Diane of Mother's Will

There are three chairs set equally apart on the stage, minimalistic. There is a woman of grand stature and poise sitting in the middle, while on either side sit two unassuming subjects, male and female, who quietly fidget in their seats with their eyes trained on the floor.

REGINA

I am an endangered species from a southern region that you don't really care about, do you? I've been demeaned, forced from my home to stagger through the mud, dripping, and yet... I still love you. You, and you. I can try anything once, get pushed down onto my back and still, I still hold myself to a higher standard because that is what I am. And you are just children.

GIRL

I am just a child. I contain boundless energy and hope for the future and I am taken care of by you. You, yes you. I am immature in my own right, but I am also courageous and loyal but that doesn't make me your pet. I am not your pet.

BOY

We are not your pawns. As a cohesive unit, we live and move and learn and die. But as a human being, homosapien, ignorant fool, beautiful idiot, are we all but one? A unit, but doesn't that require composition? Can't we all find something to pull us together without indoctrinating a faith that we will always be here? Where are we? Is this microphone live?

REGINA

Am I alive? No. I never was. Alive and Dead require some prerequisite that I don't bother to explain because learning is done by others. Learning is not my job.

GIRL

Learning is my job, it is all I do every second of every day. I see your hand in mine and I take from it that we are one. Maybe we aren't. But that is just an issue with perspective. An issue that I haven't learned how to approach yet. Isn't that an idea? Everything I do is done by me, and how does one wrap their mind around such an ideology? It is like none of us have ever been truly the same!

BOY

It's not like none of us have ever been the same. You can relate to every person on the planet on some indistinct level. We have all inhaled, we will all exhale. But does that make those who never have the chance to breathe, less than ourselves? I never want to breathe again.

REGINA

I will never breathe. I will never know exactly how those I meet feel things, like love, because it is an experience that no one can live exactly the same. No one can have the exact same past and present and future. Look, how many of you could possibly have had a yellow bedspread as a child, orange at the present time and bright red, bursting into flames while your candle flickers. But what if your red were to intewine with someone's deep blue, like exotic reptiles or that painting you thought you loved as a child before you could even comprehend what that word could mean to you now. You all know what's coming. I need you to love him.

GIRL

I need to love him. Maybe I already do, but the uncertainty is what kills me. It leaves me damp but not nearly as soaked as I should be after climbing out of the ocean, fully clothed. I'm running across the sand, but it's rocky. I'm on the North Shore and I need to head west but I can't. Not because of what it holds, but from what is left. From what I'm leaving. I want to soak up the rays reflected by the sand but I'm cold and it's winter and the sun doesn't care about anyone but the stupid sun. I didn't think growing up would be this hard. I never knew so much could change for the worse.

BOY

I never knew so much could change.