[In this, the play’s opening scene, P, Horrible Child’s father, and Q, its mother, are talking.]
ACT I
(P and Q)
P
Horrible
Q
Horrible, what it is
P
Unbelievable
Q
Incredible, it’s like a bad dream
P
A nightmare, like having a miniature Caligula
in the middle of our home
Q
In the middle of the living room
P
Horrible
Q
Horrible. When it was born we hired a professional
courtroom artist to do sketches in the delivery room
P
This is how it thanks us
Q
The artist died of shock — why not we?
P
No such luck
Q
Horrible. I can’t even bear to look at them anymore,
those sketches
P
Professional drawings! My spouse can’t even
Q
I can’t, I won’t
P
look at them anymore because of the horrible
Q
When I think of the agony I endured giving birth to that
P
that
Q
that
P
that
Q
that
P,Q
That Monster! That Horrible Monster!
(PAUSE)
P
Do you remember the rose petals we scattered
on our stomach when we found out we were pregnant?
Q
Do you remember how we danced the night after
the afternoon we learned we were with child?
P
I remember the gold filling in the doctor’s rear-left mouth
the moment he said the word:
P,Q
PREGNANT
P
How it glistened during the first syllable
Q
PREG…
P
and expanded and burst like a star
Q
the entire cavity of his mouth, bright
P
blinding — How he yelped, his mouth scorched,
light flying from his mouth, filling
the entire office with the second syllable
Q
—NANT!
P
crashing through the window, shattering glass
Q
cascading out into the still, crisp air
P,Q
that late Thursday afternoon in winter
Q
on this unmoored continent adrift in the seas
P
of this spherical clump of matter in space
Q
how the word thawed the ice
on the windshield of our automobile
as we sat there in the parking lot that Thursday
P
how we sat there holding hands
P,Q
pregnant
Q
as the word did its work
loosening the molecules of ice as we sat,
P
As we sat
P,Q
as we sat there pregnant, and full of hope —
P
Deceitful memory.
Q
False harbinger.
P
Vestigial joy.
[In the coming months, Lawrence Krauser will make the complete text of several of his plays available on McSweeney’s. To read “Horrible Child” in its entirety, click here. ]