The First Real Funeral

You grieved for the skin we found stuck to the sidewalk;

not knowing the garden snakes were only molting,

like boys running towards the water, their elbows popping out of T-shirt sleeves.

 

At nine and a half in dress up clothes on basement steps, we held mass like Priests.

Wearing Father’s ties, you wrote eulogies for everything that tasted like tragedy.

We learned to mourn on Saturday mornings, in bare feet with dirty hands,

planting tulip bulbs upside down in Mother’s garden.

 

I am buttoning my black coat to my chin, standing in the kitchen,

feeling your silence on my skin.

I am at the corner of your grief, and you are

somewhere in the middle of its country,

in the middle of his absence,

small again.

 

At night, I wake up and I am close enough for a minute

to hear the boys, sixteen, and calling to the shore

The night they raced to the water.

I dig my feet into the cold sand and watch them

spitting salt water from their cheeks.

Children with sunburns peeling down their backs.

Sea snakes, shedding their skin.

 

 

 

 

Emma Crockford is currently a sophomore at Rising Tide Charter Public School in Massachusetts. Her interests include goats that look like old men, and dogs that look like their owners. In the summer of 2014, Emma was the recipient of Stonehill College’s advanced studies program for teen’s Creative Writing Award. In 2015, She was chosen to attend the Grubstreet Young Adult Writer’s Fellowship. She is the founder and editor of her high school newspaper. Emma’s work has appeared in The Noisy Island, Teen Ink’s Print Magazine, and Grub Street’s Fellowship Anthology.

Art by Fiona McDonald

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A Conversation with Kelly Luce

What themes did you plan to explore before you started writing, and which ones cropped up naturally?

The themes in the collection curate themselves. A story collection is difficult to put together in the same way as a you would novel, because you want everything to feel connected while still being distinctive stories. When I started the collection, I didn’t know it was a collection, so I wasn’t purposefully trying to explore any specific themes, as you would with a book. I was just writing a ton of stories at the time, trying to see if I could succeed at it. I noticed that a lot of the stories took place in Japan, so I started putting my writing energy into that setting, where I lived and worked for three years. Something about my distance from Japan, for about four years at that point, allowed me see my experience there as an expat, or a foreigner living in a new place. Culturally, it was super interesting to learn about the food and mythology, but it was overwhelming to process while I was there, so the distance helped me refine it. 

A few people I knew died during the period while I worked, so themes of loss and grief naturally appeared in the collection. I also wrote stories during the period that had nothing to do with Japan, that the editors found not to fit. Curation is more of an editorial process. Publishers will take your pile of stories and order them, or take pieces out that don’t seem to flow with the others.

What do you think are the most important aspects of Japan in your writing?

The experience of being an outsider is very interesting to me. I grew up in a very homogeneous place. Everyone in my high school was white like me, and I never had too much experience with diversity. My years living in Japan really allowed me to experience the opposite of that.

But Japan itself is still a very homogeneous place. They have a saying: the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. In America, we really pride ourselves for standing, but in Japan, it’s the opposite. There, you just fit in, otherwise, you’re out. A lot of Japanese friends I met talked about the pressure of fitting in, and I thought that was a really interesting aspect of character. It was a fertile place for me to imagine the different battles a character would come up against in Japan.

How has your degree in cognitive science influenced your writing?

There are topics in the field that led to major topics in my writing, because I learned a lot about how memory functions. It’s not that different from writing fiction because both fields ask questions about humanity. Fiction is about creating, while cognitive science is an experiment in creation, which is a part of how emotion functions in the brain. They both come at human truth from opposite ways, but it’s the stuff in the middle draws me to both. The things like the amorameter, that measures love, are super fun to write about. That device seems crazy but people are researching it for real.

I’m actually crappy at science. I ran this experiment about music emotions and memory, and I fudged my data and changed it to tell a better story. Maybe that’s a better way of approaching fiction.

