December Write Bites 

   Welcome to the newest addition to Barely Seen! Write Bites is a collection of short, one-paged plays and poetry. In this post you will find themes of love and hate, comedy and tragedy, and joy and sorrow. First up; "Divine Laughter" by Elena Naskova and "Chaos" by Kathleen Tomko. Then it's off to one-paged plays with "Date Sneeze" by Kieran Carroll, "Jefferson Davis Monologue" by Steve Gold, "Love in One Minute" by Charles Leipart, and "When I See You, I Smile" by Elijah Vazquez. Enjoy!

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Divine Laughter 

By Elena Naskova                                            

I cancelled my appointment with life  

and waited in silence for Death to call … 

until a sunray pierced through the darkness 

and from the broken mirror of my awareness 

my reflection laughed at me 

and dissipated into the darkness 

leaving behind only the laughter, 

the laughter that I recognized  

as once mine 

but long-silenced, 

long forgotten… 

And why now? 

I wanted the laughter to stop 

I grabbed my throat and held tight 

but the laughter roared on, 

louder and louder, 

unstoppable,  

eternal, 

divine. 

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Chaos

By Kathleen Tomko

Oh world so troubled;

I'll hold your hand, you hold mine;

To shine forth new light.

To bring a new dawn;

Chaos to strength, love and peace;

Let's go forth as one. 

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    And now for the plays...

DATE SNEEZE

By Kieran Carroll and Marisa Fazio

CHARACTERS

A man in his 40s.

A woman in her 40s.

SETTING

A doctor’s waiting room

TIME

The present.

Date Sneeze

He sneezes. She sneezes. She looks at him, embarrassed. He says nothing but acknowledges her apology. He then sneezes very heavily. This time she is a bit repulsed. He is aware of this and tries to get up and move away. She speaks as she takes his arm.

WOMAN: I like it when you sneeze. Not so much the last one, but before that everything was fine.

MAN: Well, I like it when you sneeze too. I was happy to sit down beside you. It was relaxing.

He sneezes.

WOMAN: Yes, I caught a bus here and no-one else sneezed.

She sneezes.

MAN: Same for me on the train. (He sneezes) Say, what are you doing later?

WOMAN: I was thinking about the movies.

She sneezes

MAN: Let’s forget the doctor and go sneeze through a really bad movie that no-one wants to see.

They both sneeze.

WOMAN: I’d love to!

MAN: Fantastic!

They leave quickly together. Blackout.

The End.

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Jefferson Davis Monologue

By Steve Gold

(JEFFERSON DAVIS ENTERS STAGE RIGHT AND CROSSES TO CENTER STAGE.  THE TIME IS 1868, AND DAVIS APPEARS HAGGARD AND MOURNFUL.  WITH HIS GAUNT FIGURE AND HIGH CHEEK BONES, HE BEARS AN ODD RESEMBLANCE TO ABRAHAM LINCOLN.  HE ADDRESSES THE AUDIENCE)

Davis

The North has never understood the importance of honor to the South.  Whenever I tell them, they nod their heads respectfully and, within five minutes, forget what I had told them. But to a Southern gentleman, the notion of honor is the guiding principal of his life.  He will do his utmost to defend it.  He will even go to war over it.  This explains the origin of the recent conflict.  Here in my prison cell I have had time to contemplate the war.  There is little else for me to do.  

   Only recently have they removed my shackles, a humiliation from which they derived particular enjoyment.  It is two years since the guns fell silent.  I await trial for treason against the United States.  The radical Republicans are impatient:  They want me hanged.  But I don’t think I will be hanged.  But that would invite martyrdom, and the more rational Republicans will decline that particular invitation.  In fact, I don’t think I will even be brought to trial, for such a trial would be held in Richmond, the site of my alleged treason.  My jury would be twelve Southern men good and true.  I would be acquitted, and the Yankees would be mortified.  In effect, my acquittal will have justified secession.  An interest scenario, don’t you think?

