Quarantine the play will be posted on here for public feedback and review as Euginia writes for the next few weeks. The Google Doc can also be accessed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eKNAeAFOjgluewXPGfNissWO6meg5p6VKgsfFxZq_pk/edit?usp=sharing
Quarantine
A daughter attempts to negotiate a murder on her mother during their time of quarantine.
Mother
Daughter
Scene 5
(continued from previous entry)
The next day, the house is slightly messier again than the previous day.
Mother and Daughter are asleep.
The door suddenly opens, a package is dropped indoors. Disinfecting gas fills the room.
Mother and Daughter wake up, coughing.
Mother: What…
Daughter is still coughing.
Mother: Breathe. Try to breathe!
Daughter: I… I can’t…
Mother rushes to get some water. As she gets the water, she notices the package at the door.
Mother hands Daughter the water, retrieves the package.
Mother: Look. Look!
Daughter: (while drinking water) What?
Mother: This came.
Daughter opens the package. She takes out a radio device, similar to the one she had broken.
Mother: A radio. A radio!
Mother is seized with uncontrollable joy.
Mother: We can fix it. And now, we can know!
She sets about fixing the radio.
Daughter: Don’t.
Mother is still fixing the radio.
Daughter: Don’t! How do they know?
Mother pauses.
Daughter stands.
Daughter: How do they know our radio’s broken?
Mother: There must be some… wireless connection.
Daughter: They’re watching us, Mother.
Mother: That’s stupid!
She fixes the radio.
Mother: There. It’s set up.
She looks at the radio.
Mother: There.
Beat.
Mother: Well, I’ll turn it on now.
She goes to turn it on, but is reluctant to.
Mother: You do it.
Daughter: No. I didn’t even want to set it up!
Mother touches her neck, where she’s cut herself.
Mother: You do it.
Daughter goes near the radio.
Daughter: I don’t want to touch it. We don’t know who’s touched it. We don’t know why it’s here. We don’t know anything!
Mother: That is why we need it!
Daughter: Let’s give it some time. Can we?
Mother paces.
Mother: Can we do it now?
Daughter: What if they’ve watched us, all these days?
Mother: So what?
Daughter: They… They’ve seen everything! They’ve heard everything! That we’ve done here!
Beat.
Mother: Then, we make like nothing happened.
Beat.
Mother: It’s here now, and nothing’s happening. So.
Beat.
Mother: Nothing’s happened.
Daughter: But… We…
Mother suddenly notices the house is messy.
Mother: Ah! It’s time to tidy!
Daughter: We were finally talking.
Mother: Help me out with these things, would you? And our clothes. Look at us! We need a change.
Daughter: Can we leave it? As it was?
Mother tidies. The house is relatively neat again.
Mother: It’s always been this way!
Beat.
Mother: Will you turn it on now?
Beat.
Mother: You’ve got to do something around here.
Daughter: Don’t you want to know when I first wanted to kill you?
Beat.
Daughter: Aren’t you even a little bit curious?
Beat.
Daughter: I was nine. I saw a dead bird outside the house.
Beat.
Daughter: It was mangled at the neck.
Beat.
Daughter: You chose a hand bag over me.
Mother: I did no such thing.
Daughter: When I was nine.
Mother: Ridiculous.
Daughter: You did. You were getting dressed, and you were picking out a bag.
Beat.
Daughter: And I asked, “Mom, would you choose me over that bag?”
Beat.
Daughter: And you said…
Mother: This is rubbish.
Daughter: You said, “I worked hard for that bag.”
Mother goes to switch on the radio.
The radio emits static sounds.
Mother: It’s not set up properly.
Daughter: That’s because it’s not meant to be heard!
Mother fiddles with the radio, but it still doesn’t work.
Daughter: I’d never known hate like that day. And the bird… It appeared in my head.
Mother: This useless thing!
Mother ends up destroying the radio.
Mother: This worthless, battered piece of junk!
Daughter: Was I better off dead?
Mother: Yes. Yes! We both are!
Daughter: Why did you choose it over me?
Mother: I really, really worked hard, for anything I’ve ever owned!
Beat.
Daughter: Except me.
Mother: This is entirely different! I don’t remember that day. I don't know what I was doing, feeling… I don’t know. I might have eaten an entire pie of shit that day, and said that! And you were the closest thing to take it out on! Okay?
Beat.
Mother: Just like how, I am now, to you!
Daughter: You taught me to want to hurt you!
Mother: Of course. Blame all your faults on me. Because I have to be so bloody responsible for everything!
Daughter: You can't keep using that as your excuse!
Mother: Oh, I can’t? And you can, with all this talk of murder and dead birds? When you were nine? How many years ago was this? Why is it even still in your little head?
Daughter: They’re my memories! I can’t erase them!
Mother: Oh yes, you can.
Beat.
Mother: You just don’t want to. And I could. I’ve erased every memory you’ve been in, for the past few days, so we can get some goddamn peace!
Daughter: Remember, we might be watched.
Beat.
Daughter: Do you really want the world to know you hate your only child?
Mother: Why not! You’ve been babbling on about how you’re trying to kill your only parent!
Daughter: Because I don’t care! I don’t care if anyone knows! I want you to know!
Beat.
Daughter: But you care, because you want to love me in public. Not in private.
Mother: No mother loves fully in private.
Beat.
Mother: Not one.
Beat.
Mother: You’ve said your piece. And I don’t want us to talk like this anymore.
Beat.
Mother: The door will open again tomorrow. And probably, a new radio will come. And we can make a plan. We can barge out of there, the both of us, together. We can overtake them together.
Daughter: What if there’s more than one of them?
Mother: How’s that going to stop us? Pent up anger is more lethal than any force.
Daughter: Maybe we don’t have to be angry anymore, Mother. Maybe we could use this chance to….
Beat.
Daughter: To… work this out.
Mother laughs.
Daughter: What… What’s so funny, Mother?
Mother: This is what I mean! You and your dreams!
Daughter: I was just trying to help….
Mother: What’s holding us together all these years?
Beat.
Mother: It’s our anger. At each other! When that’s gone… You’d be void.
Daughter: That’s not true. I’d give anything to stop being angry at you.
Mother: Do you know yourself without your anger?
Daughter: Y-Yes…. There’s lots of things about me, without my anger.
Mother: Well, good for you. Because my anger is up to my ears, ringing every day, and you won’t even let me turn on a radio to block, it, out!
Daughter: But you can just… chuck it!
Mother: I’m not free, like you. Or that bird you saw.
Beat.
Mother: We’re cooped up now. You feel it now. But I’ve been cooped up before this, for all my life.
Beat.
Mother: I can do everything right. And neat. And cleanly. But I also can do everything wrong. And every day, the more right I do… The more wrong I feel. You can call it what you want. The doctors have names for it now. You can study the mind in all manner of ways to try to make sense. But some people are born content. And then… I think there are others like me. Just trying to…. Do. But we don’t say it to each other. What good would it do? Can pity help? Medicines? Exercise? Purpose? A child? All these words meld into one thing and everything just means one thing: a distraction. From yourself.
Beat.
Mother: And there is a magic, secret word that seems to work. Love. People throw it around or revere it. It’s supposed to work wonders. But it’s so elusive, so ordinary… I can’t tell anymore. There are too many things like love, these days.
Beat.
Mother: Let’s say we tell each other, we love each other. The moment passes. We hold on to the moment. But the world moves a little and we would forget. Losing grasp of that, for me… I lose everything.
Beat.
Mother: Do you love me? Still?
Pause. Daughter goes to touch Mother’s neck.
Daughter: I do.