Crime Scene {One-Act Play}

[Scene opens with a small table-counter Center-Downstage-Right than has on in some onion or beans. A VICTEM is standing directly behind it, facing the audience dead on, and calmly chopping the food. She is a late-30’s-ish housewife with what looks like a ‘casual’ designer outfit on with a sweater, high-heels, kaki pants, and a single strand of pearls. A neat, white apron is worn around her front. A half-drunken glass of white wine is sitting next to her from which she takes sips from time-to-time. The VICTEM turns on a radio Offstage-Right with a small remote control that is also on the counter and boring elevator music fades in as she repeatedly presses the “Volume +” button. There are pair of French glass doors are behind her with semi-transparent white curtains framing them behind her Center-Upstage-Left. She take a short break from her chopping, wipes her hands off on the apron, and walks up. The music is soft enough so that we can hear her heels echoing through the theater. She unlocks the doors and walks back to her space behind the counter, taking a sip of wine and turning up the Volume again repeatedly. The VICTEM resumes chopping.]

VICTEM:

Angel’s glide. Angel’s will guide me

[enter MURDERER from upstage French Doors]

To heaven.

{Both VICTEM and MURDERER speak at the same time, at varying paces and volumes. Sometimes they will overlap or cut each other off. Others, they will be awkward pauses in which we will only hear the music. MURDERER is dressed all in black with white latex gloves, trench coat, and mask. We don’t know what or who the MURDERER looks like and can only guess if it’s a man or a woman. As they continue the MURDERER starts to slowly walk towards the VICTEM.}

VICTEM:

I am but an honest whoare

Forced to earn her keep

In pearls and gold

Together, forming the baby

Suckling at my bare breast

For pleasure.

MURDERER:

[Starting at French Doors, first trying them, then finding them unlocked.]

An indifferent tune plays on the radio

Echoing through a wasted smile eroded to deformed perfection

Through a sales pitch

For the consumer

Aiming at another being

Wasting, reeking of the rotting

Cause of their exterior’s

Determination.

VICTEM:

Babies do not know

What milk deprives

Them from their wanton, watching lust

Strife loses withering pillars of salt

Melting away from spite to burn

In hell under Satan’s

Fiery Eye

Burning away at the Tree of Life

Resting on Serenity

Weighing down the Earth

‘Till it’s nothing but a thought,

A dream of what we should be.

MURDERER:

Not one just worth living,

But thriving,

Spawning in luxurious velvet,

Strewn haphazardly about on a bed

Made for the consumption

Of two lies

Together.

VICTEM:

But fear not the blatant eye of May

For it is merely resting

As the Devil sleeps,

Speak softly at such things

As sweet as death.

MURDERER:

Until they are one single person

Charming away at the already ground misfortune

Of personality.

VICTEM:

For it is just pleasure

Cleansed in fear

And too delicious to bear

On moral tongues.

MURDERER:

What personality? This one is as good

As the rest

Of the smiles

Taught to strain away

From another falsity

Towards finding true self being

Inside of others.

VICTEM:

Come,

I have left the door unlocked

Because it is not right to kill myself

And poison the emotions of my children.

No, a two-dimensional stranger figured in a trench coat

Will deprive them of my love,

And take the seal of my life

MURDERER:

Simple clothing may make the perfect backwash

To an unstated life of misery

Wallowing in discontentment.

Waiting eagerly,

Reaching for a hand

To grasp then out, but secretly yearning

To stay submerged in ignorant peace.

Going on nothing but a blank witness to discrimination,

Who says pain is wrong?

VICTEM:

To hell to decide if I should or shouldn’t be blinded

To the whips slashing at my back

As a vigilantly pass away.

MURDERER:

She does not realize that

Everyone is in her same pool,

Drowning in her life,

All reaching towards God to help them stay put,

And that is why she cannot force

Her body to say

[VICTEM slides open a drawer {in the counter} and drops in the knife, pushing it back with her hip and taking off the apron, which she begins to wipe her hands off on]

VICTEM:

[MURDERER crosses to Upstage-Left of VICTEM, who hears, but does not turn to see who it is]

I have locked away all the knives in the kitchen,

[VICTEM downs the rest of the wine, pulls her hair out of its bun, shaking it out, and holds up her wedding ring for one last look]

Now give me a beautiful goodbye.

[VICTEM turns and spreads her arms wide and lays back onto the counter (keeping her legs down) as MURDERER turns to face directly downstage just upstage of her and thrusting a gun at the underside of her chin]

MURDERER:

Goodbye.

[We see a picture of: VICTEM upside-down looking straight at the audience with her arms spread wide like a bird taking flight towards the ground and the MURDERER {looking right at her and concentrating on the underside of her chin} above her. Blackout. Gunshot. Music is silent for three beats, then starts again]