When did you start writing?  What was your first professional opportunity as a writer?

Since I was a kid, I wrote stories. I loved reading, so I wanted to create something just as powerful. For my 11th birthday I wanted a typewriter, and since then, I’ve written a number of books.

I had written for fun in my twenties and decided to send some stories to magazines for publication. I thought I would get rejected, but 5 months later, one got published in the Gettysburg Review, a story called “Ash,” which is in the new collection.

 

What advice would you give to young writers?

Read a shit ton! Read widely, and read stuff that you might not like: non fiction, or about cognitive science, or music, or history. The wider your net, the more material you have to draw from when you go to write your own.

Always carry a notebook and train yourself to write every day, even if it’s just a few lines.

Practice noticing what people say and the sounds you hear: usually great lines can relate to some great story. Become a trained observer of life.

Don’t worry about publishing yet. It shouldn’t be your only goal, because it takes so long.

Now that we have so many websites for publishing young writers, there are a lot more opportunities, but don’t get suckered into paying contest fees!

If you send it anywhere, revise it 10 more times than you think you need to. It always feels great to be done, but what seems done to you, an editor will think is not quite there yet.

That’s the hardest lesson I had to learn; don’t send work out too early. An editor won’t read it ever again.

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My Childhood Essence

It happens in screenshots

The screams

The shouts

Next is the reaching

Reaching high

Wide

Down

Up

Around

Stretch until you can’t reach anymore

Then standing

Awaiting the sound you have always listened for

Then you hear it

And you jump

As far as you possibly can

And straighten out-

You are in the air for seconds

But you have enough time to think,

What happens when I hit the water?

Then it happens before you decide on an answer

Then it’s silent-

Absolutely silent.

The only thing you have

Is the air in your lungs,

Your arms stretched above you,

And the bubbles of course.

And you know that when you break the surface

The air is your only ally.

 

Calli Hilvitz is a senior at Peak to Peak Charter School where she is currently working on poetry in her Literature and Composition Class.

Art by Audrey Carver.

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Melon Groves

melon groves, boyo. rows of young boys, backs exposed like the inner sliver of a green bean, hacking and picking away in the steaming soil.

 

  1. for real
  2. magnetized by high eyes
  3. treat me my body; a full mountain expanse
  4. drawing arrows down
  5. i am an epitome of forlonging
  6. dullness in my muscles
  7. as a stinging shower
  8. heat on skin
  9. how can you demand control
  10. blossoming oranges
  11. thank you for the way your wet mouth rolls over them
  12. we are the grinning acquaintances on your ascent in hell’s mountains.

 

Segolene Pihut is a senior at Idyllwild Arts and she is majoring in creative writing. She is the poetry editor for Parallax and loves dogs. 

Art by Noah Jones

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An Interview With J. Robert Lennon

J. Robert Lennon is the author of Pieces for the Left Hand.  He lives in Ithaca, New York, where he teaches at Cornell university.

Although his book Pieces for the Left Hand is fiction, the journalistic tone makes it read as nonfiction. In one hundred anecdotes, the narrator walks us through life in a small town in upstate New York, revealing the unsettling and strange in everyday life: questioning memory through a boy’s false recollection of his father’s chopped-off fingers, measuring loneliness by a deceased mother’s collection of teabags, exploring the bizarre tragedy of students trapped in a water pipe. Through these anecdotes inspired by the fictional narrator’s daily walks through town, Lennon adds an eerie yet philosophical layer to the flatness of everyday life. Parallax staff members Linnea Zagaeski and Evan Lytle discussed the writing life over email with Lennon.

