For Good

Fred: Are you just trying to make me mad? To make me want to go out back and blow away my entire life. Is that what you want me to do? Because I think that’s what you want me to do. I really do. I can’t be sure obviously since I’m hardly in a sane state of mind at the moment, but I think…. It’s what I feel you want me to do, and I don’t know why. Why should you want me to do something as final as that? Have I made you suffer all that much? Perhaps I have. No, more accurately, I’m sure I have. But, why should you then turn around and make me angrier than usual intentionally…. Why should you do that? What makes one who is usually so sweet and silent do something as diabolical as that? Well I’m sick of ranting and feeling sick and weary so anytime you want to talk again you can do so.

Ashley: I have nothing to say at the moment. I’m spent. Totally spent. Please leave me alone and don’t bother coming back. I want you out… now. Please.

Fred: Chris! What the hell is the matter with you? Nothing has been broken completely here tonight. A little spat. That’s all. Not even something as important as that. F**k language. I hate it. It solves nothing and it goes in circles, and everyone feels a little more confused and lonely than they did before they began to attempt to talk about as things as unknowable as their inner selves and all the torements and desires and passions that keep them up for hours trying to justify their mere existences. I’m speaking in ways I don’t even completely follow because I want to be a little more open-minded and forthcoming than usual but I am afraid by attempting to be that way I am alienating you more and more than usual and that makes me incredibly sad. But it’s my sadness, my…. Damn language. It’s my something or other which I will deal with as soon as I feel it will do anyone any amount of good. Damn it! What the hell am I blabbering about now? You’re sitting there, aren’t you? You’re right there and you’re saying nothing. How can you sit there saying nothing? How can you be so unalive and seem so content with it? How? I talk constantly to distract myself from the fact that I’m not really alive or kicking or making a difference. You have to distract yourself from the truth or the truth will eat you up, spit you out and not care how s****y and worthless it makes you feel. I don’t know what it is I’m doing right now. I’m not really asking for anything but maybe I am but maybe I’m gettying paranoid or frightened or I’m sick of caring about everyone and everything. It could be any number of things, and I want you to talk to me, d****t! Come on what keeps you so silent, what keeps you hidden and guarded and al,oof… unknowable and, you don’t trust me or love me or confide in me, and I need that. I need that from someone. I am sick of talking and begins and cajoling and lying but what else can I do? What am I expecting? I want to get rid of all these fears, these doubts, these demons, these vampires, the cobwebs the ghosts, the haunting, wipe all them out but if no one has the slightest interest in communicating anything to me…. Damn am I a sick, pathetic lonely little man. It seems to be the only constant in my life of waste and corruption.

Jeremy: I am looking for something a little abstract. Some… ummm…. Something a little less than unique but still unique and nothing too depressing or will remind me of all those who walk away and leave you desolate and… well, you know the rest. It’s one of the few lasting themes that permeates so many lives and leaves so many people despairing for a second, a third, thern an infinite number of chances. I don’t want to say the word but we both know, well… oh I didn’t see the young lady there…… the three of us know I am speaking of loneliness…. Well aloneness…. Or perhaps it’s just dreading gaining the knowledge that we’re superfluous and obsolete, but those are the sort of thoughts, the bliefs, the convictions I wish to escape tonight. I am trying to rid myself of those memories and those embraces of closeness and then the subsequent forgetfulness. An escape from pain and from nothingness and from everything that has led to the lousy places we have found ourselves when awaking in the morning. I suppose I could introduce myself if you so wish. Would you like that? Oh now neither one of you wish to talk. I can understand that. Boredom has overwhelmed both of you and has led you to believe speaking only makes things worse and more…. Well, we all know what I’m trying to say…. I hope.  I sort of… no, I’m sure I wish to remain my clothes at this moment. Are you alright with that? I will whether you consent or not. All right I was joking. Don’t get too excited, my loves. Who am I and why the Hell have I stumbled across you two not knowing who you two are? Ponder these questions as I leave you alone with more memories, mysteries and unexplained events in your lives. Farewell.

(He exits.)

