Coral

 

CHRIS:

[Peering into the darkness.] Mom, Dad?

[Silence. A scurrying of bats.]

CHRIS:

They're still riding alphas through the night. That's fine, I guess--dawn's meant for silence. For collective prayers beseeching an eschatological postponement. Sunrise has never seemed...certain.

[Face pressed against a window, gazing out.]

Nothing to see. No photons, at least; occult-charged glowing things shine in other ways. Unseen red eyes. Weasel-fur darkness. Black bats and ravens on a sable field.

Starlight off the rails, leading away.

[She brushes her hair, straightens her sleep-rumpled clothes, readies herself for the new day's possible arrival.]

Another day like any other. A bit longer than most, perhaps, due to that avernal pre-dawn manifestation--Elvis willing, pre-dawn--but the hours'll pass. Sun or no.

PETE:

[Groggy, from inside the men's room.] Chris!

CHRIS:

[Ignoring him.] No change, no mail from the night-train, no dreams to cherish in the dawn. [Checks herself.] Tobo consenting, the dawn.

[The men's room toilet flushes. We hear water running.]

PETE:

[As before.] Is it here yet, Chris? Did it come in the night?

CHRIS:

No, it didn't, and maybe never will. Just the Dream Express and a thunderstorm. No mail, no message, no nothing. Today the same as the day before, as far as mind can reach.

PETE:

[The running water stops. He hasn't heard.] Don't keep me waiting, Chris. Answer your father. [He crosses near the rest-room door.] Chris!

CHRIS:

[Shouting.] No! Not now never!

PETE:

You don't have to wake your mother. Just a kind word to your father, just telling him when it arrives, warning him maybe, like a good daughter to her old dad. [Yelling.] Meg!

[Bumping and stirring from the ladies' room. Water running. An electric razor.]

Meg!

[It stops, abruptly.]

You don't, uh, take after your mother, do you, Chris?

[More indistinct mumble and clatter from the ladies' room.]

Chris!

[No response. Chris is sitting, staring vacantly, in the sleepy-catatonic relaxation of the early morning.]

Chris!

CHRIS:

[Rousing herself, slightly.] Yeah, dad?

PETE:

Oh. Um. Remind me to get my razor back from your mother, won't you?^* [Yelling.] Meg!

CHRIS:

I don't see why I have to do it.

PETE:

I'm busy.

CHRIS:

Why can't you get out of the bathroom for once and get it from her yourself?

PETE:

Just let what happened last night be our little secret, okay? [Yells.] Meg!

MEG:

[From inside the ladies' room.] What is it, already?

PETE:

Oh. [Sheepishly.] Good morning, Meg.

MEG:

Don't you give me that. What were you yelling about? What do you want, waking me up before the sun, even?

CHRIS:

What happened last night? What secret?

PETE:

Well, you gotta get up sometime. You can't sit there waiting for the sun the whole day long.

MEG:

[Sharply.] I know you didn't wake me up to lecture on solar astronomy.

PETE:

No, er...

MEG:

Are you doing it again?

CHRIS:

Your razor, Dad. You wanted your razor.

PETE:

Doing what again?

MEG:

You know what I mean. Chris, is he doing it again?

PETE:

Don't answer that, Chris.

MEG:

Is he doing it again, Chris?

PETE:

Not a word, Chris.

MEG:

She doesn't need to say anything. I know.

PETE:

No you don't, you don't at all.

MEG:

I knew then, too! Your ``working late at the egg farm'' didn't fool me. I knew it was lipstick and not chicken's blood on your collar. I can't believe that you'd do that to me again, after 25 months, no years, of happy marriage. You're doing it again, I know it.

CHRIS:

Doing what?

PETE:

Not again. Not again. I messed up once--once, Chris!--and she's never let me forget it. Any little thing I do you bring it up: ``Well at least I'm not a cheater, at least I hold the marriage vow sacred, at least I'm not the cause of cuckold's horns sprouting from the balding forehead of my spouse.''^* You never let me forget that I made a mistake, no forgiveness, ever.

MEG:

I wasn't was I? Never once in all those years. Sure, there were rough times, but I was faithful, wasn't I? Just like I was telling the ladies at Women's Ministry just last week, ...

CHRIS:

Month.

MEG:

[Continuing without pause.] ...I said, Marge, these crumpets are delicious, and your husband's just the soul of loyalty. Not like my good-for-nothing,^* philandering [egg-farmer-excuse for a spouse]...

PETE:

[Yelling over her.] Stop it, Meg! In front of the kids,^* too. I ought to really do something, I'll show you.

MEG:

Kid, Pete. We only have one now. The other was never born, did never exist.

PETE:

No forgiveness. None at all. I know that Bible of yours says something about forgiveness, and you're certainly not listening to it. If Jesus were to come across a truly repentant man,^* who screwed up once, and never again...

MEG:

You're not a truly repentant man. I've forgiven you my seven times, that's plenty enough. Every time I turn my back on you, you've got another floozy over there,^* where you find them I surely don't know. Some cheap dump on the info-tracker, no doubt, for people as low and degraded as you.

PETE:

There is no one over here. I'm not doing anything. Tell her, Chris. Tell her.