“What inspired you to write this collection of short stories?”
When I started writing this book, I had a toddler, and my childcare “shift” coincided with his naps. He didn’t sleep for long—maybe half an hour—so I started thinking about writing projects that I could accomplish in that small amount of time. I wrote a few of these and liked them enough to do a whole book.
Why did you choose the story “Lefties” to base your title off of? Are you yourself left handed?
Yes, I am! I’ve always found the rhetoric about lefties being special to be kind of silly, so I decided to write a story about that.
Why did you write the introduction in third person? What effect did you want it to have?
My editor suggested that—she thought it would be interesting to frame the stories somehow. The character who narrates the stories isn’t me; he’s older and has a different kind of life. It took me 20 stories or so to understand this, actually. In the end, I almost think of this book as a novel about a guy who writes 100 stories.
Are some of these entries directly from a personal journal or diary, or based on true stories encountered personally or through friends?  If so, what was the process of developing them into fictional anecdotes like?  Are any of the anecdotes nonfiction?
They are all fiction. About half of them are inspired by details from my actual life, but I pushed them into fiction from there. “The Mad Folder” is the closest thing to nonfiction, I guess, though it really isn’t. Some of the stories are inspired by local news articles. In general, the fiction came in when I thought, “Hmm, wouldn’t it have been funnier if it worked out this way instead?” I don’t keep a journal or diary, for some reason.
Walking is introduced as part of the narrator’s writing process in the introduction to Pieces for the Left Hand.  There is a long history of writers who found walking integral to their creative process (Thoreau, Wordsworth, Joyce, Woolf, Stein, etc.), and recent studies reveal the benefits of walking for one’s creativity. What kind of role did walking play in your creative process as you worked on Pieces for the Left Hand?  Did you always see walking as integral to this narrator’s storytelling, or did you develop that idea after you had already started writing the anecdotes?
I walk a LOT. Like, four or five miles a day, when I have time. My head is pretty cluttered and I am extremely emotional and the walking calms me down and lets me think. Once I realized that the stories were being written by a character who was not me, I imagined him walking around near his house, which was not my house. Although, oddly, some years after the book was published, I moved pretty much into the house where he lives.
What kind of relationship do you want your reader to have with the narrator?
Oh geez, I don’t care. I suppose I intend for you to mostly like him but be a little skeptical of his motives, his judgments.
Did you want to raise certain questions with this work? If so, what kind of questions?  What questions were raised for you either while writing or when you went back through the collection?
No, I was pretty much doing this automatically, without any themes in mind. I imposed the sections later.
How many drafts did you go through on average for each anecdote?
Two or three. A few popped out just about how they ended up in the book. Some I had to really work over. Once I had the voice going, though, I could crank them out pretty efficiently.
Did you have any more anecdotes that you cut out during the editing process?  Why did you decide to organize them into the seven sections that appear in the book?
There were maybe ten more? Most of them were at the beginning, when I didn’t have the voice down yet. Once I had the voice, I didn’t write any rejects. My editor, again, told me to break it into sections. My original idea was the same idea that the 1980s post-punk band The Minutemen had for their most famous album, Double Nickels on the Dime: they should be read at random. (Now, in the digital era, you can shuffle the Minutemen album as they intended!) But my editor favored a little more organization. I still have mixed feelings about that, but it did enable me to write those little extra-short stories that introduce each “chapter.” Those were really fun to think up.
By the way, I play music as a hobby, and recorded an accompanying album of 100 really short songs, which is out there on the Internet. Also, I once recorded a cover of a song your teacher wrote. Your teacher is an awesome songwriter.
Thank you for reading my book!
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When The Wise Man Speaks

I don’t mind sleepless nights
utterly unmanageable
afraid of drowning in
piping hot cups of coffee

So wind me up, watch me go
seventy-five down the metro
and moving from predator to prey
has not been easy, but natural

Rather mindful indeed, and not
an ounce of shame to show
proud and pearly whites
or matte black silhouettes

I’d play for you if I could
the melody of a thousand notes
the key change of a single song
if I mustn’t choke back
the fear (a dangerous
concoction when mixed
with passion)

To this day, I am
convinced that
He sang it better.

