CHARACTERS
Kate
Joan
Becca
TIME
Present
PLACE
A mountain overlook
(KATE, JOAN and BECCA, on the edge of a clifftop)
KATE
…It’s a short walk…Just a few short steps and you’re…
BECCA
Off the cliff.
JOAN
Splat.
KATE
…This is where I go when I need peace. I sit here, on this rock, look out at the close-enough-to touch clouds, the soaring hawks, the cloud shadows on the trees below…Such a sweeping view…
BECCA
What does that cloud look like?
JOAN
A blob?
KATE
It’s a breast. A breast-like phallus.
JOAN
Are you on drugs? Are you kidding me?
BECCA
I see it. It’s breast-like and phallic at the same time. See the curve? The tiny nipple? And the rest of it’s like a shaft.
JOAN
How do you explain that smudgy area where the balls should be?
BECCA
…That’s where God got frustrated…
KATE
The sun’s burning my face.
(Silence)
BECCA
I feel like jumping. I jumped through a cloud once. It’s not legal, but I did it anyway. Before I went through it, the air got cooler and moist, then I sank into complete whiteness and fog. I had my eyes open, but I couldn’t see. I felt cold. Luckily, I made it past. I saw land and opened my parachute.
JOAN
You and your crazy skydiving adventures…
KATE
These grand mountains: Waves of motionless tsunamis with epic swells of green valley…Hawks near and far, silently aloft.
JOAN
You’re so poetic, Kate, I could just shit.
KATE
(Laughs)
Remember when I was nineteen and still dating Steven? We were at a party and I had to do a number two. Which I did. A very dainty, ‘plop, plop, plop,’ and then I couldn’t flush it. The toilet wouldn’t flush. Horror struck me. I knew nothing about toilets and I had no choice but to tell him, “Honey, my poop won’t go down. Please don’t look at it. Keep the seat shut.” So terrified…Silly me, wanting him to think I didn’t shit.
(Silence)
BECCA
I’m getting turned on thinking about cheesecake. Literally, not in the figurative sense…Sorry.
JOAN
I wish I got turned on thinking about George. I feel like such a whore for some reason whenever I’m around him.
KATE
Why is that?
JOAN
I don’t know.
BECCA
Is it ‘cause he picked you off the street and gave you twenty bucks for a blowjob?
JOAN
Maybe that’s it. No, I’m being serious. I need to end it.
BECCA
Just do what I did with my ex: Take him to a bar, get drunk, and try to find as many euphemisms for ‘I don’t want to see you anymore’ as possible. You know, ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ or, ‘I’m raining on the inside, the clouds have come,’ stuff like that. Then, just…fade away.
JOAN
Gosh, you’ve got it all figured out, haven’t you, Becca.
(BECCA shrugs)
(Silence)
KATE
I need to ask you both something…’Cause, well, we’re family and I feel–Oh look! Look at that Sun Devil!
JOAN
What’s a Sun Devil?
KATE
That! That little vertical rainbow in the clouds…See it?
JOAN
Oh…
BECCA
What did you want to ask us?
KATE
Remember when we were kids, when mom and dad were alive and we had that tree in our yard with a twisting trunk?
BECCA
Yes, we loved that tree.
KATE
So impossibly beautiful. Its fall-colored leaves would still linger on, right on through December and January.
JOAN
The only tree in the neighborhood that refused to let go of its signature yellowy leaves. Stubborn tree.
BECCA
The wind would whisper: ‘C’mon, let go, let go.’
JOAN
The leaves answer back: ‘Yeah yeah, sure sure.’
KATE
Hanging on to its last vestiges of golden beauty as if spring didn’t exist. It had a personality, a sweet life force.
JOAN
How we cried when the men with orange helmets and chainsaws came and cut it down. Sawing branches, tossing them into a horrific sounding grinder machine.
KATE
With that never-ending motor.
BECCA
Sawing at the trunk, having trouble, having to go deeper and downer to get the trunk itself removed.
JOAN
Just to chuck it into the gaping maw of that ugly dirty truck contraption.
KATE
We go out there with our tiny tear-smudged faces, asking why.
JOAN
“You’re taking down the tree? How come?”
KATE
“It’s rotting, little girl. It’s dead. It might continue to sprout leaves a few more months, but that’s about it.”
BECCA
“But we love this tree.”
KATE
“Yeah, people get attached to their trees. But, the guy above us, higher up, requested we take it down.”
JOAN
We say goodbye to the tree, touching it, caressing it.
BECCA
We take a part of it to keep as a souvenir. I still have it. A bare sprig of limb on my dresser.
KATE
And the next day, that bird with the rust-red breast, pausing at the site of the missing tree, skittering around, confused.
JOAN
The dog had to change his whole routine.
BECCA
The girl next door lost the means of hiding from her parents whenever she wanted to kiss a boy. No more secret kisses.
JOAN
Only one tree gone, and the world alters.
(Silence)
KATE
You see that tree over there, where I carved our initials?
JOAN
Oh.
BECCA
“K heart J heart B, forever.”
KATE
…I want you both to spread my ashes around it.
(Silence)
JOAN
(In tears)
What did the doctor say?
KATE
It’s everywhere, Joan. It’s twisted itself everywhere.
BECCA
You’re not going to try and…
KATE
No.
BECCA
Chemo?
KATE
No. Not again.
(Silence)
(KATE puts her arms around JOAN and BECCA)
KATE (cont’d)
Oh, look at that cloud…It’s a butterfly, fluttering away…
THE END
Robert Alexander Wray is a graduate of the Iowa Playwrights Workshop, has won awards, and been published as well as produced in New York, regionally and abroad. Other plays include: Melancholy Echo, Savage Variations, and Bullet for Unaccompanied Heart. He’s based in Charlottesville, VA.