   If they had only let us leave peacefully, tens of thousands of men would still be alive.  They would have had their nation and we would have had ours.  They could have freed all of their slaves and we could have kept ours.  But Lincoln would have none of it.  He was going to prohibit slavery in the territories and ultimately strangle it.  That’s why we left the Union.  Given the same circumstance, I would do the same thing.  Again, it all comes back to honor.  Our honor had to be preserved.  Our property was being taken from us in small pieces.  We had the God-given right to own slaves—the Old Testament gave us that right.  And Lincoln was telling us that we could not bring our property into the territories.  I can bring my horse into the territories, but not my slave?  This is outrageous.

   Well, it’s one thing to be outraged, it’s quite another to have an army big enough to back it up.  We lost because their army was larger than ours.  Our cause was superior to theirs, but they won the war.  And I am a man with no country.  What am I to do?   I will write a history of the war.  I will tell my side of the story.  I will become a historian to insure that history will be kind to me.  But that will be little consolation for the loss of our way of life—of my way of life; of a time when everyone knew their place in the universe; when master was master and slave was slave.  Those simpler days, those days of honor are no more, never to return.  I would have given anything not to live to witness it. 

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Love in One Minute 

By Charles Leipart

BRAD

           Kiss me, you fool.  

LYNN  

           Not at the moment.  

BRAD  

           If not now, when?  

LYNN  

           When the moon is right.  

BRAD  

           The moon? What has the moon got to do with it?  

LYNN  

           You obviously aren’t the romantic type.  

BRAD  

            I didn’t think you were that kind of girl.  

LYNN  

           Girl? GIRL? What decade is this? If anything—WOMAN. Please.  

BRAD  

           All right. Woman. But when will I know when it’s right?  

LYNN  

           What’s right?  

BRAD  

            The moon.  

LYNN  

           Oh. I’ll let you know.  

BRAD  

           Don’t turn away from our love!  

LYNN  

          Correction. I think this is YOUR love.  

BRAD  

           Must semantics separate us?  

LYNN  

           Yes. For now. While the moon waxes full. [THE END]

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When I See You, I Smile 

By Elijah Vazquez 

Setting: A Bedroom 

Characters: Flora: daughter 

 Lillian: mother 

 Noah: father 

A bed lays center stage. Beat. A couple is asleep. 

FLORA:       (From offstage) Mommy! Daddy! I think there's a monster in my closet! Can I sleep with you guys? 

LILLIAN turns on the lamp and is about to get up. 

NOAH:           (Groggily) No, you can’t keep doing this. She has to learn. This act of hers is getting old. 

LILLIAN:       You know how active her imagination is. She probably had a nightmare. 

FLORA:          Mommy! Daddy! Please, I don’t want to be in here. It’s scary and dark. 

LILLIAN:       Dark? Her night-light must have gone out. 

NOAH:           Or she hid it like last time, and blamed the “monsters” for stealing it. 

FLORA:          Just this one more time?! 

NOAH:           There it is. There’s her signature line. 

LILLIAN:       Just let me see if I can go calm her down, okay? 

NOAH:           Can you make it quick? I have work in three hours. 

She leaves then returns with FLORA, locking the door quickly. 

LILLIAN:     See, there was nothing to worry about honey. But, you can still stay with us. Now, close your eyes and sleep, okay? (FLORA does so. LILLIAN then slowly walks over to NOAH and whispers into his ear. Without FLORA noticing, he darts up, grabs a shotgun from under the bed, and leaves the room. LILLIAN relocks the door, and grabs a knife from her drawer. She sits beside FLORA on the floor. FLORA opens her eyes) 

FLORA:        Mommy, where did Daddy go? 

LILLIAN:     (Numbly) Go back to sleep honey, he’s just going to go close your window. 

A gunshot is heard. Blackout.

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    I hope you enjoyed this month's Write Bites collection! Come back next month for even more short plays and poetry. Hope to see you then! 

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