- Full Length
- Drama
You wanna know what the future looks like? Samantha, 17 and possibly pregnant, longs for solid ground—but she’s haunted by the sense that nothing will last. Her college-bound boyfriend wants to go sing on The Voice, her dad’s asleep on the couch, and her older sister’s in treatment. When Sam befriends a tattooed musician, has she found someone who understands this fallen world? With black humor and black metal, this gripping new play gives form to a gathering darkness.
Play Sample Text
FROM SCENE 7: WHAT DOES SATAN THINK?
MARTIN
Are you invested? Can you be invested?
SAMANTHA
In what. In food service?
MARTIN
In food service. Yes.
SAMANTHA
In mopping floors maybe? In cleaning sick off bathroom sinks? Shit off toilets? In wiping down countertops? In playing nice to fucking. Dead people?
MARTIN
Dead people. Who’s dead. Who’re the dead people.
SAMANTHA
Doomed people.
MARTIN
Right.
SAMANTHA
Have you seen the amount of sodium we’re pushing? Let alone. You know.
(She makes a vague gesture.)
I mean. Invested? What is that. What does that even. What is that.
MARTIN
Your life? Howabout your life invested in your life?
SAMANTHA
Huh.
MARTIN
Nod if you understand the question.
SAMANTHA
No one wants to be on a sinking ship.
MARTIN
I’m sorry?
SAMANTHA
No one wants to be on a sinking ship.
MARTIN
Um.
SAMANTHA
Do you have kids? Are you the sort of person who has kids?
MARTIN
Um. Yes. Yeah. You can see. On the desk.
SAMANTHA
Right.
MARTIN
The pictures.
SAMANTHA
Yeah. Sorry.
MARTIN
Two of them.
SAMANTHA
They’re cute.
They’re doomed.
You know that right? That they’re doomed?
MARTIN
Um. No. Actually. I didn’t know that.
SAMANTHA
Yeah. Ten, twenty years? Doomed. So. I mean. Invested?
You wanna know what the future looks like? It doesn’t look like your kids. I’m just saying. The future’s a google search away. If you know what you’re looking for. It’s horrible. It’s tasteless.
Speaking of which: I’ve always admired your taste in ties. I think you match colors and patterns really very well. Though there was the odd occasion? I thought maybe you were colorblind. Are you colorblind?
MARTIN
Yes. Actually.
SAMANTHA
See? I’m very perceptive.
I don’t mean to startle you. When I think about the future. I don’t generally think of kids. Of the future being the sort of place where kids would be very happy. So I don’t generally tend to think the future has too many of them, yeah? I’m not much of a sadist. Truth be told. Not where kids are involved.
Are you a sadist?
MARTIN
No.
SAMANTHA
Right.
Well maybe not consciously. Wink wink.
Anyway. I’m joking. I’m pregnant. Honestly. No joke. Totally pregnant. I believe the children are our future.
So we have that in common. Apparently.
(Pause.)
What do you feed them? They look so happy.
Seriously.
(SAMANTHA looks as if she might vomit.)
MARTIN
[Are] you okay?
SAMANTHA
No. Yeah. Sorry. Wow.
I just got nauseated all of a sudden. I felt very very nauseated.
I don’t know if it’s you or.
I just got—
I’m fine.
My kids’ll eat your kids for breakfast. I have that feeling.