Fantastic Metropolis

MAGS

This can.

(Offers bottle.)

It’s a preferred blend, the last of the laughing soup, just guaranteed to make you the same as everyone. You won’t have to worry anymore whether you’re crazy or magic, Nojo. You can put all that behind you. Or maybe you’d rather shiver and freeze with these sorry fuckers, and die someday like Joe?

(NOJO considers this.)

MAGS

I can help, but only if you let me. Okay? Here’s my offer. All you have to do is give us a kiss, just like in the fairy tale. Your last chance to be happy.

NOJO (speaking to the audience in his normal voice)

She is going to put out my imagination. I could run away… only I have the courage of a conquistador.

MAGS

The same as everyone.

(Approaches Nojo.)

Bye, Nojo.

(LIGHTING effect on bottle.)

MAGS

(Catches NOJO by the wrist.)

Kiss.

NOJO

I can still escape if I want… The same…

(MAGS drains bottle and holds whiskey in her mouth.)

NOJO

...as everyone. I could have a job, a VCR, a bed with green sheets.

(MAGS kisses NOJO and releases whiskey into his mouth. Some spills but they continue kissing. Finally, reluctantly, NOJO disengages and backs away from her.)

NOJO (to audience)

Can you feel it? It’s thawing memories that have been frozen for years.

(A laugh becomes a choking cough. He sits and recovers.)

There I was, sitting on the shoes in the back of my parents’ closet and I was wearing my dad’s motorcycle helmet and I had tied a towel cape around my neck and mommy was calling, Petey, where are you? Peter! and I tried not to giggle but I was only a little kid and she heard me and opened the door and she said, Petey, I’ve been looking all over, how long have you been sitting in the dark? and I said, This is outer space and I’m an astronaut and it has to be dark because it’s always nighttime in space … but before I could finish she caught me up in her arms and hugged me and said, What am I going to do with you? and when I wriggled, my space helmet fell over my eyes and she laughed, You’re just as bad as me, you know. You let your imagination run away with you, and she kept laughing at me, so I told her I was not bad and mommy said, No, it’s what makes you special, a kind of magic. Because if you have an imagination, you can do anything, be anything when you grow up.

(NOJO settles himself, preparing to sleep. Behind him, ALL exit, clearing stage of everything but the fire barrel.)