining only to what would have happened differently in my life if I had made other choices, ones which I will elucidate. Will that wish get me what I want?

Djinni- It will get a thing that does what you ask, but it will not be what you want.

MAN- I'll decide that.

Djinni- Okay.

MAN- Do you remember the wish I just described?

Djinni- Yes. There's no way I can talk you out of it, is there?

MAN- Do I need to repeat it?

Djinni- (sigh) You need to say, I wish...

MAN- Okay. I got it. I wish that you would make true the wish I just described to you.

There is a small puff of smoke and a book appears on the desk.

MAN- Ah. Excellent. Let's try it out, shall we?

Djinni- (dejected sounding) Sure.

MAN- What is your problem?

Djinni- You'll see.

MAN- BOOK! I wish to see what would have happened if I had not skipped last period the day Jimmy broke his leg! Will the book understand?

Djinni- Oh yeah.

The man opens the book to find every page is blank.

MAN- What is this? You lied to me!? How could you have lied to me!? I had that checked out thoroughly.

Djinni- I didn't lie to you. I was absolutely truthful. I'm being ridiculously truthful. I'm being so truthful, in fact, that I'll even tell you why it doesn't do what you want it to do in the way you thought it would do it. I'll tell you even though I practically BEGGED you to wish for something else. The book is doing exactly what you asked it to do, you just don't understand the results.

MAN- What are you talking about?

Djinni- You could not have done anything differently. You could not have not skipped last period on the day Jimmy broke his leg. You had no choice.

MAN- Of course I had a choice. There are always choices.

Djinni- No, there is always the APPEARANCE of choices, but, in fact, there are none.

MAN- No choices?

Djinni- No. See? I told you you wouldn't like it.

MAN- So, you're saying everything we ever do, every action, is preordained?

Djinni- Yes. All of our lives are on very rigid tracks. There are no branches. Sorry to have to make you aware of it. It counts for everyone, even me. Every supernatural being knows this truth, and you'll know it too, once you're dead. We're not supposed to share the knowledge though. It's like a trade secret. I'm going to get a serious reaming for telling you. Thanks for that.

MAN- And the pages are blank because...?

Djinni- This is actually kind of funny. If, somehow, someone would make a decision for themselves, if they somehow found a way to make a branching track, the Universe would cease to exist. That's what the book is showing you. Blank pages representing nothingness! Funny, right?

MAN- Yeah... funny.

Djinni- So, that didn't work out well. It's okay. Like you said, you've got a really good life and you still have one more wish left! Let's think of something fun, like a trip or something we could go on together! I really like you. You're like, my pally guy!

MAN- I know what I want to wish for.

Djinni- What's that?

MAN- I want to wish that the next decision I make, be my own. I want to wish for a branching track of my own design. I do not believe what you say and if I must use my last wish to prove you are still, somehow, lying to me, I will do so.

Djinni- Hey! Hey, hey! Come on now! Don't be like that. I'm not lying. Really, really, really. Not lying. You know what? I'll tell you what. Three more wishes. How about that? I have a reserve bank I can pull from but no one is supposed to know about that, either. There you go. You don't make that wish you're talking about and we can forget this whole thing happened and you can start over with three more wishes and I will still be your truthful, honest, very honest, pally guy. Whadaya say? Good deal or what?

MAN- No. That's okay. I have to do this. I wish my next decision was mine alone.

Djinni- Oh...

The man stands up, and the lights go out.

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