A tiny Chicago apartment

A tiny Chicago apartment. Very tiny. College dorm, perhaps, or a studio apartment, but meant for two. Center stage, the “dining room”, a tiny cluttered table with two plastic chairs. On the table, among the clutter, is a small Tupperware bowl with a fish inside. A real fish would be nice, goldfish preferably, nothing fancy. If not, a substitute – maybe a Swedish Fish would be amusing. DL, a doorway leading to a room with two beds, and UL, a door leading out. DR, a kitchen or the suggestion thereof (cabinets, etc, maybe a fridge, sink). Upstage of the table, a rather broken and small couch, with a TV in front, a desk or two with chairs off to the side. At least one desk should have a computer. A window somewhere in this room, or something representing a window, maybe just a pane of light on the floor. Everything rather messy, the home of young people.

On the couch sits Layla, early 20’s, with a laptop computer in her lap. Typing, surfing the Internet, what have you. Music coming from the laptop. She’s somehow a bit imposing while also being obviously harmless and somewhat childlike. The door UL opens, and GIRL enters, also early 20’s, smaller in frame, pretty but not striking, worn out. She has the air of the defeated, a repressed poet lurking somewhere inside struggling to breathe.

GIRL walks into the “dining room”, sets down keys and bag (backpack, briefcase, large purse, etc), takes of jacket and throws it on a chair. As she puts her key on the table, she notices the Tupperware bowl. Examines it.

GIRL: Is…is that a…fish?

(silence)

GIRL: Layla?

LAYLA: (turns off music) Yeah?

GIRL: Why is there a fish on the table?

LAYLA: (casually) They were handing them out.

GIRL: What? Where?

LAYLA: Outside.

GIRL: Just in the bowl, like that?

LAYLA: They gave me food for it, too. In a Ziploc.

GIRL: You know that these things die really easily, right? You should really get it a tank, with a filter and shit. To clean the water.

LAYLA: Yeah. Mary and I were gonna go to a pet store tomorrow.

GIRL: Uh, okay (beat) He doesn’t move much, huh?

LAYLA: He’s not dead, is he?

GIRL: I don’t think so, he’s not floating belly-up on the top. Oh…wait, I think he moved a little.

LAYLA: He was swimming all over the place earlier. Probably just freaked out, or something.

GIRL enters the living room. Sets at a desk.

LAYLA: I’m naming him Mr. Giggles.

GIRL: (turning around to face LAYLA) …Are you serious?

LAYLA: Yeah, what’s wrong with that?

GIRL: Uh…

LAYLA: It’s my fish, I can name it what I want.

GIRL: Okay. Whatever. (muttering) Poor thing.

LAYLA turns the music back on, they sit at their respective computers. Lights down, passage of time. GIRL exits, re-enters through same door as the first time but this time Layla is not home. Puts down bag, coat, etc. Looks at fish.

GIRL: I can’t believe you’re still alive. She didn’t even go buy a tank…poor thing. Animals don’t belong in Tupperware.

She sits, examines the fishbowl.

GIRL: I had two fish, last year. My roommate and I went up to Evanston and got a couple. One of them lived for about two weeks, but the other one, he was tough. He lasted all semester. And then I took him home with me over Christmas, and left him with my parents in Indiana. Turns out my dad’s a fish lover, so he bought aquariums and more fish and live coral and all that shit. Now it’s like his hobby…I guess I created a monster, huh?

She taps the fishbowl, lightly. The fish does not move.

GIRL: I wonder where you came from. Well, a pet store, obviously, but…I dunno, where do goldfish come from? Lakes, rivers, oceans? (a pause, thinking) Not a Tupperware bowl, anyway.

She stands.

GIRL: Sometimes I think I know how you feel. Swimming around in that tiny bowl, in the murky water. I mean, just look at this place…

She gazes around the apartment.

GIRL: I’d like to get out too, you know? I mean, God, this city is so big, but sometimes I just feel so…trapped. It’s like it’s just a bigger cage. Would you feel better in a bigger tank? Or would you still long for the ocean? (pause) What am I talking about, you don’t long for anything, you’re a fish. You forget everything every two seconds. (pause) Maybe that would be nice. To get to start over that often, just erase everything.

She sits back down.

GIRL: And it might be nice to live in the water, too. Sometimes I sit and I stare at Lake Michigan and I just feel so much more…alive. More real, maybe. And small, but in a good way. Like a little tiny goldfish among all that water. When you’re that small you have to believe that there’s something out there that’s bigger than all your bullshit, bigger than your life. You know?

She stares at the fish, intently.

GIRL: Look at me, sitting here pouring my heart out to a fish. This is so pathetic.

She looks around the table.

GIRL: I’d feed you, you know, but I don’t know if Layla did already and I don’t want to overfeed you or anything.

She gets up, moves to the couch. There is a notebook there, a pen in the spirals. She opens it and begins to write, sprawled out on the couch. Lights down again, more time passes. GIRL remains on the couch, sans-notebook now, with a boy, MARK, also early 20’s, sitting on the other end. His appearance isn’t really important - an average young man, an actor but not the arrogant Tom Cruise type – more of an artist. His bag sits next to the couch. They’re talking, perhaps with the TV on for background noise.

GIRL: And she was just so…nonchalant about it, you know? I mean, I know it’s just a fish, but it’s still…like a living thing, that’s in the apartment now. I just feel like it gives the place a whole different dynamic. It weirds me out.

