Scene for a New Play

I don’t have a name for this yet.  But this is fun!

CAST OF CHARACTERS

PEPPER                        A Fairy, appearing as an Asian girl of 8 or 9.  Inquisitive and insensitive.

DJAHNNEY                      A Fairy, appearing as a strapping blue fellow in a peacock dress.  Stoic, observant.  Older than he looks.

The action takes place in front of an abandoned factory on a sunny June day, toward late afternoon.

SETTING AND AT RISE:          Outside the brick and stone ruins of a factory, long-since defunct.  Two fairies, PEPPER and DJAHNNEY wander in the field outside of it.  There are all sorts of flowers and grasses about.  It’s a full sun day.

PEPPER

Why do you suppose?

DJAHNNEY

Oh, it’s a long story.

PEPPER

Well, time is not important to us, is it?

DJAHNNEY

What’s your point?  Oh, all right.  They built parts of metal ships here.

PEPPER

I heard of those.

DJAHNNEY

For a time. Before that they made parts for regular boats.  Then there were several wars, which required the metal boat parts.  Then there was nothing.

PEPPER

It’s been nothing ever since?

DJAHNNEY

Pretty much.  So it’s been to their advantage.

PEPPER

The witches.  I like the witches.

DJAHNNEY

That’s why we’re here Pepper.  They’re not really witches though.

PEPPER

But they’re so like witches, Djahnney!  Oh, is that them?

DJAHNNEY

Pepper …

PEPPER

What?  Oh, already.

DJAHNNEY

Send out your feelers!

PEPPER

I just like you to tell me.  OH, all right.  Oh.  Well, it’s not them.  Those people – what was that?

DJAHNNEY

So many people dress alike these days.  And some taste just dreadful.

PEPPER

Smoke and some metallic, tinny airy taste.

DJAHNNEY

I think they were addicted to some drug.  Something called Myth or Math, I think?

PEPPER

Math, as the name of a drug?  After Math the mage?

DJAHNNEY

No.  I don’t think that’s it.  Moth, maybe?  I don’t know.  It was an acrid taste though. 

PEPPER

If only people knew.  I heard things used to be pretty swanky here.

DJAHNNEY

Well, one person’s swank’s another’s poverty.  Faery poverty for sure.  It didn’t add much to the realm, this swank of which has been speculated.

PEPPER

The pictures hanging on the walls in there show these ugly people.  You can tell that their child-selves were stomped like grapes.

DJAHNNEY

They were called “suits,” Pep.  They didn’t suit the world as it lay, but they tried to force it to suit themselves.  And people who didn’t like the suits would go to tribunals and file suits against the suits, but the suits on the walls, in their suites, always sweated it out and swatted the suit-filers swiftly and with sweet reckless abandon.  Eventually they would be put in their place, but that was with the Great Unravelings began.

PEPPER

Those most magical times, the Great Unravelings.  The Great Revealings for the witches.  And these people.

DJAHNNEY

This place was a ruin well before.  The suits decided that there was a better place for their being suited, off in the So-far-East-it-could-be-West lands.  It just stopped one day, and the nature spirits took it over.  The Unravelings took the other suits out in that hard-home-village arrangement they called “Armstrong Terrace.”  And some wannabes tried to keep the suit warehouse going.  But it didn’t – hey, did I feel a change in the energy?

PEPPER

Yes!  Oh! Should we start?

DJAHNNEY

Not a bad plan.

(They go about making preparations for a ritual.  DJAHNNEY picks up a twig, and flicks it.  Becomes a bouquet of sunflowers.  He sets it on a ledge by the ruined wall.)

PEPPER

I’d have thought you’d go for something showy.  Snapdragons, maybe.

DJAHNNEY

It’s a day for simpler pleasures.

(PEPPER starts to pick up flat stones and turns them into saucers, concave ones into teacups.  She sets about waving her wand. Waterfalls appear out of the brickwork.  DJAHNNE pulls out a portion of the ruined wall and flames start to emerge out of it.

PEPPER

Cauldron time?

DJAHNNEY

Indeed.

(They move center, point their wands.  DJAHNNEY points his up, while PEPPER points hers down.  They stand about 3 feet apart, facing out, start to dance in a weaving step motion, and a cauldron emerges in the circle therefrom formed.)

PEPPER

The directions all ready and accounted for!

DJAHNNEY

On our side of the equation.  It’s up to the two-leggeds now.

PEPPER

Amusing creatures these two-leggeds.

DJAHNNEY

Can’t live with ‘em –

DJAHNNEY & PEPPER

Cant’ live without ‘em.

PEPPER

At least the ones who are coming here we can tolerate.

DJAHNNEY

They’re the best on offer.  We takes what we can gets.

PEPPER

The new guy seems … well –

DJAHNNEY

Yes, he’s one to watch for signs.  The madness might live dormant in that one.

PEPPER

Hey, I feel something.

DJAHNNEY

Priscilla.

PEPPER
(doubtful)

Oh.  That woman there?  She the grandmother?

DJAHNNEY

Mmm… I don’t get the feeling she’s related.  Wonder how she’s connected.

PEPPER

Grandmother. Hm.  She’s got a lot of manna, Djahnney.

DJAHNNEY

That she does.  She must be an elder from a distant land.  And I sense a lot of our kind on their way.

PEPPER

Is that?  No, that.  That can’t be him!  No, I – no!

DJAHNNEY

Oh, why?

PEPPER

The new guy!

DJAHNNEY

Gotta be.  Banshee Baboozka!

PEPPER

I sure hope that strong old lady’s got the power.

DJAHNNEY

That’s not the problem I can see.

(He starts flicking his left wrist.)

PEPPER

Hey! You beat me to it!

DJAHNNEY

The Grand Court has to know that Firebutt is escort to this … whoever he is.

PEPPER

I wanted to do it!  You get all the fun!

DJAHNNEY

There’s no rush.  Oh look.  An army of Salamanders has arrived.

PEPPER

Bet they already knew.  That’s good.  At least we’ll and they’ll be safe.

DJAHNNEY

Hm.  I bet she knows, this old crone.  Lots of power!

PEPPER

Guess we’re in for some feast tonight from the looks of it!

DJAHNNEY

I wonder . . . Maybe that new guy is the reason for it.

PETER

Firebutt likes to attach himself.  I know.

DJAHNNEY

Yes, that’s likely  Hm.  Well, this will be mighty interesting.

PEPPER

Djahnney?

DJAHNNEY

Hmm?

PEPPER

Doesn’t he look familiar?  As he gets to be more in focus.

DJAHNNEY

Yes, now that you mention – I’ve seen, I think – I bet –

(He runs into the ruin.)

PEPPER

Priscilla and Norbert, Birch-tree and Starglow.  And I see angels!  Goodness, all this finery.  I’m going to collapse from the beauty!

(DJAHNNEY returns.)

DJAHNNEY

Just as I thought!  He looks like one of those suits in the pictures!

PEPPER

Ew!

DJAHNNEY

The one in the center of it all.  The new guy’s related!

PEPPER

They’re not going to perform a human sacrifice are they?

DJAHNNEY

None of us would be here if that were so, Pepper.  You know the geas!  No, this is some sort of retrieval I think.  We’re going to have a lot to do.  Come on, it’s time to find us a lilypad and rest a bit.

PEPPER

They’ll be calling us in soon enough!