Fred: Ashley- Come to me. Please come to me. Respond. Utter a sound. A single sound. Please. Something. Something. Please. Something. S**t. Damn. F**k. Finished. Temporarily. Alone. Forsaken. No, never forsaken. I grew up in a family…. No…. My high school years….. No….. My university and job experiences….. I don’t know. I cannot tell you why I do the things I do or why I have turned out the way I have by explaining the friendships, the relationships, the careeers, the experiences, the joys, the sorrows, the raptures, the beliefs, the faith, the deaths I have witnessed, the funerals I have attented. I have no true memories I can report to you although they are far too clear in this mind of mine as the past never ceases to haunt me and call me all the dirty names I don’t want to speak. You sit there and you think or don’t think. I don’t really know what you do or where you are or who you want to be, or what you really think of me. I guess you said you want me to leave but is that really what you want? There is no reason for me to hang around. We’re not doing each other any good but, damn it, I love you so much and I don’t even know if that’s true but it feels like it so often, or what I imagine to be love or affection or warmth or the touch of beauty and reason and purpose and something that makes a person want to continue to live something like life with all its pointlessness and everything that will make his or her soul so weary and weak and pathetic. Talk to me. I don’t care what you say but show to me that you haven’t written me off completely. That I still serve some sort of function for you, that I haven’t become yet another mistake or waste of time you have tried to love and have found it impossible to do so.I just need to turn off this mind, this heart, this soul and stop listening to all my demons and all the ghosts, or I need to take some personal responsibility for the fact that those I love will always walk away because I care too much and smother them with promises and reassurances and compliments that they already know to be true. I hate my insecurities, and I hate the ridicuklousnewss of how much I want to be liked and loved, knowing that will never happen if I continue to desire it as ardently as I do night and day, hour after hour after f*****g hour. I don’t want any of these feelings anymore. None of them. Get them the Hell away from me. And yet you sit there, not saying a word, wanting me to leave. Perhaps. Perhaps, but I don’t know. You told me to leave and now you sit there, not saying a word,. Not acknowledging me whatsoever. Hjave I once again asked far too much of you? I have I’m sure of it, but I cannot allow myself to leave because I’m terrified no one else will ever put up with me for more than thirty seconds. Now I must be silent.

Henrietta: Hello, son. Not speaking, are we? Very well but I will speak. You and Ashley, hmmm? I can’t say I approve but if the sex and the resignation are fine with you two sex nymphomaniacs, that’s fine I suppose but you’ll both burn in Hell or someplace worse forever and ever. Rememeber that, dummy. Okay? You’re not even listening, are you? Lost in daydreams, not wanting to take the real world head-on I’m sure. You’re just like the rest of our family. Escapting, evading, ignoring anything that might make you the wee bit uncomfortable. You are a dumbass, my dear. I feel bad for you but I tried to make something of you and I was disappointed at every turn. I’m not really here. You do know that, right? Or perhaps I am here. I’ll leave it up to your flawed judgment. You’re stupid so you’ll be wrong but it’ll be your interpretation nevertheless. Still writing plays, dummy? I suppose you are. Still not making any money from it or impressing anyone with your subpar talent though, I’m sure. You’ve never had many good ideas. You were never very imaginative. Always dense and slow and you had no sort of an attention span. You were always your worst enemy. You always went in for autobiography. Do you and Ashley talk at all? I never remembver you talking to anyone at all really. You were incapable of socialization. Why is that? You complained and sulked a lot to people you hardly knew, but you could never really carry on any sort of a conversation with another. I suppose it’s good you always could meet some girl to fall back on when you were your saddest, and you’ve always been sad, you piece of s**t. You have known no other way. Very sad, despairing eyes. You’ve always had them. You have gorgeous eyes though. I’d say it’s the most beautiful thing about you.The only beautiful thing, actually. Your Father. Oh brother. He killed himself today. Isn’t that splendid? What a b*****d. A control freak and he expected a perfect universe just like you which explains why you and he always have had such endless depressions and have both become miserable nihilists. But he finally killed himself which is something he should have done years ago. When are you going to follow in his footsteps? You never talk. How could you ever expect another to really talk to you, and share anything of themselves with you? There’s nothing behind you. You could be anyone or anything and no one will ever know or care because they believe it is impossible for you to be open and to truly share yourself. Well I’ve done…. Oh, Ashley, how long have you two imbeciles been together now? I don’t know either. Why? You’ve never talked or showed much affection. I don’t get this world at all. Hang yourself, please, Fred. You’re obsolete.

Ashley: Fred. No more. No more chances. You need to leave and leave me alone. Don’t call me, don’t message me. Don’t expect for us to ever see each other again. I have no interest in such a thing happening. Stay away for good and leave me alone forever.
Fred: But

Ashley: Done. I’m done. Nothing more. You’re deleted for good. No more. No more. No more.

(Fred gives up and leaves.)

(The end.)