Christmas on the Ocean Floor
Christmas on the Ocean Floor
The scene opens with MARY arranging a
festive holiday table. Is it because
MARY is a woman that to her falls this
responsibility? That is not for this
play to say. Is it sexist to imply or
state that MARY enjoys what she's
doing? If so, I'm sexist. The whole
damn play is sexist, because the
character MARY is, in fact, enjoying
what she's doing. She hums, she sips a
glass of wine or a mug of cider, she
arranges the flowers just so, in
anticipation of a wonderful gathering,
the kind the children will remember for
years. The women will be a little
jealous of MARY, but she puts out such
a great spread that they will forgive
her - mostly. The men all want to have
sex with MARY. She reminds them of
someone they gave up in the mistaken
belief that these wraithlike trophy
wives to whom they now pay lip service
could ever make them happy. She turns
up the Christmas music, opens the front
door, gets a miniature snowman from the
front stoop, and places it in the
middle of the table. The table is
ready. She samples bubbling pots,
determining things to be in order, and
sits down, heavily, exhausted.
MARY
A hearty, festive meal, on such a dark night. Christmas is
full of portent this year. A memorable table. If only - ah,
if only... Dinner's ready! A table the children will
remember. They'll say, "I walk in the house through the
kitchen, I feel the heat of the stove, with a pot of cider
with cinnamon and pineapples. My cheeks flush. I hear the
people I love in the next room, the Song I hum the rest of
the year. The Song that ends things and begins things.
Presents and doorbells and my friends' little sisters and a
good night's sleep ..." Dinner's ready. If only.
SFX: doorbell
MARY goes to the door, opens it. ARTIE
enters with a burst of cold air
MARY
ARTIE! One of five! Look who's here for Christmas!
ARTIE
Well I told you I was coming.
MARY
And I'm glad you're here! Where's Tanzer? Where's Sarin?
ARTIE
They're with their mother. Um. They won't be coming tonight.
It's just me. It's so dark outside!
MARY
One of five.
ARTIE
Yes. I brought this ornament.
MARY
Ah. How useless.
ARTIE
It's what people do?
MARY
You will be seeing your family this weekend?
ARTIE
No, I'm pretty sure I won't. She's got a new boyfriend who
drives the subway. They're going to be over his place until
the day after New Year's.
MARY
I haven't spoken to Blicket in ages. How is she?
ARTIE
Well, she's got custody, so she's pretty happy about that.
And she can ride the subway for free, and she gets free bus
transfers. I'm not sure about commuter rail. But I'd say
things, in general, are unquestionably going her way.
MARY
Well you know I love both of you.
ARTIE
Thank you. I wish she'd come back. I wish we could be a
family again. I know it sounds corny. I -
MARY
I always thought that, taken as a whole, your family sounded
like a team of reindeer. In my opinion you should find a girl
named Rachel and have kids with names like Peter and Jack and
Sarah, you know?
But that's what you get when you marry someone from the
Renaissance Faire: kids with names like prescription
medication. Fuck.
ARTIE
Shall we sing the Song?
MARY
It's not time! Where's the rest of us?!
ARTIE
I feel like half a person. No, a quarter.
SFX: doorbell
MARY
Dinner's ready! For Christ's sake!
ARTIE
Like some kind of husk.
MARY answers door. COYOTE enters
grandly, brushing snow off his coat
MARY
Now we're talking! 40 percent! Now the party gets started!
Fuck!
COYOTE
Merry Christmas! (to ARTIE) Hey! I know you!
ARTIE
Good to see you.
COYOTE
Mister Personal Tragedy. Better sit on the other side of the
table or I might go down with you.
ARTIE
I'm so much better now.
COYOTE
You sent me that letter about - what was it? - your skin - ?
MARY
I remember that -
ARTIE
It turned out to be -
COYOTE
- like two days after this dinner last year. I think I read
it Christmas night.
ARTIE
Yeah. I spent most of Christmas at St. Vincent's Emergency
Room.
COYOTE
Well! How about a Song?
MARY
Everyone. Isn't. Here, Coyote.
ARTIE
I remember getting home - just exhausted, and Harry Potter
was on. I'd read the books, but I'd never seen the movie, but
the reception was so bad that -
COYOTE
So where's everybody else?
MARY
I swear he must have headphones on. Gimme a minute.
MARY leaves COYOTE and ARTIE alone
ARTIE
So the reception was so bad that -
COYOTE
The reception was bad, huh? I don't know anyone who watches
television anymore, anyway. I think I watched the last moon
landing on my Rolex. I won ten grand because I'd made a bet
that lunar storms would prevent the craft from landing on the
north rim of the Sea of Tranquility. You imagine that? I
picked up ten grand from an engineer at NASA. Fucking guys
can't afford shit. Took me three months to collect. But I saw
the whole thing on my watch.
ARTIE
I like the idea of children being wizards? It's such a
vulnerable age. People take ad-
COYOTE
Ten thousand Space dollars - Fuck yeah. Hey! Look who's here!
MARY returns with RAY, who is a full
grown man-child in footie pajamas. His
behaviors would be irresistibly cute
and precocious in a two-year-old ...
not sure how it translates for adults
MARY
Look who's up! We're over the hump!
RAY
I fell asleep!
GROUP
Ha ha ha!
