PAUL
(continuing)
Giving me a hard time. I don't always go
with his suggestions. I guess you
wouldn't know what my father looks like,
but he doesn't look anything like my
father. (Antagonism looks bored) I've
never really done anything. When I was
in college, I had an old bet with my
father that I wouldn't party--drink or do
drugs. So I ended up have a kind of
boring time.


ANTAGONISM
You were a social leper. You had long
conversations with cafeteria and
bookstore cashiers who wanted to talk to
you as little as anyone else.


PAUL
But they were very nice.


ANTAGONISM
You were giving them money.

PAUL
(changing subjects)
I'm not in school now. With my job at
the book store I scrape by. It's easier
with no...


ANTAGONISM
(cutting him off)
Friends?


PAUL
(Continuing)
...one to support.

A sickly man in a wheelchair enters being pushed by a
slovenly looking man. These are Motivation and Sloth.


MOTIVATION
Why do we keep coming here?


ANTAGONISM
(Greeting)
Sloth.


SLOTH
'morning, Antagonism.


PAUL
I don't have much to do. I watch a lot
of TV. After about a month at the
bookstore, I got tired of seeing books.
I never seemed to have that problem at
the video store.


ANTAGONISM
More of his life sacrificed there than
I'd like to admit.


SLOTH
(reaction to Paul's wasted
life)
It was great.


PAUL
I don't remember when my life ended. It
was between high school and the end of
college. While I'm uncertain of the
date, I'm sure that the event took place.


MOTIVATION
(to Sloth)
Can we go outside today?


SLOTH
Later

Sloth sits facing the offstage TV, over using a TV remote.

ANTAGONISM EXITS


PAUL
I never liked people; which, I would
imagine, is why I know none now. I
always thought that they were pathetic;
that if was like them I would be
pathetic, too. I don't know about them,
but I know what I am. Yesterday, I
considered putting a TV in the bathroom.
It wasn't a fully articulated thought;
the thought was not fully aware of the
implications of what the thought was
saying. The thought was quickly squashed
by the deep personal Shame who rules my
life.

Well dressed, SHAME enters with ANTAGONISM who now has a
volleyball with which to taunt MOTIVATION.


SHAME
(refined)
Good--
(holds to look at his pocket
watch)
--afternoon, Paul. How are you feeling
today?


PAUL
It's horrible that Shame is the most
refined aspect of my being.


ANTAGONISM
(taunting MOTIVATION)
Want to go outside today? Come on out!
We could play a little ball. Run around.
Exercise. It'd be good for us. We could
do something with the day.

MOTIVATION tries to grab the ball, but quickly requires
oxygen from his respirator.


PAUL
(finally addressing the other
characters)
Hey! Leave him alone.


SLOTH
(trying to concentrate on the
TV)
Could you keep it down?


SHAME
Antagonism, let him be. It isn't HIS
fault we never do anything. His
dilapidated condition is totally a
product of our environment.


ANTAGONISM glares at SHAME.


PAUL
(defensively)
I did what came my way. I did what was
right. I didn't rock the boat.
(dropping his head)
I didn't do anything with my life.


SLOTH
(the great procrastinator)
So? You're only twenty-eight. You've
got time yet.

MOTIVATION is trying to rise, or least show assent; but must
quickly go back to his oxygen.


SHAME
(mocking)
There is always time. You could be
anything. You could do anything. You
could have gone downstairs and had
breakfast with your parents if you had
awoke.


SLOTH
What'd they have?


MOTIVATION
(in a whimper)
Move out.


ANTAGONISM
(sarcastic)
Ya, just quit that job and take to the
road. Come on, you can do it.


PAUL
Well, the job part is covered.


SHAME
You quit?


PAUL
No, my register came up about two hundred
short.


SHAME
You stole.


PAUL
No! It was Harry, but they fired me
instead.


SHAME
(with a shudder of amazement)
You took the fall for an almost slight
quasi-friend of yours?


PAUL
No, I tried like hell to prove he did it.


ANTAGONISM
But now you're out on your ass.


SHAME
Have you told your mother?


PAUL
Eat me!


ANTAGONISM
(in unison with PAUL)
Eat me!


