Death- A prologue

An argument on the otherside

·         M: Death

·         A: Mr Langley

·         E: Judgemental spirit

·         Am: Judgemental spirit

 

Death a prologue

 

M: Hello Mr Langley, yes over here, now I fully understand that this may not be what you were expecting but please try to bear with us.

 

A: Where am I?

 

M: Now I hardly think that’s important.

 

A: What’s that?

 

M: So many questions Mr Langley, anyone would think you hadn’t done this before. That is you.

 

A: No it isn’t

 

M: Mr Langley have you ever had an out of body experience?

 

A: No.

 

M: Well sorry to disappoint you but they aren’t as fun as the hippies would have you think. That is you, Mr Langley, and you are having an out of body experience because, after falling ten stories onto concrete, you quite frankly don’t fit inside that body anymore. I mean look at it. It’s the wrong shape and everything.

 

A: I’m dead?

 

M: Oh I’m sorry you were expecting to survive Mr Langley. It really was quite a drop.

 

A: I’m dead?

 

M: Yes Mr Langley you are dead. You have gone from living breathing miracle of nature to another God-awful suicide statistic in a matter of painful and messy seconds. Brace yourself.

 

A: I’m… hey OWW!

 

M: Oh sorry about that.

 

A: Give that back.

 

M: After what you’ve done with it I rather think not. Listen to it, it’s falling apart from the inside.

 

A: Look I don’t care who you are but…

 

M: Shush please this is very important.

 

A: If I’m dead shouldn’t there be angels or something.

 

M: Mr Langley I told you to be quiet.

 

A: With harps and wings and things.

 

M: Not where you’re going I don’t think. As I recall hell resonates to the sounds of untrained violinists.

 

A: Hell.

 

M: Mr Langley you are starting to bore me.

 

A: I’m sorry but what? I’m going to hell, come on.

 

E: Hark hark the dogs do bark

 

Am: The beggars are coming to town

 

E: Some in rags

 

Am: and some in tags

 

E: and one

 

M: In a velvet gown.

 

A: Pardon

 

M: Me, Mr Langley. The beggar in a velvet gown, Mr Langley. I am death, Mr Langley, and I do not jest about eternity.

 

A: But I gave money to charity.

 

M: Wow, really. Well that changes things. Let me see. Oh yes your right.

 

A: See. So I go to heaven

 

M: Not as such no. You gave a total of three pounds and eighteen pence through your company. Also on the list we have six months looking after your old father until he died.

 

A: Yeah, six month of my time and I go to hell for that.

 

M: Well at the time of death your dad still had fifteen years still to go. You killed him for the insurance then spent the money on…

 

Am: Women of the night

 

E: S***s

 

Am: W****s

 

E: Ladies of questionable affection.

 

M: those and proceeded to use them in ways that we haven’t even heard of in hell.

 

A: This is slander. Where did you get that?

 

M: Mr Langley if you interrupt me one more time I will use the purple bit of your digestive tract to stitch closed your mouth. You then proceeded to hide the bodies in a neighbour’s garden. He got life imprisonment and killed himself with forty years of natural life to go. Do you know what it’s like to slit your throat with a sharpened toothbrush; by the way? Well it’s not pretty especially since he didn’t know where the jugular was.

 

Am: He was all over the walls.

 

A: I… I didn’t know that.

 

M: So, looking at are scales here, how well do you think you’ve done over all.

 

A: They were mistakes. I regretted them my entire life. I killed myself didn’t. I thought remorse counted for something here.

 

M: Yes you’re quite right Mr Langley, you’re only improving factor is that you saved someone the trouble of killing you themselves.

 

A: No, I want another chance.

 

Am + E: What?

 

A: You heard I want a second chance? You death aren’t you, sway it for me?

 

M: No.

 

A: How much?

 

M: Are you trying to bribe me?

 

A: Yes I am. You’re a beggar so don’t act like you don’t want something.

 

M: Ask me again

 

A: How much for a second chance.

 

M: How much for another go at eternity? What were you planning to pay in, exactly? Souls, we’ve already come to the conclusion that yours is worthless. Cash maybe?

 

A: I’ll write a check.

 

M: I don’t have a price, Mr Langley. Nobody gets a second chance. Neither babies nor saints. Nobody, Mr Langley.

 

A: Everybody has a price. Death. You don’t have to tell anyone. Just slip me back in a womb and leave it at that.

 

M: I wish it were my job to torture you. Mr Langley. Everybody gets one body, one soul and one life. You’ve destroyed all of those. I give everyone a set amount of time and that’s it. I have a…

 

E: Quota

 

Am: Can’t go overdrawn on time.

 

M: I only get so much life to split between the entirety of humanity. I gave you seventy years and because of that I had to have another person die at childbirth. I killed a baby so you could live.

 

E: Crib robber

 

M: and after what you’ve done with what I gave you, you think you get another chance. You think I’d cut short even more lives just for you? You wasted it all Mr Langley, you wasted you life and you wasted your Death. That’s my revenge.

 

Am + E: ring a ring a roses

 

A: What are they doing?

 

Am + E: a pocket full of posies

 

M: This conversation is over Mr Langley.

 

Am +E: Atisssshyou

 

A: I don’t want to go!

 

Am +E: Atisssshyou

 

All: We all fall down

 

M: Goodbye Mr Langley. Don’t waste Death’s time.

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

I performed this with my friends and it starts with a peice of physical theatre in which Mr Langley throws himself off a building while teh "judgemental spirits" sing ring a ring a roses. I would like to hear the thoughts of people who don't feel moraly obliged to be kind.

Reviews

[Analgesia]

This was particularly humorous and it's all in the characters. All the way from the childish spirits to the snarky Death they just work together. To be honest the best compliment a humorist can really be given is to hear people laugh out loud at their writing so I apologize that I can't technically do that but I assure you I laughed, literally, out loud.

[Stephanie Crowe]

I actually found this really good. I can be quite frank sometimes, and you know what? Here is my frank opinion: I LIKE IT! It is funny, in a morbid kind of way. Kind of my thing. =)