A terse play in five immoral acts.

I consider myself to be a moral man.  I conduct my life with a rigid sense of right and wrong, I try to be consistent in my application of principle to both people I like and ones I despise, and I always try to "do unto others" in a way that would engender honorable... er... "being done unto".  I scrupulously analyze decisions to avoid the sense of talking from both sides of my mouth -- very careful I am to be fair.

What that means is that when people attack principles I posses, I tend to take the criticism to heart.  For at least the short term, I act with an editor working through my thoughts.  Do the accusers have any merit?  Am I blinding myself to seeing what they're seeing?  Likewise, I'm slow to bring the full brunt of my criticism to bear unless I have a very good reason.

Being told I'm immoral by someone I consider immoral is one of those good reasons.

Allow me to introduce the cast:

SABINE -  She's at all the same parties, she's there every day at school, she's there often at lunch.  Sabine is over-eager to see everyone smiling.  She's slightly fussy, which often betrays that the smiling is quite near the surface -- her pool of calm is easy to cast stones into.  She's engaged to a fellow who's completely non-essential to the story, so he doesn't get a name: he's just Sabine's fiance, who is long-distance.  They've been dating for years and have become engaged in the last four or five months.  A wedding is planned.

ROCKY - A quintessential Midwesterner.  No hot day gets more than a line or two of scorn; no good steak gets more than a few words of praise.  He has a languid nature: those who admire it think him deep, and those who dislike him think him simple.  Rocky is married to a woman who also doesn't really figure in to the story much.  Rocky's wife is just a piece of window dressing -- if the window dressing were hard, unsociable, and not given to displays of love or affection.  So, like a wall sconce.  Or a serving trivet.

ME: I'm just this guy, you know?

*** *** ***

The Most Romantical Fripperies of Love Unmasked
by Andrew Schwartz

ACT I - Wherein the true lovers bemoan their fates

SABINE: Ay, me!  Though I think I am happy, I am not.  Yet I am dutiful and soldier on.

ROCKY: Woe!  My wife understandeth me not, and junk.  Who could have thought my taciturn disposition would see me married to someone whom I do not understand?  It's a good thing she's a better person than I am.


ACT II - Wherein the lovers find a quantum of sympathy

ROCKY: Hi, we have similar interests and are usually thrown in together, where we have a good time being apart from our significant others who never have the opportunity to join us.  I am devoted to my wife though, because she's a better person than I am.  I am filled with base, undesirable, and totally hot desires which I know are very wrong.

SABINE: I agree, though the burgeoning specter of infidelity is anathema to my religious upbringing.  Also, I'm totally not supposed to have sex before marriage, either.  Although... 


ACT III - Wherein the lovers set a tumultuous heading

Rocky and Sabine's hands meet by accident.

SABINE: But if we...?

ROCKY:  Zounds, if...?

They proceed to have carnal relations while her finance lives in a different city and his wife is on a business trip.


ACT IV -  Wherein the lovers mask their shame as best as their shattered psyches permit

ROCKY:  A righteous sexing.  I won't divorce my wife, but I will force her hand to divorce me by confessing adultery and then doing nothing. That way I can spare her the pain.  She's still a better person than I am.

SABINE: Sex is divinely awesome.  God obviously intended everything to turn out this way, even the part where I disobeyed a few commandments, so I won't worry my head. But alas! my fiance found out and called off the wedding.  I am so distraught and am going through a super difficult time right now!  Although...


ACT V - Wherein the lovers are now conjoined in matrimony

ROCKY: I'm keeping my head low.  My new and old wives are better persons than I am.

SABINE: Hey Andy, your opinions on the basic humanity of homosexuals are immoral.  My unborn child will be raised to hate a specific branch of humanity, as God intended.  Also, I have a weird religious-level hatred of Nancy Pelosi, whom I once compared to the bride of the anti-Christ.  I also said she was the "fakest person who ever faked", but even I confess I don't know what I meant by that.


ME: I don't think that word "immoral" means what you think it means.


FINE


Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental and not the intent of the author.