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.

Comments

  1. This is the best thing you've ever written.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Really, though, could we get some more salacious details? Some of us don't have excitingly amoral friends.

    ReplyDelete

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