Week 43, Day 297 - "Seance"

“Séance”

Written by Joe Janes

11/11/09

297 of 365

Cast

Madame Orlenka, 50s

Miranda, 30s

Peter, 30s

Nina, 40s

Stuart, 40s

Norman, 50s

(Lights up around a dimly lit table. Everyone is seated in a semi-circle with Madame Orlenka in the center. She is flanked by Peter and Miranda. The séance is already underway.)

MADAME

Everyone, keep your hands delicately on the table, with our fingertips touching ever so lightly. (She takes a deep breath) I feel the presence of a spirit.

MIRANDA

Is it Alicia? Is it our baby?

MADAME

Shhhhhh…. I am attempting to be in tune with the spirit world. I need silence.

MIRANDA

But-

PETER

Silence, Miranda.

MADAME

Oh, spirit. Make yourself present in our world. Let us know that you are with us. Give us a sign.

NINA

Oh!

STUART

Someone’s moving the table.

(The table rises and lowers. It does it again, but stays risen.)

MIRANDA

Alicia. Baby, we miss you.

STUART

Alicia would never lift a table.

NORMAN

I agree. Sweet girl, but I never saw her lift a finger except to scratch her own fanny. And even that caused her to break a sweat.

(The table lowers as if dropped.)

MADAME

Spirit, oh, spirit. If you are the dear spirit of Peter and Miranda’s daughter Alicia, please give us a sign. Some kind of sign.

(They see a trumpet dangling in the air and they hear what sounds like a horn blast from the trumpet.)

NINA

That was obnoxious.

STUART

Why would Alicia play a trumpet? She never played the trumpet.

NORMAN

Apparently, she still doesn’t.

PETER

So, it could be her.

MIRANDA

Madame Orlenka, please tell her we love her.

MADAME

She hears you.

MIRANDA

We love you, Alicia.

PETER

Did you hear us, baby?

(The horn blasts, again.)

NINA

Couldn’t she take up a different instrument in the after life? Who takes up the trumpet when you’re dead? Harps are nice.

STUART

Harps are nice. I only hear them when I go out to brunch.

NORMAN

Ask her to play the harp for us.

MADAME

She wants to know why you summoned her here.

PETER

To tell her that we love her.

MADAME

Anything else?

MIRANDA

And that we miss her.

PETER

We miss her terribly.

MADAME

She says she’s got it.

(Pause)

PETER

Alicia, your whole family is here. Daddy, Mommy, Aunt Nina and Uncles Stuart and Norman.

(Pause)

STUART

Well, this is awkward.

NINA

Isn’t she going to say anything back? Like, “miss you, too”?

NORMAN

I always thought she was a rude little girl.

STUART

Not so little.

MIRANDA

Alicia. It’s okay. We know you love us.

MADAME

No, she doesn’t.

MIRANDA

What?

MADAME

She just said she didn’t. She’s happy to be on the other side. Please don’t bother her. See you when you get here…maybe.

PETER

Now, you see here, Alicia. This is your father and you’ll listen to me. Your mother and I gave you everything you ever wanted. You were our world. Now, we probably could have been better parents. We probably shouldn’t have left the Christmas lights up that far into spring and so close to the swimming pool. But you really probably shouldn’t have been swimming when I hadn’t cleaned the leaves out, yet. Or taken the cover off.

MIRANDA

But we know you liked the flashing colored lights, so you did get to see them one more time before…

PETER

We did everything for you, Alicia. A little thank you is all we ask. Just a little thank you.

(They hear a weak, sustained blast from a horn.)

MADAME

She’s gone. I think that was a thank you.

(Peter and Miranda hug.)

MIRANDA

Thank you, Madame Orlenka. Thank you. You’ve helped make us very happy.

MADAME

My job is helping loved ones connect with one another. I’m glad I could do that.

PETER

Let’s go to the den. I think we should toast this momentous evening.

NINA

I need a drink. What do you take in your whiskey, Madame?

MADAME

One ice cube. Hold the ice cube. (She giggles as they walk off.)