MARK: Well, it’ll probably die soon anyway, those things don’t live very long.

GIRL: I think I’m even more afraid of that.

MARK: How come?

GIRL: Because then there would be a dead thing in the apartment.

He smiles. Change of topic.

MARK: You weren’t in class yesterday.

GIRL: Yeah, I guess I slept through my alarm. I’ve been doing that a lot lately…it’s just hard to wake up sometimes, you know?

This may be a small bid for help, or attention, or further questioning at least. If so, he misses it.

MARK: Yeah, I know what you mean, I’m tired too.

GIRL: …Yeah.

MARK: How’d your audition go?

GIRL: Oh, you know. The usual. No callbacks - nothing.

MARK: Oh. Sorry.

GIRL: Yeah, whatever. I mean – I’m used to it, I guess.

MARK: Yeah.

An awkward beat.

GIRL: How’s the play going?

MARK: Good. Fine. Stressful. But good. I think it’s gonna turn out really well. You’re gonna come see it, right?

GIRL: Yeah, of course.

MARK: Cool.

GIRL: It’s about…?

MARK: You know, it’s kinda political, actually. The playwright’s talking about like…nonconformity, oppression, sexual deviancy, that kind of thing. But it’s really weird…like out there.

GIRL: (slightly teasing) So right up your alley, then?

He pretends to be offended, feigns punching her.

GIRL: (still teasing) You know you’d never hit me.

MARK: No. But only because it’s you.

He’s smiling. Eyes meet – a moment. It passes quickly.

MARK: What time is it?

GIRL: Uh…

She takes a cell phone out of her pocket, checks the time.

GIRL: Two-thirty three.

MARK: I should go, I have to meet my girlfriend.

GIRL: (quick smile) Right.

MARK: I’ll see you later?

GIRL: Yeah.

Possibly they hug, or maybe not. He grabs his bag, exits through the front door, but not before turning to smile at her for a second or two. GIRL watches him leave – and then she’s alone again. She walks to her desk, grabs an MP3 player (or a walkman would do) and puts the earphones in (or on) her ears, goes into the bedroom, sprawls out on a bed. After a minute, falls asleep. Lights down again, and back up on the same scene. GIRL wakes up, perches on edge of bed for a minute. She gets up, goes to the kitchen. Looking around for food, finding none, she sits at the dining table and looks at the fish again.

GIRL: I can’t believe you’re still alive. You poor thing. Just swimming around that tiny space all day, doing nothing. Your life is so pointless. Nothing happens, nothing changes. You even have a ridiculous name, poor thing. (a beat) Someone should put you out of your misery.

She stands up, goes to the kitchen again. Gets a small knife from a drawer and goes back to dining room, where she stands poised over the Tupperware fishbowl, holding the knife.

GIRL: I should just put you out of your misery, poor dumb animal. What use are you? What good is your life? I mean, really, just swimming around that bowl all day, barely eating, barely even moving – what are you for? Jesus, you don’t even know what you’re for, you can’t even hear or think, all you can do is swim. What good is that, dammit?

She’s a bit more worked up now than is necessary. She continues to hold the knife, irrationally angry, until she slowly places it down upon the table next to the fishbowl.

GIRL: No. I guess living is your choice. You’ve survived this long in that stupid little bowl, so who am I to stop you?

She looks around the room.

GIRL: Layla hasn’t been back yet, huh?

Silence.

GIRL: She’s gone a lot, huh? (a little sardonic laugh) She told me the other day that I’m here too much. That I never go anywhere. But where am I gonna go? Just swim to the other side of my fishbowl?

She goes into the room with the couch, stares out the window.

GIRL: It’s not that I don’t like the outside. I do. I like seeing people, I even like the city. It’s so beautiful sometimes, somehow…somewhere among all the dirt and grime and the noise and the homeless people asking for change and the smell of cigarettes everywhere it manages to still be really…really pretty. I just…I don’t see the point, wandering around for no reason. Leaving for nothing.

She turns to the fishbowl.

GIRL: You understand that, don’t you? That’s why you don’t move around a lot. You don’t need to.

She walks back to the “dining room”, sits in a chair.

GIRL: We’re a lot alike. You’re stuck in that bowl and I’m just…stuck. (beat) You ever feel like inside your head you’re screaming and screaming for someone to let you out but no one’s there, or maybe they’re there but they can’t hear you? (beat) Well, of course no one can hear you, you’re a fish. You can’t talk.

She notices the knife again, sitting on the table.

GIRL: (mutters) Someone should put me out of my misery.

She holds the knife up, examines it, turns it in the light. She stands, walks with the knife back to the other room, stands between the couch and the window, staring out. She holds the knife in front of her, arms out, pointed at her chest, poised for a dramatic monologue.

GIRL: Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury

Signifying nothing.

She contemplates the knife again, and whether or not to move her arms. She can’t do it. After a moment, she turns to the fish instead.

GIRL: That’s from Macbeth, you know. (beat) No, of course you don’t.

She walks back toward it, stares at the bowl again.

GIRL: Maybe you have the right idea. Or…you don’t have ideas at all, right? You just swim. Because you have to – because there’s nothing else. Maybe you should stop, maybe you should just end your pointless, miserable life, but…you just don’t. Whatever happens, you just have to keep swimming.

She sits in the chair, thinks about this. Looks at the fish again. She stands up, grabs her key and bag, moves towards the front door. She turns.

GIRL: Later, Mr. Giggles.

She exits. Lights down.

FIN.