• Anticipation • Characters: Narrator: WARNING: This play contains Full Frontal Nudity and Strong Sexual Content. Any who do not wish to see such things is now invited to leave the theatre. Man is sitting on the couch watching The News. Woman walks in. Man: Do you know what the trouble with the world today is? Woman: There’s a dead baby on the porch. Man: No, it’s these damn video games these damn kids play all the damn time. How the hell are kids supposed to grow up right with their damn video games going all day? Woman: Well that may be true, but there’s still a dead baby on the porch. Man: Really? Woman: I think so. Let me go check. Woman walks out. Man: Damn liberal media! Woman walks back in. Woman: Yes, it’s still there. Man: I thought it was just an example. Woman: Well it’s an example of a dead baby. Man: Well what does it want? Woman: I don’t know – I’ll go ask it. Woman walks out. Woman walks back in. Man: Well? Woman: It can’t talk – it’s a dead baby. Man: Well it must want something. A dead baby doesn’t just appear on a porch for no reason. Woman: I don’t know – if you were a dead baby, what would YOU want? Man: Hmm… A hat, I suppose. SCENE 2 Boy: If you were a dead baby, what would you want? Girl: I don’t know. Probably to not be a dead baby. Boy: That’s not one of the options. Girl: I don’t think dead babies want anything. They’re dead. And I think that if you die when you’re a baby you automatically go straight to heaven. So really dead babies are probably happier than we are. Boy: That makes sense… yeah, dead babies are damn lucky. Girl: I wish I was a dead baby. Boy: Me too. SCENE 3: Woman: A hat? Man: I would imagine so. If you were a dead baby on the porch, wouldn’t you want a hat? Woman: I suppose… I’ll go give him one of your old hats and see if it goes away. Man: Not my good hat! Woman: You say every hat is your good hat. Man: Can I help it if I own many fine hats? Woman: Oh you men and your hats. Woman grabs a hat from the closet and leaves. She comes back in, still with the hat. Man: He turned down the hat? That damn dead baby thinks he’s too good for my good hat? Woman: He didn’t turn it down – he’s not there any more. Man: Oh. Well – more hats for me, then. Woman: It’s probably just as well. Dead babies go to heaven, right? And I don’t think you can even wear a hat in heaven. I wouldn’t think that a halo would be able to fit over top of it. Man: Was the baby baptized? If it wasn’t, it didn’t go to heaven. Nope – that dead baby went straight to hell. Just like this country. Oh, for God’s sake – would you look at this warning on the television? “This program contains full frontal nudity and strong sexual content.” Nudity and sexual content, on the television! What if that baby were in here to see this? Woman: Well, it’s a good thing it left then. And it’s a good thing he’s dead. SCENE 4 Lady knocks on the door. Woman answers it. Woman: Hello? Lady: Hello – have you seen a dead baby? Woman: Yes, he was here, but he left. Lady: He left? Woman: Yes. He was lying on the porch, and I came inside to get him a hat, but when I went back he was gone. Lady: Did he say where he was going? Woman: No, he was a dead baby, so he couldn’t really talk. Lady: Hmm – that makes it difficult, doesn’t it? Woman: I shouldn’t think a dead baby would be so much trouble to keep in one place. Lady: I’m no expert in dead babies, so I don’t know if this is rare or commonplace. Woman: I ought to be an expert, but I am not. I was a dead baby myself once, you know. Lady: Were you really? Woman: Wait, no – no I wasn’t. I was an alive baby. Are those two very different? Lady: One is dead and one is alive. Woman: Hmm – I suppose that would change things. I do remember having a hat, though, so there must be some similarities. SCENE 5: Girl: Why are you turning on the TV? Boy: I want to see if there’s anything good on. Girl: Is there? Boy: Here’s something with full frontal nudity and strong sexual content. Girl: Don’t put that on – my parents might come in here. Boy: If they come in we can pretend it’s for homework. Sex Ed. Girl turns off the TV. Boy: Hey! Girl: I don’t want to watch it. Boy: If you could be a movie star, but in order to get your big break you had to be on TV with full frontal nudity and strong sexual content, would you do it? Girl: I don’t know – they’d have to pay me a lot. Boy: How much? Girl: A lot a lot – like, a thousand dollars. Boy: Are you serious? Nobody would pay someone that much when they can get a college girl to do it for a keg of bear and string of plastic beads. Girl: You don’t think I’m worth a thousand dollars? Boy: It’s not personal against you – nobody’s worth a thousand dollars. That’s just economics – your thousand dollar boobs are being outsourced to drunk college girls who’ll show theirs for free. Girl: There’s a big difference between lifting up your shirt and full frontal nudity with strong sexual content. Boy: But still… Girl: Those economics aren’t very fair