PAUL casts a light glare at ANTAGONISM who looks away
innocently


SHAME
What are you going to do? Don't even
think to say that this now daily
affirmation of what a pathetic slug you
are is the first step in a new direction.
Not until you breathe a little life into
to old man Motivation there

SHAME points to MOTIVATION who becomes rattled from the
attention and goes for the oxygen


PAUL
I just need a little push

ANTAGONISM releases the brake on MOTIVATION's wheelchair and
sends him gently rolling.


SHAME
College wasn't enough? As I recall, your
parents paid for all six years and you
still moved back in with them. All that
money was spent so you would leave.


PAUL
What should I do?


SHAME
First, you need to invigorate your
Motivation; I recommend amphetamines
(Pointing to Sloth)
Then you must kill that thing there


PAUL
That is pretty sick.


SHAME
And if you do it, I will hold it against
you for the rest of your life


PAUL
Not to mention slightly impossible since
they aren't particularly real.


SHAME
Well, all you need is Dependence to slip
your Motivation a little speed, and he'll
be out of that chair. Then I can call my
cousin, Self-loathing, to help you get
rid of Sloth.


PAUL
What will this do to my life?


SHAME
(not really answering the
question)
For a stronger sense of dependence, you
need to shift your immediate focus from
living the rest of your life with your
parents to an unhealthy obsession with
something or someone. Chemicals would
work, but too much, and you would lose
all self respect and would therefore have
no Shame--I'd disappear altogether, and I
can't have that. I recommend setting
unrealistically high standards for some
girl out of your league...


ANTAGONISM
(now paying attention)
That won't be hard.


SHAME
...who you have never met; preferably a
model or actress. With a little work,
you could turn an unhealthy obsession
into something truly sociopathic, like a
stalker--(dreamily) perhaps even
developing memories of a relationship the
two of you never had.


PAUL
This is a good thing?


SHAME
Sloth will be dealt with after you fail
to get the girl: A then vibrant
Motivation will surely blame Sloth for
his failure with said woman.
If he doesn't, Self-loathing can persuade
him to blame Sloth. He will then murder
Sloth.


PAUL
How will Self-loathing be strong enough
to convince Motivation?


SHAME
Lets see you spend fourteen months
ruining the life of some celebrity with
your constant attempts to "win her," only
to later fail and possibly serve some
jail time as a result, and not get maybe
just a little down on yourself.

FADE OUT



NEWS VOICES
(FADE into each other then FADE
OUT)
...has apparently been getting
threatening letters from... ...was
arrested finally when he tried to slip a
dead kitten into her... ...mentally
incompetent... ...who lived with his
parents...

SLOTH screams off stage, then runs through the aisle pursued
by a growling MOTIVATION. Both disappear backstage followed
by a bone tearing NOISE.

FADE IN

PAUL is lying in bubble bath in a nice apartment. A now
energetic and wild eyed MOTIVATION, a suave ARROGANCE, and
unchanged ANTAGONISM discus Paul's future.


ANTAGONISM
I can't believe they asked a creep like
you to star in your own story.


ARROGANCE
And he's worth every penny. We're a
celebrity now.


MOTIVATION
Ya, were rolling, but what do we do now.
Sloth is dead, but his brother
Complacence could be upon us anytime. Or
worse Uncle Lethargy.


ARROGANCE
We beat Sloth. Shame vanished. We
repelled his twin, Guilt.


ANTAGONISM
Who would've imagined you had such a
little conscience?


ARROGANCE
We can do anything.


ANTAGONISM
(to PAUL)
Bubble boy?


PAUL (to audience) I have no further goals. I'm a
celebrity. I am, as you see, no longer
in my parents house. I sold the rights
to my celebrity stalking story, which
I'll now appear in the movie version. I
went on Richard Bey and said my psychosis
was a result of bad parenting. I don't
think my father ever burned his father on
national television. I received slews of
tear jerking sympathy letters from flakes
about my talk show crap. I said that my
parents had made me what I was; my
feelings and beliefs. But I proved to
myself that I could escape that. I could
become my own creation.


ANTAGONISM
Who cares?


BLACKOUT

©1998 Brian Cleary

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