Written by Joe Janes
9/26/09
251 of 365
CAST
Henry, 50s
Father Theodore, 50s
(Lights up on Henry’s bedroom early in the morning. He is deep asleep. His bell alarm clock goes off. He hits the button and it goes off. He barely wakes up to do that. He is quickly back to slumbering. Another electric alarm clock goes off across the room. He growls. He gets up and crosses the room to turn it off. He stands for a moment in the dark. He takes a deep breath. He coughs a bit. He rubs his face. He stretches. It feels good. He walks back to the bed and crawls back in and goes to sleep. Another buzzing alarm clock outside the room goes off. He climbs out of bed and stumbles out the door to offstage. We hear a cat get stepped on; he says “Fuck!” and a lamp gets knocked over. He turns the alarm clock off. He comes back into the bedroom and turns the light on. He stretches some more as he walks to the center of the room. He gets down on the floor on his back and starts to do sit-ups. He starts off quickly and spends more and more time when he is on his back. Until finally, he simply lies on his back. After a pause, he farts. A moment later, we hear soft snoring. A clock radio goes off near his bed. It’s playing whatever horrible schlocky dance Top Ten hit of the moment, Miley Cyrus or something. He crawls over and shuts it off. While on his knees, he collapses the upper part of his body onto his bed. Father Theodore stands in the doorway holding a broken lamp. He lightly clears his throat. Henry straightens up and pretends to be praying. Father Theodore shakes his head and walks off. Henry peeks to see if Father Theodore is still there. Relieved to find him gone, he sits on the edge of his bed. He looks distraught. He wonders if he’s really cut out for the monastery. He looks up, closes his eyes and prays for real. We hear the glorious sound of angels. Henry looks perturbed. He reaches over to the foot of the bed and turns off another alarm clock. Blackout.)