(Stuart looks at Norman suspiciously.)

STUART

That last one didn’t quite sound like a horn.

NORMAN

Just my way of saying “thank you.”

(Lights fade.)

Week 39, Day 268 - "The Weeping Llama"

“The Weeping Llama”

Written by Joe Janes

10/13/09

268 of 365

CAST

Rachel, 20s

Wayne, 50s

Blanche, 50s

Dean, 30s

The Weeping Llama, 30s

Whale, ???

(Lights up on a shadowy, bare space. Rachel, wearing khaki slacks and a dark polo shirt, walks followed by the edge of a large tour group. We assume the group extends beyond from the three or four folks that we can see.)

RACHEL

This is an alley.

WAYNE

It’s very clean.

RACHEL

Chicago alleys are very well kept. It is a source of pride for our city.

BLANCHE

Is it haunted, too?

RACHEL

As recently as last month, and you can Google this, a man was walking through here with his wife taking a shortcut to get to their car after leaving “The Jersey Boys” before the curtain call to avoid the crowds. As he reached this very spot, a good twenty feet from the sidewalk, he and his wife reported hearing a wailing sound.

WAYNE

Blanche, they heard a whale. I’ll bet it was that dead whale we saw at the aquarium.

BLANCHE

We saw a dead whale today. And you didn’t want to go.

WAYNE

It’s fish. I’d rather pay to eat them than pay to see them. But seeing a dead one, especially a whale, that was cool. (He flips through the pics on his digital camera) I have a picture with me next to it.

RACHEL

That’s okay. The man and his wife didn’t hear a Beluga whale. They heard the sound of someone crying. They looked around and didn’t see anyone.

DEAN

What happened to them?

RACHEL

They left the alley, found their car, and drove to Naperville.

DEAN

That sounds terrible.

WAYNE

What made the crying sound? Did they ever find out?

RACHEL

Legend has it they heard the cries of The Weeping Llama.

(The crowd gasps.)

WAYNE

No whale ghosts, but you’ve got llama ghosts.

RACHEL

Llama is just a nickname. It was a weeping woman with a long hairy neck.

(A woman in a plain old dress, possibly from the 30s, enters the alley from the other side. She has a very hairy neck and carries a baby wrapped in a blanket.)

BLANCHE

There she is.

RACHEL

It’s said that every night at this time, she reenacts the horrible events that happened here.

DEAN

What happened here?

RACHEL

She married the man she loved.

BLANCHE

Oh, no.

RACHEL

It’s said that once they had a child, he stopped loving her. On the other side of this alley, she was walking down the street with her baby, looking for her husband. She found him strolling along with a party girl. He patted the baby on the head, but ignored her. He kept walking. Distraught, she walked into this alley and right in that spot, she killed her baby.

(We see the woman take the baby and begin to strangle it.)

DEAN

Don’t shake the baby! Don’t shake the baby!

(The woman drops the bundle to the ground. Begins to wail and walks off.)

BLANCHE

No wonder she’s a ghost.

RACHEL

But that’s not all. She left her husband and she became a party girl. She went to all the soirees, galas and jubilees. And soon, she was pregnant with a child.

WAYNE

The same child.

RACHEL

No, another child.

WAYNE

It would be so awesome if she was pregnant with the ghost of the child she killed.

BLANCHE

Or a whale.

DEAN

Or a real llama.

RACHEL

I’m sure you are all correct. However, in this case, it was just a baby.

(The llama woman reenters carrying another baby bundled much like the previous one.)

RACHEL

But the baby was cramping her new party girl lifestyle. She was no longer able to stay out as late and gentlemen callers stopped calling. So, she stabbed the baby.

(The woman pulls out a switchblade and stabs the baby.)

DEAN

Fight, baby! Fight!

(The woman drops the baby on top of the other one and wanders off, wailing.)

BLANCHE

This story is so horrible. Did she ever pay for her crimes?