to those actors and actresses who make a living with full frontal nudity and strong sexual content. How are these adults going to keep paying their rent if all of the jobs go to drunk people? Boy: Same way other workers get by when cheap labor takes their jobs – government subsidies. Girl: I don’t think they have subsidies for porn stars. Boy: Life is rough for the naked actor. Scene 7 Man: Would you look at this? Woman: What? Man: I’ve been watching this program for a full twenty minutes, and have yet to see any full frontal nudity or strong sexual content. Woman: Thank heavens for that. We don’t need that filth around here. Man: No! They put a big warning at the front saying that there would be full frontal nudity and strong sexual content, and now I can’t switch the station until I see it! Woman: Why don’t you just turn it off? Man: I am a slave to the promise of full frontal nudity and strong sexual content! Woman: What’s come over you! Man: It’s the liberal media! It’s sucked me in with its crazy backwards ways! Woman: Give me the remote and I’ll turn it off for you. Man: Back off, woman, I need full frontal nudity and strong sexual content. Woman: Are you mad that I tried to give one of your hats to that dead baby? Man: I had forgotten about the dead baby. But now that you mention it, I am rather upset that you would put a dead baby ahead of your husband’s wishes. And I’ll tell you more about that when the TV gives me my Full Frontal Nudity and Strong Sexual Content! Woman: Oh Dead Baby and Liberal Media, what plague have you brought upon this house! Scene 8 Girl: Let’s play I Spy. Boy: Ok. You go first. Girl: All right… I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with b. Boy: A boy? Girl: No. Boy: A bed? Girl: No. Boy: A baby? A dead baby? Girl: Don’t be silly, there aren’t any dead babies in here. A Dead Baby flies through the window. Boy: How about that for timing? Girl: What’s that dead baby doing here? Boy: Lying there, it looks like. Girl: I mean, why is it here? Boy: Hey dead baby, what do you want? Dead Baby: All I want is to be loved… Girl: I can never love a dead baby that is not my own. Boy: I wonder who this dead baby belongs to? Its mother may be searching. Girl: Well if that’s the case, don’t touch it – if you touch it, the mother won’t take it back. Boy: I’ll pick it up with my sleeve and toss it back out the window. Boy picks up the dead baby with his sleeve and tosses it back out the window. Boy: Live free, dead baby. Live free. Girl: Well, maybe not LIVE. Scene 8: Lady walks down the street, gets hit in the head with the dead baby. Lady: Oh, my dead baby! You flew back to me! Thank you, God, for returning my dead baby to me safely! How may I repay you for this blessing? Man: (screaming from inside the house) I need full frontal nudity and strong sexual content! Lady: Well – who am I to question God’s will? Lady begins to unbutton her blouse, and a camera crew arrives to film it. But then a “whoop” is heard nearby and a group of drunk college students come by. Drunk Girl: Tell it again! Drunk Guy: I saw a dead baby on some porch, right, and I looked at it and was like “whoa – this dead baby totally looks like a little football” and so I chucked it as far as I could, and it landed right in the window I was aiming at! I was like “woooo! I win! I’m the best football player in the world!” Drunk crowd says “wooo!” Camera crew runs over to the drunk crowd, leaving the now naked lady standing naked in the street with her dead baby. Camera crew: Show us your boobs and we’ll give you beads! Drunk Girl: Ok! A man in a suit walks up to the woman and hands her a check. Man in Suit: Hello, Madame. I’m from the government naked actor subsidies department, and I have a check for one thousand dollars to subsidize the income lost to drunk college kids who are working for beads. Lady tries to take the check, and drops the dead baby in the process. Man in suit: My goodness! Is that a dead baby? Lady: Yes, it is my dead baby. Man in Suit: As a government official, I cannot allow you to keep this dead baby. I will take it home and raise it as my own, and give it the love that a naked actress never could. Here, dead baby, you can even have this hat. It is my good one. Dead baby is happy. Narrator: And so in the end the man, whose window looked out directly
at the crowd of drunk people, finally got the full frontal nudity
and strong sexual content that the television denied him, the boy
and girl, after having met a real dead baby, were once again happy
with their status in life, no longer wishing that they could be dead
babies, the lady used her government subsidy check to buy a special
dumpster specifically so people could throw their dead babies in,
and then the lady would look at them, as if it were a zoo. And the
Dead Baby finally got the love and hat that it needed, and so lived
happily ever after. THE END
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2009 - Nathaniel Jones