Executive entanglement, I’d like
to say, yet words fail me;
you belong on the couch
feet on top of mine;
tucked, frightened, and ready to run

The yellow pencil trembles
while I grasp it
I beg to communicate
a foreign and mental narrative
Pen for me not ten verses, but one.
The scraps of memories that live
in the darkest corners
and compartmentalized
into the ephemeral seasons

When pure bliss was mine,
I didn’t know.
Brilliant ideas rarely appear
in the “comfort zone”

But who you are is not
who I want you to be-
you belong to the people
who love you
hopelessly lost
in the labyrinth
of life

When you took a shot
at change, it worked.
You transform the intolerable
into the sentimental,
much like everything else:
Ideas that didn’t die.

 

By Grace Vedock

Grace Vedock is an aspiring poet. When she isn’t finishing her schoolwork, Grace enjoys looking to outside sources of inspiration for writing. Throughout her high school career, poetry and literature have been of great interest to Grace. On her own time, she decided to study and begin to write poetry. A handful of her poems have been published, most notably by Crashtest Magazine and The Noisy Island. She has an acute desire to share her poetry with the young readers and writers of the world.

Artwork by Sumin Seo.

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I’ll Sing to Both

 My father dances to women
singing jazz, black birds and blue
jays. I dance to the sound of his
footsteps and stand on his black
 
penny loafers. We don't talk
about my parents' childhoods except
for Midwest winters, but I wonder if they played
jazz on vinyls, what it sounds like when it gets scratched
       if the sound still echoes.
 
My mother doesn't like jazz or
poetry. She listens to Sheryl Crow
on broken CD players that skip my favorite
parts in the summer, and I want to sing
 
to sunshine and sadness, but my mother
says I'm no good. So I listen to Alicia Keys
on my sister's portable CD player that isn't broken and pretend
she is singing to me, calling my braided hair beautiful, while I wait
        for the click of my father's heels back from work.
 
My teacher says she doesn't trust the new
ipods, says they can't sound like records
on Sunday afternoons. It's just not possible
that something so tiny can hold so much.
 
My father doesn't know that Uncle
Kracker's song Follow Me is about adultery
so I download it along with Sheryl Crow's
album, but I sing to both when no one
               is watching.
 

Sophie Coats was born in Texas, but raised a Jersey girl. Junior year of high school, she traded out
public school life for the boarding school experience at Interlochen Arts Academy where she studied
creative writing. She was awarded a gold key for flash fiction and a gold key for poetry in the
Scholastic Art and Writing awards. Her work can also be found in the Interlochen Review.
Art by Sarah Little.
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Town

This is a town whose colors crawl from the shadows
Of nicks and corners.
Dust rolls up
The encapsulating outer walls of the town every other Tuesday,
The walls are 100 feet tall and there is no wind here
Ever.
Peter and Lee are getting married
In the Jonsons’ inn on the west side of town:
Date, unknown.
I have never met Peter, Lee or the Jonsons,
Nor have I ever been driven to count
The number of rocks that make up the city’s walls.
The graveyard is very beautiful
When the sun peeks through the angry gray brushstrokes
That people call clouds,
All of the flowers are the same color.

The town holds a meeting every year
To determine how many people live
Within our protecting walls,
I do the headcount, the number is always
25.
No one really knows
What their neighbor’s face looks like;
No one really cares
To try and paint portraits around here.
There are just as many alchemists
As there are mercenaries in this place,
There is no jail,
And both services cost the same.
The Jonsons open the inn at 7 am and close at 12 am,
Just in time to prevent Richard from walking in
Pushing an empty stroller.
The bar is open 24/7.

Scratch that,
There are 26
People in this town,
James lives down in the well,
He gives us water and we breathe him air.
The church’s people have had to move the chapel
12 feet East every year
To make more room for the cemetery.
Its been 70 years since I tried to leave this place,
I am the sheriff,
Business here is slow, the undertaker gets more business than I do.
There are always 26 people,
Everyone else
Never stays “around” for long.