[A spark of quiet and a shimmer of sound. Chris is captivated by something she sees out the window of the station, in the far distance: a tiny spot of light. A beat.]

PETE:

[Louder.] Chris!

MEG:

[Nervously, sensing some mystic disturbance.] Chris, answer your father. He's got some wire-head slut over there now, doesn't he?

[No reply.]

[A metallic hum and click as a relay energizes, and a sign on the wall of the station begins to flash silently: ``Train Approaching, Stand Back.'']

MEG:

Chris? What was that, Chris?

PETE:

Answer your mother.

CHRIS:

[Softly, begins to recite under her breath.]

Looking over a midnight city,
watching Nature burn;
Yellow roses from Sumatra,
ravens in the train.

[The destinations sign starts to whir audibly; the letters which will spell out the train's origin begin to spin. Bats flutter from the rafters. The ravens outside stir. The rails begin to hum and the fence to shake, announcing the train.]

MEG:

Oh my God, it's coming. It's coming, I know it's coming. Pete!

PETE:

Chris, speak to your old dad. What's happening, sweetheart?

CHRIS:

[In a loud voice, sibylline.]

Pin-pricks driven to resolution by time's advance.
Vast engines behind the light
propelling ceaselessly on
bringing with them...

[Chris is frozen in terror.]

MEG:

Do something, Pete! Get out of the bathroom and do something!

[The lights of the train approach, building in intensity. Power and light surge inside the station. The roof creaks in anticipation. The sound of the train can be heard.]

[Chris breaks from her trance and rushes to find a refuge from the coming unknown.]

PETE:

[Banging from the men's room as Pete begins to look for something.] I will. I will. I just need to find...

MEG:

What are you waiting for? It's coming, it's going to get in.

PETE:

[The metallic clanks continue, as if Pete were looking for a stove-pipe in a pile of pots and pans.] Just a second, Meg.^* [With increasing desperation.] Give the ol' Yankee ingenuity a chance to work...

MEG:

Chris! Chris! Find the ticket-master. Tell him the train must not stop here! Chris!

CHRIS:

What ticket-master, Mom? I haven't seen...

MEG:

The ticket-master, the key-holder, the encoder of paper-bound magnetite strips! The train mustn't stop!

[Chris bangs on the bell at the ticket-booth, but fails to summon the ticket-master or his wife. The train approaches.]

MEG:

Louder! Maybe he can't hear. Maybe he's asleep. Louder! Ticket-master! Schedule-holder!

CHRIS:

Ticket-master! Station-keeper! It's not working, Mom!

MEG:

John! [No reply. Tries other possible names.] Fred! Bill, Harry, Julian!^* George, Jeff, Hank, Henry!

CHRIS:

[Catching on.] Mac, Mike, Jake, John--she said John--Jack, Russell, Will... oops. [Meg sticks her head out the door and glares at Chris.]

[The clanking sounds continue from the men's room.]

[The lights are insanely bright through the windows. We feel like the station is to be run down by the approaching train. Light bursts through cracks in the walls. The train roars.]

MEG:

Are the windows shut? Shut the windows! Don't let it...

CHRIS:

[Fumbling with the latch.] I can't, Mom.

[Meg rushes out from the ladies' room, in a tattered bathrobe, hair a mess, and slams down each of the windows and shades to keep out the threat. The noise of the approaching train is deafening.]

MEG:

[Muttering, as she tears about.] Tobo forgive us, we know not what we did or had to do or wanted to perhaps would have done, Tobo have mercy, Tobo we beseech...

[The clattering finally stops in the men's room, and Pete steps out with a shotgun.]

PETE:

Elvis damn your Tobo!

CHRIS:

The rat-gun! [The subject of childhood tales.]

[He discharges both barrels in the direction of the train, through a closed window. The weakened glass implodes from exterior pressure, letting garish light pour into the room. The train continues to approach unabated.]

MEG:

You fool!

[Chris rushes to cover the window with newsprint. Meg slaps Pete, hard. He punches her back. She leaps at him, wrestling him to the ground. They fist-fight center stage. Pete raises the butt of the shotgun, and is poised to smash Meg over the head...]

CHRIS:

Mom! Dad!

[Chris grabs the shotgun. Meg takes advantage of the opportunity to sucker-punch Pete, hard. Pete stumbles back, and mumbles something about ``that cheating wench.'' His hand reaches for the pistol in his pocket, but he doesn't have time to draw it before...]

[The whirring destinations sign stops. It has spelled out: SUMATRA. A terrible squealing of brakes.]

[Pete and Meg take one glance at the sign and scurry back to their rooms, slamming the doors: bang! bang! Chris is left unprotected in the center of the room, turns from the restroom doors towards the approaching train, and...]

[With a huge hiss of steam the train stops. Blinding light fills the station as the door from the platforms opens. A figure (WILL) and a man-sized burlap bag are in the opening. Steam pours in.]

[Will looks over his shoulder as a great weight is lifted from the station's roof. A sudden inrush of air pushes Will inside and to the ground and the station door closed. A huge Whomp. The train lights disappear. A curl of black smoke under the now-closed door. The train has been consumed.]