ARTIE
Two days before Christmas? I don't think I could ever fall
asleep before -
COYOTE
So are you ready for Santa? Have you been good?
RAY
I don't know.
GROUP
Ha ha ha!
MARY
He's been waiting for this dinner all week. Remember last
year?
RAY
I was 27.
MARY
Poor thing ages backward.
RAY
And I had just finalized my divorce.
ARTIE
And now you're some kind of child.
RAY
I like singing!
GROUP
Ha ha ha.
RAY
When do we get to sing?
GROUP
Ha ha ha!
MARY
Not yet, honey.
RAY
The Darkness is reaching out to us.
GROUP
Ha - oh.
SFX: doorbell
everyone stops. a pall comes over the
room
COYOTE
Who is it? Who could it be?
MARY
Number five.
ARTIE
I suppose someone should answer the door.
COYOTE, MARY, RAY
No!
MARY
Not yet. Please.
RAY whimpers, retreats, rocks in corner
RAY
It's happening again.
ARTIE
Maybe it's for the best!
MARY
Every year you say that! I'm sick of it!
ARTIE
It's the nature of things.
COYOTE
Nature of being a loser.
SFX: doorbell rings, followed by heavy knocking
MARY
I just made dinner! I hate the Apocalypse!
ARTIE
Changes. Center cannot hold. I'm just saying.
COYOTE
Listen you sluts. I'm not going. I haven't read the Book of
the World. And what I don't see doesn't exist.
ARTIE
Nice.
COYOTE
Shut up.
SFX: knock knock!
VOICE
It is time.
MARY
Oh good.
RAY
The world has changed. It was on a platform in the Gulf of
Mexico. Men labored day and night. They had long ago lost
track of time. The ocean floor was yielding less and less,
until, finally, there was nothing. The sea birds wheeled, but
no one came to save the workers. The radios were useless, the
rations were spent. Then, on the eleventh day, the pumps
sprang to life. But it wasn't oil in the veins of the great
machine. It was a new substance. The men began to eat it. For
a time, it rejuvenated them. They became stronger. They
challenged the sea birds in the air. They swooped into the
Gulf and brought up cormorants, Gulf eels, and the
coelecanth. No one had seen a coelecanth before, and many
were dubious of how to cook one. In the end, they just
breaded it. But it was like the brilliant flare of a light
bulb before it dies. The old ones had a term for it, gleaned
from ancient tomes. Rig Sickness. When the searchers came,
they found that the crew had disappeared, but the disease
remained, and spread over the world. One in five became
something else. Birds, fish, rays of light, puffs of smoke,
trees. Today there are only five. Who's at the door? Who's at
the door? Who's at the door? So that's where we stand now.
ARTIE
Thanks for the great update.
RAY
Shut up.
MARY
Who's at the door?
COYOTE
It could only be Paul. I bet he's a monkey or some fuzz.
VOICE
One must leave.
MARY
I won't sacrifice any of you! (to ARTIE) Not even you! It's
Christmas!
ARTIE
Maybe this is what happens when people don't evolve anymore.
God finds a way to recharge the machinery.
RAY
God is awesome.
VOICE
It is time.
MARY
Who's going to replace us?
VOICE
(pause)
The cormorant.
(music starts)
ARTIE
I'll go. I'm tired of living in that cellar all year.
Wondering who it's going to be come December. And if one of
us isn't going to put out -
MARY
I'm just not ready.
ARTIE
- then we have no choice. I'll go.
COYOTE
OK.
ARTIE
No, I will. Oh.
MARY
Coyote - tell us about your new house!
COYOTE
I don't know if we should tempt it.
MARY
Oh, I'm sure it's -
ARTIE
I'm sure it's great. Yeah, tell us all about it.
COYOTE
Well, I've got this house. It's on the lake? And it's got a
bunch of rooms. There's a TV room, two TV rooms, and, um, a
kitchen like this one, and places to sleep. You can sleep
anywhere in the house! And there's ... and there's an
aquarium, with all sorts of ... ah, I've got one of those see
through washing machines, so -
ARTIE
AND WHAT'S IN THE LAKE?
COYOTE
A cormorant. The cormorant will snack on us all.
RAY
It is written.
ARTIE
I have to go.
COYOTE
But before you go -
MARY
The Song.
RAY
Sing the Song!
COYOTE
It's all we have left.
GROUP
Seagulls in the night
Their beaks adip with flame
See the little cormorant,
Jesus!
I once beheld a sea-bird
I do not know its name
Christmas in the heart of every child!
Bring nutmeg for the pudding!
Bring spices for the wine!
Clap your mittened hands and eat the snow!
We're coming home for Christmas
All your kith and kine
Going to a place the wise men know!
Breaded coelecanth
The workers have gone mad
We have no petrochemicals,
Jesus!
Something in the sea-bed
A psychotropic fume
Christmas in the heart of every child!
Bring holly for the doorknobs
Bring angels for the tree
Clap your mittened hands and eat the snow!
We're coming home for Christmas
All your family
Going to a place the wise men know
RAY
We suffer from Rig-Sickness
One of us must die
Something's at the door and I must go!
dreamlike, RAY walks to the door, opens
it, and passes through. An image of a
CORMORANT appears on the screen,
replaced by darkness, smoke, and
shrieks of cormorant laughter.
(normal lighting resumes)
ARTIE
So I'll see you next year?
blackout