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 3
(continued from previous entry)
The next day comes. The house is very, very slightly in a mess.
Daughter and Mother are keeping to their respective corners. They are both slightly dishevelled from the lack of sleep the previous night.
Suddenly, Mother switches on the radio. Some noise is emitted.
Mother: I have to know, I have to know.
Radio: Weather report, normal. Crowd control, normal. Death count, 899, a five percent decrease after twenty four hours...
Daughter: Turn it off!
Mother desperately clings to radio.
Mother: I have to…
Radio: Weather report, normal. Crowd control, normal. Death count, 899, a five percent decrease after twenty four hours.
Daughter: You do not have to know!
Daughter destroys the radio.
Mother: No… No!!!!
Daughter: When all is well, they will let us out. That is when you would know.
Beat.
Daughter: You just, have to wait. Till then.
Mother: I have to… I have to know.
Daughter: Why do you need them to tell you what you want to know? Does knowing bring you some kind of sick pleasure?
Beat.
Daughter: Then you don’t have to know. Not knowing can sometimes help.
Mother: But only they know.
Daughter: And so, how do you know what they know is true?
Mother: They wouldn’t lie to us.
Daughter: Oh really?
Beat.
Daughter: For all you know, we could step outside right now and the air is… fresh. Uncontaminated.
Beat.
Daughter: Maybe what’s keeping us inside, is just ourselves…
Daughter reaches out for the door.
Mother: Please! Don’t! Okay. Okay. We don’t have to know.
Daughter: For all you know, this disease is self-made. Ha! Like a… Millionaire.
Mother: Okay. I know what you want now. You want to talk. Right? You want to talk to me. Let’s… Let’s talk. Let’s… Let’s communicate. Like people.
Daughter: Ha! Ha! Ha ha ha!
Beat.
Daughter: Look at how that word rolls about in your tongue so awkwardly!
Mother: No, no. I can talk. I’m… I can do it.
Daughter: Okay. Let’s.
Beat.
Mother: What… What do you want to…
Beat.
Daughter: Go on.
Mother: Do you think we can… Get something to eat first? It’s... It’s been a lot of... energy.
Daughter: Let’s eat.
Mother cautiously makes a meal. Both sit down to eat.
Mother: It’s… It’s soup. There’s no need for… For….
Daughter: The fork or knife?
Beat.
Daughter: Why are you so afraid of me?
Mother: You… You…. Look at the mess! Look what you did to it! (points to radio)
Daughter: No, I mean, before this all happened.
Mother: I wasn’t afraid of you!
Daughter: You were. You looked at me like… Like you couldn’t believe I was…. Breathing. Sometimes, you looked through me.
Mother: I… I wasn’t ready for a child… Your father and I didn’t get along…
Daughter: Then get angry at me! Spite me! Treat me disdainfully!
Beat.
Daughter: Anything would have been better than… Just trying to keep me alive.
Mother: But I want… The best for you…
Daughter: What am I to you?
Mother: My child, my… A daughter I birthed.
Beat.
Mother: A burden.
Daughter is slightly taken aback. She tries to eat.
Mother: Sometimes, a lesser version of me.
Daughter continues to eat.
Mother: A reminder of a mistake I had made. Mistakes I have made.
Beat.
Mother: Yet, someone I… feel responsible to. Someone, I feel a strange sense of tenderness toward.
Beat.
Mother: Sometimes, anything you did was pathetic to me. Really! The way you came out after the shower. The way you drank a glass of water. The way you… Left the house. Without a care in the world, trying to make some kind of impossible dream happen. And your talk about dreams. Hah! How was I to tell you, so scrawny and full of hope, that the world would simply shatter you?
Beat.
Mother: I couldn’t. So, I served you.
Daughter stops eating.
Mother: I fed you. Clothed you. Tended to you when you were ill. Cleaned up your fucking messes!
Beat.
Mother: And now, you want to kill me. And you want me to accept you. Because that’s what you have been wanting. You wanted a mother so full of life and longing as you. You wanted a mother who was scrawny and brash and filled with impulse and whim! Like you, your idiotic, disgusting, entitled self!
Daughter moves her seat back.
Mother: What are you going to do now? You wretch. Are you going to break something else? The bowl? You constantly make me afraid. You constantly make me out to be weak and pitiful. So what? Maybe your mother is! Your mother is spineless! She only bends to your will! Is that what you want to hear?
Daughter stands up.
Mother: You think you know the first thing about dreams. You think you know the first thing about wanting to hurt, or be hurt.
Beat.
Mother: You don’t know the first thing about dreams, until you have felt them gone from you.
Pause. Mother starts to eat. She eats loudly.
Daughter: Is this revenge for me trying to kill you?
Mother continues to eat without answering.
Daughter: Mother.
Mother: Yes.
Beat.
Mother: Do you even remember my name? Did you know I had a name before you?
Beat.
Daughter: No, I can’t remember your name.
Beat.
Daughter: Did you?
Mother finishes her food.
Daughter: What was that like?
Mother: All mothers lose their names to their children. Amongst other things.
Beat.
Daughter: I’ll do the dishes.
Mother: No, I will.
Daughter watches Mother do the dishes.
Mother: Yes. Watch me. Just like how you have all these years, silently.
Daughter: I can’t help…
Mother: I hated it when you watched me.
Beat.
Mother: You might think you have your own mind now. But you wanted so badly to copy me before.
Daughter: There’s nothing else to look at in the room!
Beat.
Mother: So, you look at me.
Daughter: You’re the one moving, you’re the one…. Breathing. You’re the one… I can look through.
Mother turns to face Daughter.
Mother: Who is the thing then? Me, or you?
Daughter: You… You’re…. I….
Mother clears the mess of the radio. Daughter continues to watch.