6. Waiting
The hospital waiting room. KAIYA walks in. She has her headphones in and is singing. BETH is clearly upset.
BETH
Where have you been?
KAIYA (suddenly very worried)
What happened? Is she okay?
BETH
She’s awake.
KAIYA
That’s awesome! I knew it! Where is she?
BETH
In her room.
KAIYA
Are the doctors in there?
BETH
I don’t know.
KAIYA
What’s going on? Why aren’t you with her?
BETH
She’s acting really strange. She doesn’t seem like herself.
KAIYA
What do you mean? Did she recognize you?
BETH
Yes… she’s just… she thinks this is a dream.
KAIYA
What?
BETH
She can’t distinguish reality anymore. She thinks she died and was shot into space and then fell back down to Earth and now she thinks she’s dreaming and she wants to wake up.
KAIYA
Whoa.
BETH
Yeah.
KAIYA
Did she die?
BETH
I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to ask anyone what’s going on.
KAIYA
Because that would explain what we saw--
BETH (interrupting)
--It doesn’t explain anything.
KAIYA
We felt her kiss us goodbye and now she’s saying that she died? I don’t think it gets more obvious than that.
BETH
I don’t know what I felt.
KAIYA
Don’t say that. This is too big to brush off like that. We need to talk to her. I bet a lot of things will come together after that.
KAIYA heads towards REUL’s room. BETH stops her.
BETH
Don’t mention what happened last night.
KAIYA
Why not?
BETH
It might confuse her even more. I think she’s really fragile right now.
KAIYA
And we’re not?
BETH
We didn’t just get a tumor removed from our brains.
KAIYA
I don’t see how telling her about our experience is going to confuse her. I know she’d want to know. If it was you, you would too.
BETH
No I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t want to know that I’d had some out-of-body experience as a ghost or whatever and gone and danced and sang with my friends and then told them goodbye. I wouldn’t even want to know that was possible, let alone hear that I’d actually done it. What do you do with information like that? You can’t ever go back to normal, that’s for sure.
KAIYA
What exactly is normal and why is it considered a good thing? Maybe it’s not. Maybe normal is what’s wrong with our world. Maybe it’s that thing that’s always keeping the door to possibility locked shut. Maybe it’s what causes brain tumors.
BETH
Right.
KAIYA
Well? It makes sense to me. All that possibility with no place to go, it just gets balled up in the brain and grows and grows and grows until it starts to explode. Why not? It’s not like anyone knows what actually causes them.
BETH
I just… I want my friend back.
KAIYA
She is back. She’s back from the dead, sitting right there in that room waiting for us to be her friends. Friends aren’t afraid of telling each other the truth, right? (Beat. KAIYA notices Beth is starting to cry. She hugs her and her tone softens). They’re also not afraid of telling each other that the truth scares them. That they don’t want to lose each other. That without them, life doesn’t feel like life.
BETH’s crying has gotten messy. She tries to compose herself.
BETH
I’m snotting on you.
KAIYA
It’s cool. I’m wearing my snotshirt.
Laughter, which makes BETH cry more and messier.
BETH
Ugh. This doesn’t make any sense. She’s freaking alive and I can’t stop crying.
KAIYA
It’s been a rough few days. And besides, you always do everything backwards anyhow.
BETH
Thanks.
BETH finally collects herself.
KAIYA
You ready?
BETH
Yeah. (They head towards the room.) But, Kaiya?
KAIYA
Huh?
BETH
Please don’t bring it up right now. We don’t want to push her over the edge.
KAIYA (rolls her eyes)
You never give up. (A breath.) Fine. But I’m not keeping quiet if that’s what she wants to talk about.
They enter REUL’s hospital room.
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7 comments:
I like that "life doesn't feel like life."
Seems to be the same worry that's eating away at Justin, though on a different plane, and for different reasons.
horray a beth and kaiya scene! oh the memories.
i like it. i like that kaiya has no problem believing what she saw and beth doesn't even know if she say it anymore.
"Maybe normal is what’s wrong with our world. Maybe it’s that thing that’s always keeping the door to possibility locked shut. Maybe it’s what causes brain tumors."
I adore this, and I think it can be expanded on. not necessarily in this scene, but I see it coming back later.
I really like this scene- Beth crying seems so true to life and real and awesome- I could feel how overwhelmed she was. I like their friendship- it's so nice. :)
There seems to be a re-occuring theme of normal being in fact wrong. I like that alot. I really enjoy the snotshirt part as well haha.
there is this quote I love that goes:
"Only the truest things always are true because they can't be true."
--e e cummings
you know jasmine, you're right. funnily enough, i didn't realize that until i went to a rehearsal of Stars that's going up at a high school here and I realized that every single play says something about normal being weird. i wonder if that's my thing or if that's just what i pick up from you guys and from the world. maybe it's a combination. theatre people are certainly very far from normal. i think that's why i love them so. :0
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