Bubble’s Theatre of The Absurd (Fiction, May 2004)

Bubbles sits in her room. There is a bed and a bookshelf with several books. There are two posters on the wall, the first has one word written across it, "Rhinoceros" and the second, "Endgame."

Bubbles sits on the floor staring off into space. A mouse streaks across, suddenly stopping at Bubbles feet.

Bubbles: We wait little mouse; don’t you think--we think and we wait.

The mouse stands on its hind legs, and wiggles his nose.

Bubbles: Yes, you sense it too. Man’s desperation. His alienation. His pointless pursuit--and of what?

The mouse returns to all fours and seems ready to scurry on.

Bubbles: Yes little one. It is the way. “Tis absurd, our little lives. You and I know. We are living it. Desperately, but we are living it. (Bubbles laughs sardonically.)

The mouse becomes frightened and starts to run.

Bubbles: Yes, that is how it is. We are frightened by the truth. And not only the truth, but our resignation to that truth. Run my little friend and try to hide. It is futile, but run, fight on, it is our only purpose.

The mouse scurries away behind the bookcase and is seen no more. Bubbles rises from the floor and goes over to the bookcase, where she begins to read the author’s of these books.

Bubbles:  Ah, Beckett, Ionesco, Genet, Arnaud, Camus, Sartre,  you understand my plight. You knew that life was futile, pointless, absurd.

Bubbles walks over to her bed and flings herself down, face down, legs sprawled, arms dangling at her sides. She says but three words,

Bubbles: I AM DEAD."

Bubbles lays still for a few minutes and doesn’t speak--breathing easily. Suddenly she hears a small squeak, and thinking it to be the mouse, she looks up and over at the bookcase. It is indeed the mouse, but the squeak is not the mouse but the sound of a small bicycle that the mouse is riding.  He rides to the middle of the floor and Bubbles blinks her eyes, and peering closer notices that it is not a bicycle, but a unicycle that the mouse is riding.

Bubbles: Ah little one. You had me for a moment. I thought that you were riding a bicycle--which would have been completely absurd. A typical reaction to an absurd world-- a contradiction. The unicycle, however, is a contradiction, and is thus in accordance with our premise--that life is absurd.

Mouse: You think its not absurd that I ride a unicycle? Maybe so. I find it not absurd that you sit here conversing with a mouse.

Bubbles: Conversing with a mouse, not conversing with a mouse--it makes no difference, can't you see? It's enough that I'm here, in this place, of this time.

Mouse: That's it, I am not here, I'm a former mouse--I am a once-upon-a-time rodent--a  mouse that ---

Bubbles: (interrupting)Don't be upset poor mouse, there is no denying your existence--You are unique--you are absurd, your unicycle is absurd, there I've said it, now lets be friends.

Mouse: (Climbs on his unicycle and rides off to the right, and shouts) : No time, no time for empty platitudes, there's work to be done!

Bubbles (to herself) : A very strange mouse indeed--he didn't even say goodbye. What kind of civilized being doesn't say at least a simple "adieu." Such manners.

Bubbles: (Picking up a paperback copy of Dostoyevsky's "House of the Dead") Tomorrow I shall die. Tomorrow I shall be a former woman. I shall be a once-upon-a-time girl--tomorrow.

(Bubbles lies on the bed, still, breathing slowing--practicing for tomorrow.)

Bubbles: I AM DEAD.

(She turns her head sideways, closes her eyes and with arms limp, allows the book to fall to the floor.)

The Curtain Closes