Sometimes I can hear ‘everyone else’ sing,
Their monotone pitch of pain gives roses their rose.
It is January when they gain strength
And melody turns into the screeching
Of nails drawing against wood.
It must be beautiful what they do
In their tortured years bellow the dirt.
Once James murmured me to help them,
He said their noise was making him cold.
I told him I couldn’t
For shattered throat moans are not considered my jurisdiction.

By Eleonora Beran Jahn

Artwork by Hannah Hardy.
“Self Portrait,” Parallax Horror Contest Winner

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Gregory Robinson talks Mixed Medium

Everyone has an obsession. Gregory Robinson channels his fascination of silent films into his book of prose-poetry, All Movies Love the Moon. This book takes readers on an entertaining journey through the evolution of silent films. The creative writing majors of Idyllwild Arts Academy were fortunate enough to Skype with Robinson and ask him questions about his writing.

 

When and how did you get interested in silent films?

Robinson: It started when I watched The General with a friend who was really into silent films. It was amazing. Silent films have so many surprises, and they break many of the rules that they ultimately helped to establish. Also, as a literary sort, I loved that silent movies ask you to read. As I started to watch more, I noticed how essential the title cards are, and I love how they blend in with the design of the movie. The more silent movies I watched, the more I got into them. Now I’m a big fan. My wife and I go to the silent film festival in San Francisco every year.

I was wondering if you wrote the book in chronological order? Or did you go all around?

Robinson: I totally went all around. I was really worried that the texts would sound detached, and that it wouldn’t be a cohesive piece, but recurring themes eventually emerged on their own.

At what point did you know you were writing the book?

Robinson: I sat down one night and wrote one about the movie Sunrise, and it just sort of clicked. After that, my goal was to write one [prose-poem] a night and write 100 total. I wrote about 50, and just over 30 made it to the book.

You write prose poetry, which is a hybrid combination of two genres (prose and poetry). Hybrid writing, such as this, is not something you generally find on the bookshelf of your local Barnes and Noble. Because of this, did you ever feel like a misfit writer?

Robinson: I thought it would be an unpublishable book. I was not sure if there was an audience, and publishers often don’t want to publish an image and poetry book–it’s really expensive, for one thing. It is also not quite traditional prose or poetry. With prose poetry, I felt like I was not writing in any genre. I was just writing quick quips. I felt like I was writing other things that other people weren’t doing. It’s not so radical, but it did feel different.

How did you find someone who would publish something so unconventional?

Robinson: I found Rose Metal Press as I wandered around at the AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) conference, and I bought The Louisiana Purchase by Jim Goar. Rose Metal Press looks for hybrid works such as flash fiction and image/text combinations. I only spoke with them for a few minutes, but I knew they would be a good fit for me. I had my book mostly written at that point, so I sent it in during their open reading period.

In the book, the speaker references imagined conversations with Ralph Spence, a prominent title card writer in early 1900s. Would you mind describing what it was like to talk with Ralph Spence?

Robinson: I never actually met him; he died a long time ago. In the book, I have some imaginary dialog with his ghost. I can say that he was a very important guy. He knew everyone in Hollywood and lived a movie star lifestyle, including mansions and limousines. His job was to “fix” movies with words. They called him a film doctor, and I love the idea that words could make a movie better. His tagline was “All bad little movies go when they die go to Ralph Spence.” He was not a nice person, though. He had a wife and child that he neglected and he ultimately died alone. He had a grandson, and I did talk to him, but that was the closest I got [to speaking to Ralph Spence]. Spence’s grandson knows very little about him, nor does anyone else.  I drove to find Spence’s grave once, but it was mostly grown over. So, the lesson from Spence is that you should write down your stories. At some point, people will want to know who you were. I want to be able to know Ralph better, but I don’t think I ever will.

Was this book supposed to pose more answers to questions about silent movies, or more questions?