RACHEL

Well, yes. But not how you think. She returned to her party girling and a very rich city councilman paid her to be a kept woman. And during that time, she became pregnant. Well, the councilman wanted to be mayor some day and wanted her to get rid of it, but she refused. She loved the man and wanted to have his child. The mayoral wannabe threw her out of her gilded cage.

WAYNE

She lived where?

RACHEL

Her apartment. Pregnant, she wandered the streets. Lost. Aimless. One night, she found her self here.

(The woman with the hairy neck wanders into the alley. She is pregnant. And she is wailing.)

DEAN

She’s wailing, again. Is it because she’s sad?

RACHEL

It’s because her water broke.

(The woman wails louder, falls to the ground and quickly gives birth. She stops wailing. She takes the baby and wraps it in a handy blanket. She cradles the baby in a very motherly fashion.)

BLANCHE

Look. It has a happy ending.

DEAN

I don’t think so.

RACHEL

She realized that she loved her baby. More than she had ever loved any of her babies.

(The woman stands.)

RACHEL (continuing)

She loved her baby so much that she knew she would never be able to stand her baby growing up and some day dying. So, she decided to kill the baby now to spare her the pain.

(The woman pulls out a gun and points it at the baby. Before she can pull the trigger, the baby pulls out a gun and shoots her. She drops the baby and falls to the ground. She wails in pain.)

DEAN

Did she die? Did the baby die?

RACHEL

Nobody knows. We only know that at this time every night, she lives through her nightmare again and she’s doomed to repeat it…for eternity. (She lets that land on her stunned tour group.) Okay, back to the bus. Let’s hustle. I get paid by the tour, not the hour.

(She leads them off. We hear a whale wailing. A whale walks out into the alley and sees all the bodies. The llama woman takes her gun and shoots the whale. He falls. Blackout.)

Week 11, Day 73 - “A Ghost’s Story”

“A Ghost’s Story”
Written by Joe Janes
4/1/09
73 of 365

CAST
Franklin, 30s
Jenny, 30s
Victor, 70
Mata Hari, 30s

(Lights up on Franklin in bed, looking over mail, including a large, stuffed manila envelope. Jenny gets in to bed for the night.)

JENNY

Any good news?

FRANKLIN

Just bills.

JENNY

What’s that one?

FRANKLIN

Another returned manuscript.

JENNY

Not your new novel?

FRANKLIN

No. My agent’s on top of that. It’ll get picked up. This is, you know, Victor’s memoirs. “An Admiral’s Life.”

JENNY

An admiral’s long, boring, tedious life. At least you kept your part of the bargain and, thank God, so did Victor.

FRANKLIN

Yeah. You’re right, Jenny. At least he’s resting peacefully, now. Good night.

JENNY

Night, sweetie.

(They kiss and turn off the lights. After a moment, they hear ghostly wailing.)

JENNY (continuing)

Franklin…Franklin…Did you hear that?

(Franklin sits up. There’s another low wailing sound.)

FRANKLIN

Please let it be the wind.

JENNY

I don’t think it is.

VICTOR

Oh-h-h-h-h-h…Oh, hell. Wake up, would you?

(Franklin turns on the light. Standing at the end of the bed is Victor, a retired Admiral from World War I, in uniform. Oh, and he’s dead. And by that, I mean, a ghost.)

FRANKLIN

Hello, Victor.

JENNY

Victor. Long time no see.

VICTOR

Mrs. Delarose. Sorry to awaken you.

(Long pause as Victor looks off and Jenny and Franklin exchange glances.)

FRANKLIN

Victor. We had a deal. I write your memoirs and you stop haunting our house.

VICTOR

That is correct. We are men of our word, aren’t Franklin?

FRANKLIN

Then what brings you here?

VICTOR

You wrote the book, but where’s the book?

JENNY

There’s one right here.

VICTOR

I see it here. I only see it here. Why am I not seeing it at Borders?

JENNY

You go to Borders?

FRANKLIN

Books don’t just magically appear at Borders, like you apparently do. A publisher has to publish it and then distribute it.

VICTOR

Oh. I see. I’m just being impatient, is that it?

