In The Breeze
Cast:
Sandy
Mills
Setting: A large tower.
(lights up on Mills, he's on top of a large tower, leaning out over the edge, big smile, eyes closed, enter Sandy)
Sandy: Mills?! Mills! What are you... Careful! Mills get down! Mills!
Mills: (loud voice, he's shouting to be heard over wind) I'm flying, Sandy! I'm flying!
S: You're high, but you're not flying.
M: What?! I couldn't hear you... wind is too strong!
S: There's no wind, Mills! Please come down!
M: If there's no wind, why are you shouting!
S: Mills! Just come down... you're scaring me, this old pillar can't be that sturdy. (she decides to hold on to it, to stabilize it for Mills)
M: It's fine! I've been up here tons; the wind pushes your hair back and you feel... (lurches to the side and back) Whoa! That was a big gust, that was!
S: Okay... Mills. Mills! Mills!! Get down! Please!
M: (opening his eyes for the first time) Sandy! Sandy! Watch out! Incoming! (he spits up over his head so that it lands behind the tower)
S: Mills! Stop that! I'm trying to hold this thing and then...
M: Did you feel that one, Sandy!? Huge wave!! I'm soaking wet up here! Sandy!!? Are you okay down there!?
S: Mills! You tried to spit on me!
M: Louder, Sandy! The big waves are really coming in! (spits as before) Watch out! (spits) They'll carry you right out to sea!
S: Mills! Damnit! Stop spitting on me!!
M: Holy cra... Sandy!! Grab on! It's huge!! (picks up a huge bucket of water, dumps it directly on Sandy who was looking out to "sea")
S: Damnit, Mills! You jerk! What the hell are you doing! I'm soaked through!!
M: Did that one get you, Sandy!?
S: Ha! Ha!! Please come down, Mills! I was going to take you home; we were...
M: The sea is my home now, Sandy! I love her like an enormously fat, wet brother!
S: Shut up Mills! Get down... we are nowhere near the sea!! We don't even have a decent-sized lake nearby! Get down, Mills!
M: Sandy... two o'clock... get down! Get down! Get down! A whole squadron! (hands over his ears, he ducks down, screaming) Sandy, get below decks!!! Below decks!! Now!!!
S: (screaming back) Stop screaming!!! There is nothing coming at two o'clock, Mills! It's already past three!
(Mills is lighting firecrackers one by one in rapid succession, and tossing them near Sandy, who screams in fright as each explodes, after two or three she runs away to stage wall position farthest from the tower)
M: Did the Luftwaffe get you, Sandy!! Sandy!! Speak to me! Are you there!?
S: You! Asshole!!! You could have seriously hurt me!! I'm not holding your pillar any more, Mills!! Why would you do something like that!? What's wrong with you!? Stop this... this... idiocy right now!
M: (conspiritorially, hushed tone) Sandy? Is that you?
S: Stop it!!
M: We have to get this missile out of this cornfield and back into the barn, right away. I think I saw a forklift, but it's by the enemy base over there.
S: Can we stop this and go?
M: That depends on your ability to hotwire a forklift of foreign make. Think you have it in you, soldier?
S: No, Mills... time to go!
M: But I'm not done with my test yet, Sandy! I told you I needed more time because I'm writing with this enormous pencil! (indicates the tower) It's kind of awkward.
S: (dryly) I thought I was a soldier?
M: How is a fifty-three-year old teacher going to be a soldier?
S: I'm not fifty-three.
M: And I'm not finished yet.
S: Listen, I'm leaving, Mills. I don't know why I put up with your nonsense in the first place... you know, you just push and push and push, well, I'm just not going to take it. Not today, Mills. Maybe not ever again.
M: (long pause, slowly and heroically standing up, speaking straight ahead in lush, stoic tone, chin jutting forward) Okay, Sandy... you can go... but I'll stand here and wait for you... I'll wait here for your return... someday... someday....
(Sandy throws up her hands, gives a disgruntled mumble and turns and exits)
M: ...someday... (lights slowly fade, going into hyperbolical Romeo mode)... someday... waiting for your return... someday... I'll wait for you, my dearest, my love, for your golden hair, on these golden shores... (lights out, after a second or two, Mills turns on a flashlight that he holds at chest level, he turns slowly in complete circles a few times and sighs)
S: (from offstage) My hair is brown, Mills! Brown!!
(turns light off)
(end)
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