Robinson: I hope that I asked more questions. The book should be playful and fun, while dealing with serious issues. In fact, I think the book is kind of a bad place to go for real answers. There are facts scattered throughout, but there are also partial truths, and things that I might like to be true.

What is your definition of immortality? Movies contain an essence of immortality because they last forever, so I was wondering what your definition is.

Robinson: I love thinking about silent movies ahistorically – so rather than considering them immortal works, I try to look at them as if they were created recently. This lets me talk about silent movies without being nostalgic.

What was your favorite movie to watch and what was your favorite poem to write?

Robinson: My favorite poem didn’t make the collection. In fact, I do not think I even submitted it to the press. It was The Passion of Joan of Arc, which is probably my favorite silent movie. My wife is named Joan, and the poem was more a piece for the two of us. My favorite movie to write about was The Woman in the Moon. I love all the scenes, interactions, and innuendos, and what they thought a rocket ship would look like.

What is the future of written word? Do we have anything left to say?

Robinson: I think we do. I love to see authors play with genre and look forward to works that combine genres. For example, think about all the genres that are available – play writing, cookbooks recipes, and obituaries, which aren’t typically creative, but are fertile soil for someone with creative ideas. Take the dullest thing you can find and make it into something amazing. Those are the kind of things I love to read.

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Curiosity Killed the Coroner

On stage, NELLIE, a dead woman in her early twenties, is lying on an examination table covered, all except for her face, by a white sheet. The sheet acts as a dress, not coming off when she sits up, which she will do in the play. There is a table about 5-10 feet away that mirrors hers. It is empty and the light over it is off. NELLIE is made up to look very dead and cold. She does not appear mutilated; just embalmed. The man standing over her- CALVIN- is a coroner in his early fifties. He looks tired and bored. He is holding a clipboard. Next to him is a tray on wheels that holds his clean dissection tools. There is a spotlight focused on him the whole time. It partially shines on NELLIE and when she is “alive”, she gets her own spotlight. CALVIN’s light does not turn off until the end. CALVIN is looking at the clipboard, walking over to the examination table. He squints his eyes at the name on the clipboard, thinking he recognizes it.

CALVIN
Ellie?

CALVIN looks up at the corpse, scared. He lifts up the sheet, sees the woman, and looks back at the clipboard, relaxing at her face and the name it says.

CALVIN (CONT)
Oh, no. Nellie.

He starts paraphrasing what’s written on the page on his clipboard, shaking his head at what it says. He is reading from behind the table.

CALVIN
Nellie. Hm. (beat) Died from a heroin overdose at only twenty-three. Parties, drugs, sex; you probably thought you had everything. Too bad you died so young.

He leans in to start the autopsy while saying this. NELLIE’s eyes pop open. She sits up on the table as her light turns on, almost as if she has been pretending to be asleep and listening to CALVIN without his knowing. She is energetic and happy. She looks at CALVIN and starts talking while she adjusts to hang her feet off the side of the examination table. As soon as she sits up and starts talking, CALVIN jumps back, stumbling over his tray and letting out a yelp, startled by her charisma and the fact that she’s talking. He raises an eyebrow and his eyes widen when she addresses him by name.

NELLIE
Oh, it’s been loads of fun, Doctor Calvin. (Sitting up) It sucks that you didn’t take the chance to party when you were young. You’re right: the drugs and the sex are awesome. And with crazy friends, it’s even better.

She says this with an almost sly smile. He looks at her, incredulous, and is unable to say anything. NELLIE waits for a response and, when CALVIN is finally able to talk (after 5-10 seconds of silence), he stutters.

CALVIN
Uh- But you’re-

NELLIE smiles, laughing at CALVIN.

NELLIE
Yeah, I know. I’m dead.

CALVIN
(Stuttering) How-?

NELLIE cuts him off. She pretends not to understand what he’s talking about.