FRANKLIN

Yes, and, perhaps, a little unrealistic.

VICTOR

How do you mean?

FRANKLIN

My agent won’t touch it. I’ve piled up twenty rejection slips peddling this book on my own. Publishers don’t seem too keen to get your story out to the people.

VICTOR

But, I was an admiral in The Great War.

FRANKLIN

Yes, but…

JENNY

Just tell him, Franklin.

VICTOR

Yes, Franklin, tell me.

FRANKLIN

You were the most mind-numbingly dull admiral in the history of the world.

VICTOR

How dare you!

FRANKLIN

Let me read some of the rejection slips…(He picks up a pile of letters from a desk)…Ho Hum… Interminable… Vapid… Monotonous… Didn’t this guy do anything?...Too dry for our tastes…This would be great if we wanted our business to fail…Sorry about the blood stains, I stabbed out my eyes… And you know what, Victor? They’re right.

VICTOR

You just haven’t found the right one, yet. What’s the one that Oprah likes?

JENNY

Victor, you’re not listening. Here’s your book… As dictated by you to my husband… I’ll just flip through and read at random… “Monday morning, Sept 17th, 1910. Today I drank six ounces of tomato juice. It upset my tum-tum. I will try it again tomorrow. After that, it’s back to reliable old orange juice, sans pulp.”… “Thursday afternoon, May 13th, 1915. Today, I was to meet with the president of the United States…

VICTOR

That’s interesting!

JENNY

…but he cancelled and I ended up having tea with Army Colonel Jessup. He drinks his oolong straight. I don’t know how he does that.” And then it goes on about how you don’t remember what you talked about because you were busy wondering why the lemons were sliced so thin. For two pages.

VICTOR

They were absurdly thin. Try again. The good stuff’s near the end.

JENNY

…”As I got older, I realized it is the little things I will miss the most. On this one spring morning in 1928, I had a rough go at having a pleasant bowel movement.”

VICTOR

I still miss that.

FRANKLIN

Victor, I’m sorry. Your life was mundane. You didn’t fight in any battles, you weren’t married, no children. No rocking the boat. No out-of-control substance abuse. There’s no story here.

VICTOR (tearing up)

Well… Here, I thought… I just wanted people to remember me… At my funeral, the only people who were there were the ones who had to officially be there. None of them knew me, personally.

JENNY

We’ll remember you, Victor.

VICTOR

As a dullard.

FRANKLIN

Not true. You scared the hell out of us when you started showing up. I’ll never forget that.

VICTOR

You’re just trying to be nice.

(Mata Hari enters.)

MATA

There you are, Victor! Oh, hello.

VICTOR

Mata Hari, this is Franklin and his lovely wife, Jenny.

FRANKLIN

Mata Hari?

MATA HARI

Yep. Victor, Marilyn Monroe is trying maraschino cherry stems with her tongue. Thought you’d want to be there.

VICTOR

Just the thing to cheer me up.

FRANKLIN

You party with Marilyn Monroe and Mata Hari?

VICTOR

Sure. It’s the afterlife. Eternity. No hangovers. What else are we suppose to do?

MATA HARI

Some of us get hung up on legacy, from time-to-time. Are you done worrying about that silly book?

VICTOR

I do believe I am. Let’s go, pet.

FRANKLIN

Wait. Victor. This is your book.

JENNY

Your afterlife is far more interesting than your life ever was.

VICTOR

Oh, the stories I could tell. Stalin and Gandhi experimenting. Saucy stuff. The party really kicked in when Reverend Falwell hit the scene.

MATA HARI

But this guy’s the real party animal. I can’t keep my hands off him.

VICTOR

It’s the uniform.

FRANKLIN

Victor – let me write the story of your afterlife. I promise you I can get that published.

(He looks at Mata Hari for a moment.)

VICTOR

Nah – I’m not one to kiss and tell. See you on the other side.

MATA HARI

Tah-tah!

(They exit. Franklin and Jenny look at each other dumbfounded.)

JENNY

He is pretty hot in that uniform.

(Blackout)