NELLIE
How did die? Ha. Let’s just say the heroin was free and leave it at that.

CALVIN
Wha-? No, I mean how are you talking?

She rolls her eyes, speaking as if she’s stating the obvious.

NELLIE
It’s your imagination, Calvin. No living friends, remember? When people get too lonely, they create imaginary friends.

He is confused at first, then offended. He stands up straight again, adjusting to the situation.

CALVIN
Wha- Hey! I have friends!

NELLIE
You do now.

She smiles, laughing at him as he realizes that what she’s saying is true. He looks away, growing more depressed at the realization.

CALVIN
Aside from you, I mean.

NELLIE
I don’t recall any.

CALVIN
Well, I have…

He pauses to think.

CALVIN (CONT)
Oh. I guess you’re right.

NELLIE laughs again. He looks back at her, narrowing his eyes.

CALVIN (CONT)
Well, what about your friends?

NELLIE
What about them?

Crosses around the table to down-stage right.

CALVIN
It’s just that you were saying how great your life was. Why did you give it all up just for some free heroin?

NELLIE
I don’t know. I got crazy. I had a good time! You can’t live your whole life without risk; risk promises excitement.

CALVIN looks at her skeptically.

CALVIN
Don’t be so sure.

NELLIE
Why do you say?

CALVIN does a sort of body scan and looks at his coroner’s report.

CALVIN
Well, it says here you were 23. That’s a pretty young age to die. I’ve avoided high risk practically all my life and my clock’s still tickin’ at 52 years old.

She stands up and walks towards him, stage right. He walks away, stage left.

NELLIE
Okay, sure. So you’re still alive. But it’s not worth it.

NELLIE gets up and approaches CALVIN. He tries to walk behind the table upstage right, but she blocks him. He tries instead to walk downstage but she grabs him.

CALVIN
What do you mean?

NELLIE puts her arm around him, but he rejects it, trying to move away from her. She takes control by moving closer to him and keeping him in place.

NELLIE
Oh, please. I bet you never have any fun. Your life is so boring that you actually had to imagine a friend for some entertainment.

CALVIN
My life is not boring.

NELLIE
Oh? What kinds of things do you do for enjoyment, then?

CALVIN smirks and looks at NELLIE’s torso.

CALVIN
You don’t want to know.

NELLIE shrugs.

NELLIE
I’m curious. Tell me anyways.

CALVIN
If you’re sure…

NELLIE looks at him expectantly.

CALVIN (CONT)
(Slightly ashamed) Alright. Sometimes I reorganize peoples’ organs in order of importance.

NELLIE’s eyes go really wide and she leans back a little bit in shock. She steps back.

NELLIE
You do what?

CALVIN
I told you you didn’t want to know. It’s relaxing, though.

CALVIN goes to the front of the table.

CALVIN
(Reassuringly) And I put them back afterwards. Plus, you’re the corpse in the situation, so I’m pretty normal compared to you.

NELLIE gets defensive, leaning forward.

NELLIE
Hey, you’re talking to me.

CALVIN
(Darkly) Touché.

Angry and pointing a stern finger at CALVIN.

NELLIE
(Approaching CALVIN)You’re fucking weird, man. You need to get a life.

CALVIN
You think it’s so great to live like you did?

NELLIE
Yes!

CALVIN
But it ends so fast!

NELLIE
So? At least I had fun!

CALVIN looks slightly annoyed.

CALVIN
Even if it were better to take the kind of risks you did, what would I do for fun? I’m an old man for god’s sake.

NELLIE sits on the end of the table.

NELLIE
(Laughing) Well, I guess it can be a bit hard to have fun if you’re just hanging around… (looks at him weird) and cutting up… dead people all day, especially since it looks like you’ll be joining them yourself pretty soon.

She smiles at her joke. CALVIN glares at her.

CALVIN
Watch it.

NELLIE
Oh, I don’t know. Don’t just focus on work all the time. It’s depressing lurking around a big pile of bodies 24/7. It’s going to get to you. Hell, it already has! You’re talking to a dead drug-addict. Go out and meet living people. Have fun. Form real relationships with functioning life forms.

She spots the wedding ring he still wears and motions to it with her hand. She becomes more encouraging and hopeful.

NELLIE (CONT)
Oh, or take your wife to dinner or go on a date with her or something.

CALVIN sits on the end of the table with NELLIE, twisting his ring around. He talks quieter.

CALVIN
I can’t do that.

NELLIE
Sure you can. It would be healthy to go out with your family.

CALVIN
Do you have any other suggestions?

NELLIE
If it’s because you’re not on good terms, this could be a chance to make it better. Maybe you’re at work too often or-

CALVIN
(Sparsely) They’re dead.

NELLIE slouches a little more.

NELLIE
(Sadly) Oh.

CALVIN
Three weeks ago. (beat) My two daughters were with my wife, Ellie… (beat)They were on a plane to visit her parents on the West coast. They’re big on holidays. I had to stay for work; it’s always a bit busier around Halloween.

NELLIE cautiously scoots closer to CALVIN and lays a hand on his shoulder.

NELLIE
I’m sorry. I didn’t know.

CALVIN
It’s fine. You’re probably the part of my imagination I kept that detail from.

NELLIE
Yeah…

CALVIN
So, any other recommendations on how a lonely old guy can have fun?

CALVIN gets up and crosses to stage left. He chuckles a little, trying to use humor to cover up his pain. It’s awkward for a few moments.NELLIE is grateful for the change of topic. She responds as if their conversation hasn’t just happened.

NELLIE
(Excitedly) Well, you could try meeting new people. (beat) Go to parties! Maybe you can find a girlfriend or-

CALVIN
You want me to replace my wife? And then die from overdosing with some skank, right? That’s how I’m supposed enjoy life? By screwing it up? I’ve seen tons of people like you, dead and alive. You’re all the same. You’re given a good life and then you waste it. You don’t appreciate the people you have, or you just don’t get close to anyone. My family isn’t something I can replace. Maybe you had disposable friends- an expendable life- but…

She cuts him off.

NELLIE
(Defensively) Hey, I enjoyed my life.

CALVIN
Did you?

NELLIE
Yes, I did!

CALVIN
Well… don’t you miss it?

CALVIN turns away while she’s talking, not wanting to listen to her criticize the way he lives.

NELLIE
That’s the whole point! I lived a life that I could miss. I don’t miss my beating heart; I miss the way I lived while it was still beating. At least my life was worth something to me.

CALVIN snaps his head at her and glares, resenting what she has just said.

CALVIN
What is that supposed to mean?

NELLIE
You don’t have any meaningful relationships anymore, you don’t know anyone, nobody knows you, you haven’t done anything with your life other than dissect people… You’re worthless without your family. There’s no point in living now that they’re gone.

CALVIN
(Quietly angry) Shut up.

NELLIE (CONT)
You don’t make a difference to anyone anymore.

CALVIN
Stop it!

NELLIE
It’s not worth living! You’re better off dead! It’s not worth living!

CALVIN yells at NELLIE, shoving her. As he slams his fist down and yells, NELLIE passes out again, going back to her dead state. He checks her pulse.

CALVIN
You’re wrong!

CALVIN is shaking from anger by this point, but now he’s alone in a silent room with a corpse, where he has time to contemplate what NELLIE has said. He backs away slowly from the table and talks to the audience.

CALVIN
(Slowly) It’s not worth living. (Beat)

CALVIN backs towards the other table, running into it and sitting down. He takes his ring off.

CALVIN
It’s not worth living.

He lays down on the table. Nellie’s light turns off at the same time the light over the table CALVIN is now laying on turns on. Lights out.

END OF PLAY

 

By Hannah Phillips

 

Art by Greg Ballenger

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